Swishfm3 wrote:I thought the Lakers fired Brown because they wanted to win a Championship?

I thought the knicks wanted to win one too.... go figure..

Knicksfan wrote:The NBA gets more interesting with this surprising hire. Mike D'Antoni is a West Coast coach and his style could make people remember the Showtime Lakers in their offensive glory. I do wonder how will L.A. handle the defensive issues that will probably set once they fully embrace the SSOL. As many said before, D'Antoni didn't exactly have a team of strong defensive players, but at the same time it can't be denied defense was never stressed the way we knew elite and championship contenders did.

I personally liked D'Antoni and his overall work here while overachieving with terrible lineups. His system made us win more games than we should've, but once we started getting closer to playoff contention, his style was a bad direction for New York. We now have exactly the type of team we wanted for a long time and are playing the type of gritty defense we have craved since the 90's. D'Antoni IS an intriguing fit on the Lakers and with the talent, its hard to see them become a bad defensive team, but it will be interesting to see D'Antoni perform in the playoffs.

Wow is right.

marion was a great defender under dantoni, sometimes it is really up to the player to just want to defend....

Knicksfan wrote:

tkf wrote:

Knicksfan wrote:The NBA gets more interesting with this surprising hire. Mike D'Antoni is a West Coast coach and his style could make people remember the Showtime Lakers in their offensive glory. I do wonder how will L.A. handle the defensive issues that will probably set once they fully embrace the SSOL. As many said before, D'Antoni didn't exactly have a team of strong defensive players, but at the same time it can't be denied defense was never stressed the way we knew elite and championship contenders did.

I personally liked D'Antoni and his overall work here while overachieving with terrible lineups. His system made us win more games than we should've, but once we started getting closer to playoff contention, his style was a bad direction for New York. We now have exactly the type of team we wanted for a long time and are playing the type of gritty defense we have craved since the 90's. D'Antoni IS an intriguing fit on the Lakers and with the talent, its hard to see them become a bad defensive team, but it will be interesting to see D'Antoni perform in the playoffs.

Wow is right.

kobe, dwight, artest, gasol, all defend, they don't need a coach to tell them to defend, to follow them around in the offseason making sure they are working on their games... these guys are pros, champions and they will do the right thing on defense...

marion was a great defender under dantoni, sometimes it is really up to the player to just want to defend....

True but we also know defense is about the personnel as much as the defensive plan. As I say this, Im sure D'Antoni will plan an adequate defense and the players will perform well under it, but I wonder if it will be enough in the playoffs. For the offensive genius D'Antoni is, he did leave a lot to be desired in defensive planning and timeout calling, two huge aspects of coaching in the postseason.

I still expect him to do very well in L.A., though its intriguing to see if he can take all this talent all the way to a championship. Just to kid around but a Lakers vs. Knicks Finals would have a lot of interesting angles after this move.

yea, that remains to be seen.. but the talent is there, and talent wins most of the time... But lets keep it real, for what they may lack in defense, they will can be a terror on offense... But for me, I want to wait and see, this whole thing can still be a mess, who knows, but It will sure be interesting...

how will pau gasol fit in the system?

D'AnToni's strength is installing a strong offensive base allowing players to figure out what to do within the system having unlimited freedom. He wants a short rotation of dependable guys. He doesn't want to spend time implementing defensive strategy because he feels the defensive side of the game is dictated from how the offense is ran. His teams defenses feed off of the offense. He doesn't want a bunch of young green players where he has to help develop their game.

He has exactly what he wants....

Nash
Kobe
Artest
Pau
Howard
grey Goose or Blake(he'll probably go Grey Goose) Morris may have a chance because he can hit the 3 ball.
Meeks
Hill
Jamison

The Lakers are going to shoot a lot more 3s. I actually think this was a good hire by the Lakers unlike us when Walsh hired D'AnToni which the absolute worse hire at the time. We were infusing lots of youth and had young players with not a lot of NBA experience. We were also fusing out our vets and had 2 yrs of gimmie to do so. Instead we were lolly gagging shucking and jiving the roster the whole time, while never obtaining what D'AnToni needed most which was a point guard.

As an exec trust you have to understand and evaluate properly not just your roster but who coaches and manages it. This also goes to show The Lakers truly are over Phil and Buss must hate the Triangle immensely, the break up wasn't pretty. Nash spoke publicly on the idea of bringing D'AnToni in and D'AnToni stated he feels the transition will be seamless.

I find this ironic to hear Nash speak so gushingly about D'AnToni and in all his opportunity to come to New York via trade or free agency when D'AnToni was here he never did. And he had us 3rd on his list of choices to join this summer in free agency.

Good Job by the Lakers

tkf wrote:

Knicksfan wrote:The NBA gets more interesting with this surprising hire. Mike D'Antoni is a West Coast coach and his style could make people remember the Showtime Lakers in their offensive glory. I do wonder how will L.A. handle the defensive issues that will probably set once they fully embrace the SSOL. As many said before, D'Antoni didn't exactly have a team of strong defensive players, but at the same time it can't be denied defense was never stressed the way we knew elite and championship contenders did.

I personally liked D'Antoni and his overall work here while overachieving with terrible lineups. His system made us win more games than we should've, but once we started getting closer to playoff contention, his style was a bad direction for New York. We now have exactly the type of team we wanted for a long time and are playing the type of gritty defense we have craved since the 90's. D'Antoni IS an intriguing fit on the Lakers and with the talent, its hard to see them become a bad defensive team, but it will be interesting to see D'Antoni perform in the playoffs.

Wow is right.

kobe, dwight, artest, gasol, all defend, they don't need a coach to tell them to defend, to follow them around in the offseason making sure they are working on their games... these guys are pros, champions and they will do the right thing on defense...

marion was a great defender under dantoni, sometimes it is really up to the player to just want to defend....

If this were true why has the Lakers defense sucked so far?

tkf wrote:

Knicksfan wrote:The NBA gets more interesting with this surprising hire. Mike D'Antoni is a West Coast coach and his style could make people remember the Showtime Lakers in their offensive glory. I do wonder how will L.A. handle the defensive issues that will probably set once they fully embrace the SSOL. As many said before, D'Antoni didn't exactly have a team of strong defensive players, but at the same time it can't be denied defense was never stressed the way we knew elite and championship contenders did.

I personally liked D'Antoni and his overall work here while overachieving with terrible lineups. His system made us win more games than we should've, but once we started getting closer to playoff contention, his style was a bad direction for New York. We now have exactly the type of team we wanted for a long time and are playing the type of gritty defense we have craved since the 90's. D'Antoni IS an intriguing fit on the Lakers and with the talent, its hard to see them become a bad defensive team, but it will be interesting to see D'Antoni perform in the playoffs.

Wow is right.

kobe, dwight, artest, gasol, all defend, they don't need a coach to tell them to defend, to follow them around in the offseason making sure they are working on their games... these guys are pros, champions and they will do the right thing on defense...

marion was a great defender under dantoni, sometimes it is really up to the player to just want to defend....

If that is the case then the MDA led team will also have trouble defending.

Jeff Van Gundy got it right. Kobe is slow and can't stay in front of these young guys one on one anymore and has to rely on his brain. Nash is a decent team defender but he's gonna get chewed up by the crazy fast young studs. Pau can't keep up with a lot of these PFs if they bring him out to the perimeter and face up.

The roster also isn't a great fit for MDA other than Nash. Dwight's a better person than Pau to finish the Pick n Roll but can't pop out and hit the jumper like Amare could. Pau can pop out n hit the jumper and he can finish but not like Dwight or Amare.

If MDA is really an offensive genius, he'll make the offense hum and I guess the philosophy on D will be to basically play up on shooters and funnel them inside to Dwight n Pau.

I'm rooting for Pringles cuz I like him as a coach but I don't see how this doesn't end ugly unless they trade Dwight for Ryan Anderson and play Pau at center. Get some other shooters in there too. Outside of Nash there are zero guys on the Lakers who have people scared when they catch the ball wide open downtown

Bonn1997 wrote:He's actually getting paid like a decent player gets paid!

Agreed but It simply kills me how we prove time and time again to overpay no matter the personnel. Lakers large market team signs D'AnToni to a reasonable coaching contract. Keep in mind Phil his last year coaching the Lakers was making $11-12mil/per. D'AnToni comes into that mess and they say hey we think you're 1/3 less of a coach than Phil...... take that take that take that

tkf wrote:

3G4G wrote:

yellowboy90 wrote:

tkf wrote:

Knicksfan wrote:The NBA gets more interesting with this surprising hire. Mike D'Antoni is a West Coast coach and his style could make people remember the Showtime Lakers in their offensive glory. I do wonder how will L.A. handle the defensive issues that will probably set once they fully embrace the SSOL. As many said before, D'Antoni didn't exactly have a team of strong defensive players, but at the same time it can't be denied defense was never stressed the way we knew elite and championship contenders did.

I personally liked D'Antoni and his overall work here while overachieving with terrible lineups. His system made us win more games than we should've, but once we started getting closer to playoff contention, his style was a bad direction for New York. We now have exactly the type of team we wanted for a long time and are playing the type of gritty defense we have craved since the 90's. D'Antoni IS an intriguing fit on the Lakers and with the talent, its hard to see them become a bad defensive team, but it will be interesting to see D'Antoni perform in the playoffs.

Wow is right.

kobe, dwight, artest, gasol, all defend, they don't need a coach to tell them to defend, to follow them around in the offseason making sure they are working on their games... these guys are pros, champions and they will do the right thing on defense...

marion was a great defender under dantoni, sometimes it is really up to the player to just want to defend....

If this were true why has the Lakers defense sucked so far?

Actually the Lakers defense hasn't been that bad....It's been their offense and willingness to support Brown. The Laker players as a collective unit Melo'd Brown

Points Per Game Allowed by lakers

Game 1 91
Game 2 106
Game 3 95
Game 4 79
Game 5 86
Game 6 77
Game 7 90

That's pretty solid

yea, and I am not a fan of that behavior either, but you are spot on.. lakers defense was solid.. not bad..

I also find it hypocriful of Lebron to come out publicly and say Brown didn't get a fair shake by the Lakers but when he was leaving the Cavs to take his talents to south beach, he had very little to say in what Cleveland should do with Brown, basically saying it's not his decision to make. Another added reason I still despise Lebron and was never truly enamored with the idea of him coming here.

I ABSOLUTELY LOATH HYPOCRITES