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Is D'Antoni re ed or what?
http://www.azcentral.com/sports/suns...117sunsnb.html
"I read a thing about (Kerr wanting) less 3s and more defense," D'Antoni said. "You're talking about a guy who was all 3s and no defense. I've never heard him utter those words. There's no validity to it."
Is D'Antoni re ed or what?
Way to evaluate your boss. I actually find it funny.
I get the feeling D'Antoni will be out as Suns coach this summer. Hopefully, Steve Nash will have gone into steep decline by then, or we'll have to admit the Suns' greatest weakness will have been removed and they will have become serious contenders.
D'Antoni is all jokes , and that's obviously a joke.
I don't think the Suns should be taking fewer 3's, but they do need a coach who places more emphasis on four things:
1. Defense. Duh. The Suns have an abundance of talent and athleticism, but it isn't being put to good use.
2. Rebounding. Double Duh. This is a coaching problem, not just a size disadvantage. The Suns are bound to give up a few more rebounds than they secure, but 23 offensive rebounds by their opponent is ing disgusting.
3. Pounding the rock into Amare on almost every possession. D'Antoni likes to spread the shot wealth, but all he needs to do is look at the stats: the Suns are something like 15-1 when Amare has 20-10 (that 1 loss was against the Jazz when Marion, Nash, and Hill were all out). This has always, ALWAYS been the case, but D'Antoni is too much of a putz to realize that.
4. Play the ing bench. Give Skinner 25 minutes. Give Banks 10 minutes. Let DJ Strawberry play. I mean, you let Jalen Rose rot on the bench last year when he could have produced, given the right amount of PT. It's no wonder that Nash, Bell, and Marion are exhausted by the time the playoffs roll around. Give these guys some consistent rest. D'Antoni worries that we'll lose the lead everytime Nash goes out; but when you pound it into your reserves' heads that you don't trust them without Nash, then naturally they won't perform with the right amount of confidence.
In conclusion, fire D'Antoni. Do it Kerr!
1. I would say that their defense is good when they're playing with effort. You could say that their lack of effort this season should fall on D'Antoni, but its not ALL his fault.
Paul Coro had a great statement that the Suns could be undefeated right now and it wouldn't matter. They would still be hearing this "can they do it in the playoffs" garbage.
2. Their rebounding is pitiful and stands as their biggest threat to the championship. Forget offensive rebounds, their inability (Stoudemire) to simply box out their man has been excruciating to watch. If they don't make SERIOUS improvements or at least do a much better job in the playoffs, we're in for dissapointment.
3. I completely disagree with you. The rest of the Suns end up standing around when Amare tries to do too much. Plus the reason he shoots such a high percentage is because he gets most of his shots in the flow of the offense.
Should LB be shooting less? Sure. Should they go to Amare more? Yes. But I dont think they should change an offense thats the most efficient and deadly in the league.
Plus its great to "save" that Nash/Amare pic n roll for the fourth quarter. In our games against San Antonio and Dallas, they had absolutely no answer (Suns just ran out of time against Dallas after falling so far behind in the first).
4. For everytime Banks has a decent game, he has three where he doesn't accomplish anything. I knew we wouldn't see any of his ass last night.
Show me a player who proved D'Antoni wrong and I'll change my mind. Show me a guy who couldn't get off our bench and went on to play lots of minutes with another team afterwards.
5. Kerr isn't going to fire D'Antoni. The Suns have sold out every single game and thats all that Sarver cares about.
Im not sure what they should do about the rebounding. Maybe we'll get lucky and the Sonics will cut Kurt Thomas!
Championship teams always get production from their bench. That's just the way it is. And for the most part the Suns have had their share of scrubs sitting down next to D'Antoni, but all you need is an 8-man rotation. You're telling me Jalen Rose couldn't have contributed 10-15 minutes a night? You're telling me Marcus Banks won't play better if he's consistently spelling Nash for 10-15 minutes a night?
Sure it might mean the Suns win 50-55 games instead of 60, but I think it would make them a much more dangerous team come playoff time if the guys they count on are a bit fresher and their bench guys are used to playing. It's hard to prepare yourself and get in any kind of rhythm if you only make it onto the court in garbage time. And I understand up to a point that D'Antoni wants to run and turn it into a contest of offensive efficiency, since the Suns will usually win that battle, but if I were him, this is my rotation:
Starting lineup:
C: Brian Skinner
PF: Amare
SF: Marion
SG: Bell
PG: Nash
6th Man: Barbosa
Other two rotation spots: Diaw, Hill
There's an 8-man rotation. They have plenty of guys who can score, Brian Skinner can absolutely do the dirty work for them that "doesn't show up in the box score." People laugh and laugh and laugh that the Mavs are paying Erick Dampier $10 million a year in exchange for 7 points and 7 rebounds per game, but he does a good job of protecting the rim and it's a layup line for the opposition without him. I wish he had better hands and was a better finisher, but there's no question he improves our interior defense. I still have plenty of doubts that the Mavs can win four straight series and finish things this time, but we're not winning a le without Dampier or somebody else that can guard the rim.
You're simply not going to win a championship without solid defense and rebounding, two things the Suns lack. You can't out-offense your way through every 7-game playoff series, your shots will inevitably stop falling some nights and you need your defense to keep you in games. The Suns can go up 15 as easily as they can give up 15, until they solve this problem they will never make it out of the WC.
I've been impressed with Skinner the few times I've seen him play for the Suns. I don't watch them on a nightly basis so maybe Suns fans are chuckling at the notion that he can be a major contributor for them, but they do indeed need somebody who can rebound and play d. I'm not saying he's a savior or anything, but D'Antoni is an idiot for not giving him 25-30 minutes a night at center. If it's the fourth quarter of a close game, I'm sticking him at the five and Amare at the four and I'm running the Nash/Amare pic'n'roll.
Amare can get 80 points on 40 shot attempts so getting 20 points on 10 shot attempts should be no problem. And, he's getting 10+ shot attempts a game.
Sarver won't fire D'Antoni until his systems fails to be exciting and turn a profit. He's exactly the coach a dumbass like Sarver wants. As long as Sarver cares about profit over les, then D'Antoni's value is high in Sarver's book.
What Sarver fails to understand is that if he thinks the money he's making now is substantial, then the money he could make when the Suns, Arizona's first sports franchise, win the le would dwarf the "fun and 50" profit greatly. He's sitting on the mother load and is more concerned about opporational costs and staying within budget than taking a chance striking that deep, but rich vein.
You're simply not going to win a championship without solid defense and rebounding, two things the Suns lack. You can't out-offense your way through every 7-game playoff series, your shots will inevitably stop falling some nights and you need your defense to keep you in games. The Suns can go up 15 as easily as they can give up 15, until they solve this problem they will never make it out of the WC.
This team is such a fluke that gets all the calls.Too bad they cant get it done in the playoffs.
Now THIS is a reason to repeat.
Spurs knocking out the Suns in the playoffs one more time would be the DAGGER in D'Antonio's coaching job.
I'd Tivo that press conference.
I get a strange feeling LAL is going to knock them out this year.
jeff van gundy as the next suns coach.
Uh, D'antoni does play an 8-man rotation.
I've been a huge proponent of the "Start Brian Skinner Experiment" since the start of the season, but D'Antoni would never, ever go for it.
The suns will never win a championship.Dantoni is a dumbass and Nash is aging.Amare is a lockerroom problem and Diaw is a scrub.Bell and Skinner are the only people on that team that give a . Offense doesnt win you championships.
Not really. Not on a consistent basis. He only trusts seven of his players.
The Suns high octane offense is good enough to beat .500 scrub teams, but look at the Sun's record against above .500 teams in the WC. They have only beat injury depleted Lakers and Spurs teams. It's really telling of how far they have fallen when they cannot take on a decent WC team that is at full strength.
Yes he does play 8 players on a consistent basis. The (very) few times that he only plays 7 players is sometimes when there's an injury. And sometimes he plays 9 players.
The starters are Nash, Bell, Hill, Marion, and Stoudemire. The 6th man is Barbosa, the 7th man is Diaw, and the 8th man is Skinner.
In fact, the 8th man, Skinner, is 1 of only 3 players (the other two being the other bench players--Barbosa and Diaw) to have played all 40 games so far this season. I wouldn't call playing Skinner every single game, "inconsistent." He's also played in both halves in almost all (if not all) of those games.
D'antoni plays 8 players on a consistent basis.
Excuses excuses
So what? The Suns are supposed to throw games away because Bynum and Parker did not play? Kobe and Duncan still played. If I remember Duncan had a big game vs the Suns in December and they still lost. Kobe in the game on Thursday was MIA in the in the 2nd period. Bynum and Parker being out is not the Suns problem.
He only plays Skinner 14 minutes a game. That is going to catch up with the Suns, like it always does. Marcus Banks sucks, but he should be getting 10-12 minutes a night spelling Nash. It might cost the Suns 4 or 5 wins over the course of a season, but it might mean Nash has something left in the tank at the end. He certainly wore down in Dallas every year and ran out of gas in the conference Finals against us. Last year the Suns went out too early for that to be a factor.
Hopefully the next coach starts to use Nash like the Jazz used Stockton late in his career. D'Antoni's system where Nash dominates the ball whenever he's on the court puts tremendous strain on his body. If we went down low more often with Amare (or hopefully Pau Gasol according to recent rumors), and had Nash play a more passive role, we could definitely extend his career a few more years.
Nash is a phenomenal player, but in watching all the games this year, you can see that he's declining physically. He's still having a tremendous season, but I fear that this is the beginning of the end.
Gasol? They are better off keeping Amare.
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