martin wrote:nykshaknbake wrote:Ahh the glory days of MDA....it was defeintly his best time though he underachieved with not 1 not 2 but 3 all star talents. Maybe if he had a 4th he would have gotten to the finals. He was a TIm Duncan away from the finals! Just like as you say if only we had Dwight Howard we would be great. No other teams are on the bubble and could make that claim right? It's ok nixluva MDA has anotrher excuse for this or the next season. He ran Stat's back into the ground playing huge minutes and guarding centers. So next season it'll be like it's not fair to judge MDA if Stat is out. Your boy is safe relax. Guys like this can write all they want and give Ds. There is no meaningful D when it comes to D'ANtoni.
It's laughable to suggest that great coaches like Pop stole from MDA. I don't think MDA invented floor spacing. But he did invent shooting an inoordinate amount of 3s at all costs which the Spurs clearly do not and never did.
nixluva wrote:MDA deserves more respect than this. To give him a D as a coach shows way too much bias for me. He calls him Antoni as many people do and yet when Mike was winning he never had a poor defensive team and he was beating the BEST teams in the league out West. The 2 years he got to the WCF's his team was no less than top 4 in the league. You get to the Conference finals and that means your team was better than all but 1 team in your Conference. How can you be a bad coach in that case. If he was bad what did that make all the coaches he beat? So I guess it was all the roster and he had no part in why his teams won. It was only his system and style of play that his teams implemented. He actually had a very impactful effect on other teams since there are so few C's in the league now, his style has been adopted by other coaches. Even Popovich used his offensive scheme as he saw his team declining. It worked too in that it boosted the teams effectiveness and made them better than they probably should've been. People assume that his teams won cuz of the talent and fail to realize that he got his teams further than they should've based on such a lack of size. Even if you have a big it can be successful to create room for your bigman to operate as the Magic have seen. Coach K at Duke uses his principles as well as the Olympic team. People can hate all they want, but very few coaches have been able to have such an impact on the game in recent years. Think about it. This guy hasn't been coaching stacked teams like Phil Jax. Yet he was able to have more teams using his system than any other in recent years.
Lastly when this team is kicking teams teeth in and winning games what will Rosen have to say then? My guess is nothing like he did when Mike took one of the smallest teams ever into the WCF. When STAT was out and he had KT and Diaw as his centers. Gee how the hell did he get his team to the WCF's with no C out in the tough Western Conf.? He didn't just sneak in or win against weak teams in the Eastern conference. I'm still waiting for some naysayer to explain that one to me!!!!
I know that Nix is sometimes overly optimistic but I find you response a bit pathetic.
There aren't too many finals coaches and finals winners that don't have 3 or more current or former all-stars. Rivers was an awful coach who was repeatedly fired until he could get a lineup of 3 HOFs and an all-star, right? Pop leans on one of the best 2-way players ever and Tony Parker and Manu. Jackson's 3peats come on the back of 2 HOFs complimented with 1-2 low-level other all stars on the team.
If you think Nash, Amare and Marion compare to any of the other 3 allstar list you are clearly mistaken.
Also, please let me know your list of the defensive bigs that MDA has not played over his roster years, especially with PHO when he was going up against Spurs and LAL. I constantly come up empty.
Also, regarding Amare's minutes last year: you would have rested him and gone with Turiaf more? Or AR/Moz who were caca for the duration? And if you did go with AR/Moz, were you willing to concede the playoffs, cause that's probably the price.
Lastly, you talk about shooting an inordinate amount of 3s. PHO and NY have been some of the most offensively efficient teams with MDA running the show, so something much be going correctly, no? So why would speak in bad terms regarding the 3s?
Well pathetic is what our overall record has been. Since trends and changes don't count in your book, that's all that one can discuss with you. As far as conceding the playoffs, I would concede that to not have a stat whose back may not be ready for the next season just so we have the privledge of being swept in the playoffs by a crippled Celtics team that was below 0.500 for it's last few dozen games(sorry I know trends don't matter).
Nash is one of the all time greatest and a 2 time MVP. Marion was a great 2 way player and now is just a good one. Stat was weak defensively but his athletic skills made the game look like volleyball at times. Talent was ADBUNDANT.
My compliants with MDA on D:
1)lack of rotation on D
2)lack of emphasis(evidenced by in game and his own comments)
3)Lots of 3s hurt defensive efforts with long rebounds
My problem with 3s relate the the latter and the fact that once that was shut down by better defensive teams we don't really adapt well.
7/27/2011 12:28 PM