CrushAlot wrote:orangeblobman wrote:More like, Coach Mike D'Antoni, best coach in the league.
Without Amare there wouldn't be a coach D'Antoni. D'Antoni knows how to do one thing well, let his best player run things in and out of the locker room. He sucks butt without a top 5 player and there are only 4-5 franchises that have that guy. D'Antoni has won at an incredibly high rate when he had 3-4 all stars and at least 2 hof players on his team including the mvp. When he did not have that he lost at an incredibly high rate. He is in his 9th year. He has four years of tremendous success and 4 years of epic failure. His tenure in NY has shown him to be rigid, a poor communicator, a poor game planner, a bad end of game coach, a coach not willing to work with players that need to be taught aspects of the game, a coach that can't work with any player that lacks maturity despite having talent. I love this team, its heart, character and work ethic. However, a lot would have to change for you to convince me that it was because of D'Antoni and not because of Amare, Turiaf and Felton's leadership.
It always starts with the talent. Every good coach needs good talent. Still Mike is the one that has given the players the specific roles they have. He has to adjust the system just enough for these guys to shine and they have picked it up very well since the beginning of the season. We don't have 3-4 All Stars and this is one of the youngest teams in the league. To assume that Mike has little to no effect on how these guys play is STUPID!!! Yeah I said it!!! All of Mike's teams have great conditioning and stamina to run for 48 minutes and he teaches them to play well at that fast pace. Lots of other teams like the Bobcats and Hornets actually look to slow the pace down in order to cut down on mistakes but our team thrives playing fast. That's no accident that all of Mike's teams can do that.
This system has been proven to be one that can produce great results when the players in the system execute it properly. The work that goes into getting the players to do that is what the coach is there for. When the players have poor spacing and aren't moving the ball and themselves, or running the sets properly, it's Mike who has to get them refocused. We don't have the best offensive talent in the league but we have one of the best offenses in the league! You don't just roll the ball out and that just happens.
Even before Amar'e the roles that Mike sets up in his system remain the same. Lee was in the Amar'e spot and benefitted from that role. The same spacing and PnR plays. Don't try to ignore the fact that Amar'e thrives in this system and it actually helps him to get off. Back when Felton and Amar'e didn't have their timing down, nor spacing and when the rest of the team also hadn't gotten the spacing and ball movement down. it was easier to stop Amar'e. Mike worked with them to fix that and now the spacing all the way around is much better and Amar'e has tons of room to operate and dominate. Once again,You don't just roll the ball out and that just happens.
