is an accomplished and innovative man. More importantly like most brilliant men, he's also extremely confident. That leads to the notion that his way is the right way and that he can get anyone to succeed in his system. That means he's gonna go a long way before he gives in to the idea and is forced to make changes in how he wants to play the game.

Some here and around the web have blamed MDA for the 1-9 start and have suggested he should've made his current changes sooner or that he was not such a good coach after all. 1st of all MDA knew that he was going to experiment with the rotations and lineups to start the season and that was mostly out of necessity. How else can you figure out if you're kids can play and if you can slide them into the rotation and still win? IMO there were various reasons for the 1-9 start.

1. Having Duhon, Al, Nate, Chandler & Huges start the season shooting so poorly was the biggest issue.
2. We really did have a bit of a problem with defensive chemistry cuz MDA didn't have a group of guys who could shoot worth a darn and that led him to play more guys in different lineups. That also means you can't develop defensive chemistry.
3. The last thing is that YEAH MDA had to adjust his system to fit the guys he is playing, but that came after he decided to go with the vets more. How could he really adjust anything when things were so crazy and no one was playing well? His only true PG, Duhon was a mental mess and he hadn't built full trust in Hughes yet.

IMO MDA has already proven his pedigree before he got here and it's silly to think he somehow was overrated just cuz our messed up team wasn't playing his system right. Now I have always held that this team has underachieved, but I felt that MDA would eventually figure out what this team needed to win. Now all of this is made even stranger by the fact that most of these guys won't even be here next year. It won't matter cuz we have our coach! We know he can coach talent. The better the players the better he'll be, cuz he won't have to cut things from his playbook.

It was awhile ago but do you remember the lack of effort, passion and professionalism this team came out with. Opening night, the home opener, games where a coach should have his team fired up to play? Maybe MDA finally has learned that being so rigid with his system is not going to work without Steve Nash running things. I am not convinced that he is enlightened to the point that he is coaching both ends of the floor. He is playing some good individual defenders and that has helped. Slowing things down has helped also.

Well, even Larry Brown had a winning streak when he was here. That said, I think D'Antoni may be more in command of things than some of us have given him credit for. I thought it would be okay to sign Iverson since the team didn't seem to be going anywhere, but now I think I was (gulp) wr... wr... It's a word that starts with a "wr" sound. I think I was wrong about that in retrospect, and that even seems to have been a turning point. So yeah, I'd say D'Antoni deserves some conditional kudos at this point.

That's to ignore that Alvin Gentry is running pretty much an identical system to MDA, and he has admitted so himself, and this includes all of the same key pieces that played under MDA. Factor in the maturity and leadership of Nash, and it's basically an MDA clone down there. What exactly do you think Gentry's system is based on if not for MDA?

10 games isn't very rigid, I don 't think, but that's up to each person to decide. I think it was not too long of a period, given the roster, 2010 plan, etc.,. And we forget that Nash, while very good, was not an MVP caliber pg before he came to Phoenix. So it's a little bit of both guys working well together. Nash isn't THE reason it was successful. I do think you need a much better point guard than Duhon. But there is a lot that goes into coaching, so we really can't take anything away from MDA.