smackeddog wrote:I don't know what people are arguing about- do you honestly believe if JVG had been Amar'e coach all those years instead of D'Antoni, he wouldn't be a better defensive player?
We all know D'Antoni doesn't much care about defense- even Phil Weber said back in the Suns days he used to have to try to persuade him to pay some attention to defense, but D'Antoni use to insist it wasn't necessary because they were winning with offense.

Not necessarily true, JVG was a great defensive coach, however, Allan Houston never became a good defender, George Karl is very good defensive coach, yet Melo never played much defense in Denver, Tom Thibodeau is one of the premier defensive coaches in the NBA today, and for some reason Derrick Rose has never being a great defender either.
Shumpert and Chandler played good defense under MDA, for some players defense is personal, for others not so much.

KnicksFE wrote:

smackeddog wrote:I don't know what people are arguing about- do you honestly believe if JVG had been Amar'e coach all those years instead of D'Antoni, he wouldn't be a better defensive player?
We all know D'Antoni doesn't much care about defense- even Phil Weber said back in the Suns days he used to have to try to persuade him to pay some attention to defense, but D'Antoni use to insist it wasn't necessary because they were winning with offense.

Not necessarily true, JVG was a great defensive coach, however, Allan Houston never became a good defender, George Karl is very good defensive coach, yet Melo never played much defense in Denver, Tom Thibodeau is one of the premier defensive coaches in the NBA today, and for some reason Derrick Rose has never being a great defender either.
Shumpert and Chandler played good defense under MDA, for some players defense is personal, for others not so much.

You're right in that Allan Houston never became a good defender, but I think he became okay at defense- he definitely improved. Thats all I'm expecting from Amar'e to be honest- just become, at the very least a servicable defender, not someone who gets blown by at will. A lot of it is down to the players themselves, I'm not disputing that, but when that natural defensive ability and effort is lacking, a good defense minded coach can push guys to do stuff that they wouldn't otherwise bother doing.

NUPE wrote:Amar'e came to the NBA straight from high school and has played for Dantoni practically his whole career. Dantoni is a coach who admittedly believes spending 15 minutes discussing defense during warm-ups is sufficient defensive preparation. Jalen Rose is on record stating that the SUN's would go into playoff series without discussing defense whatsoever (under Dantoni). Why is Amar'e statement even a surprise knowing all this.

D'Antoni shouldn't need to teach Amare effort.

Bonn1997 wrote:

KnicksFE wrote:

Bonn1997 wrote:

NUPE wrote:Amar'e came to the NBA straight from high school and has played for Dantoni practically his whole career. Dantoni is a coach who admittedly believes spending 15 minutes discussing defense during warm-ups is sufficient defensive preparation. Jalen Rose is on record stating that the SUN's would go into playoff series without discussing defense whatsoever (under Dantoni). Why is Amar'e statement even a surprise knowing all this.

D'Antoni shouldn't need to teach Amare effort.

Is not surprising that MDA focus on offense mostly, we all know that, however, it is surprising that Amare wants to blame other coaches for his poor defense when he also could have hired personal trainers in the offseason to work on this part of his game.

Exactly. Even if it hypothetically were entirely MDA's fault, it's poor taste to publicly blame others for your short-comings.

Yes. I personally love the dirt kicked on MDA but the messenger is pulling a Dwight.

Bonn1997 wrote:

NUPE wrote:Amar'e came to the NBA straight from high school and has played for Dantoni practically his whole career. Dantoni is a coach who admittedly believes spending 15 minutes discussing defense during warm-ups is sufficient defensive preparation. Jalen Rose is on record stating that the SUN's would go into playoff series without discussing defense whatsoever (under Dantoni). Why is Amar'e statement even a surprise knowing all this.

D'Antoni shouldn't need to teach Amare effort.

You are confusing effort with knowledge of how to play defense in different circumstances. You confuse effort with having knowledge as to playing proper team defense. Get real.

MS wrote:Again, Jalen Rose on record. Another guy that played no defense his entire career. If you want to lock a man up you lock him up. Melo was sub par defender and then all of a sudden gave effort and it made a world of difference.

Melo gave effort from time to time in Denver; playing consistent defense was and still is his problem today.

Bonn1997 wrote:

NUPE wrote:Apparently coaches are not supposed to teach players how to best play solo and team defense. I learn new things create new straw men on UK every day!!!!!

Fixed

You see, I am more than happy to credit Dantoni with Amar'e great offensive stats in PHX. I will also credit Dantoni for the lack of defense that typically accompanies his teams and players. The guy does not coach defense, never has and thinks 15 minutes during a shoot around is all that is required. It does not help that Amar'e has essentially played his entire career for a coach that could care less about defense. That is just reality.

nixluva wrote:I repeat:

2002-03 camp was with Frank Johnson 
2003-04 camp was with Frank Johnson
2004-05 camp was with D'Antoni's with Marc Ivaroni defensive assistant
2005-06 Amar'e had his surgery and missed most of the season  
2006-07 camp was with MDA and Dan D'Antoni
2007-08 camp was with MDA and Dan
2008-09 camp was with Terry Porter
2009-10 camp was with Alvin Gentry
2010-11 camp was with MDA and Dan
2011-12 camp was with MDA and Woody
2012-13 camp was with Woody

There is no way in HELL that Amar'e was NEVER tought defense. Not even as a rookie? Never after coaches noticed him missing defensive assignments practice after practice and game after game? Not even after Terry Porter was brought in to FOCUS on defense? Not even after Gentry supposedly helped get him to focus on D and he was praised for it? Not even after MDA had fights with him about not defending, which led to them having to have a sitdown to smooth things out when he came to New York? Not even when Woody was brought in to help and was running the defensive drills in practice last year and surely went over things this year? How about those sessions with Hakeem which featured defensive training? B.S.

People just want to kick dirt on MDA and this is one of the ways they get to do it again. Steven A Smith was fully believing MDA was the reason on the radio today. It's just purely ridiculous to think all of those coaches and he never once had someone go over defense with him at all, despite him CLEARLY being awful at defense! If you and I can see how bad STAT has been on D, there's no way a coach wouldn't see it and also talk to him about it.

Also MDA's defense is pretty much exactly the same as Woody's at the base level. The only difference was the fact that Woody said he liked to trap more. Overall tho last year MDA stated clearly before camp that they would be using his defense and even when Woody took over the schemes were the same only the EFFORT level changed. It's ridiculous to think that MDA could win 62 games and have NO defensive scheme. That's impossible. If he really ignored D, those teams would've been at the bottom of the league on D and not middle of the league as they were. My contention is that if Amar'e was actually a good defensive anchor then those teams would've been much better defensively as they were last year under MDA with Tyson and Jared in there.

Amare is a damn Liar!