One Trick ‘Toni
Welp. I was “afk” for a while… and boy howdy did I miss the sweet smell of the keyboard! I’ve been in a land of no television and one where cell phones exist merely for their florescent glow to light the way below a star-filled night sky. Luckily, though, one small piece of sporting news happened to reach me while I was in hiding. Apparently Mike D’Antoni was recently hired by the New York Knicks? I could be wrong about this, but whilst I was away I had forgoted how to figure that-there fancy interenety dingy, which done come around with all the pictures and words and jibber jabber, and thus have not read anything on the matter as of yet. But how would I know this if I had no connection to the sports-loving Universe?? I’ll tell you how… I know everything. Well… that and, I also happened to get an awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. The same feeling I felt when the Knicks had FINALLY escaped from under the spell of Scott “the dream killer” Layden, only to later find out that Isiah “the nightmare bringer” Thomas had taken his spot. Yes… Mike D’Antoni is now the head basketball coach of the New York Knickerbockers. Is anyone else incredibly underwhelmed?
Let me first start by discussing the current state of The New York Basketball Knicks:
- They are a squad of 0 discipline
- They play 0 defense
- They have 0 toughness
- There has been 0 stability in the franchise for 6 or 7 years
- They are a bunch of Prima Donnas whose perceptions of their own skills (and for that matter, their fans’ perceptions of their skills) exceed their actual skills by approximately 212%
- They are led by Stephon Marbury, Eddy Curry, and Zack Randolph (yikes)
Now Let me discuss what I know of Mike D’Antoni:
- He has never won a damn thing
- He has never even made it to the NBA Finals
- He has had a 2 time MVP (Nash), along with some combination of: the 6th man of the year (Barbosa), the best young talent in the game (Amare), the best big man in the game (Daddy), and the best defensive (and possible best 2-way) player in the game (Marion), as well as a great selection of roll players (Diaw, Grant Hill, Joe Johnson, Raja Bell- among others)
- He is an offensive genius, but his defensive schemes are nonexistent
- He has had great regular season success, accompanied with minimal postseason success
- He runs a style of basketball that can win many games, but probably will never win a championship
When I put all of these things together, I become exceptionally perplexed and disappointed with the Knick’s choice. The thing about D’Antoni is that he had the absolute best personnel for his system and he still never got it done… never even came all that close to getting it done. So now, he’s going to come to New York and replace Nash with Crack-bury, Amare with Eddy “The Sizzler” Curry and Marion with…. Quentin Richardson?? Without a complete overhaul of the roster, I just don’t see this working out at all (and while this roster is awful, I was hoping more to ride it out and let contracts expire than for an overhaul- it worked so well when Isiah did it).
Look, I realize D’Antoni is the sexy choice, and he does have a super awesome ‘stache, but I just don’t see how this is a good move for anyone involved. In fact, I just took out my crystal ball and I’d like to share with you exactly what I saw:
Best-case scenario: The Knicks improve to a semi-respectable franchise (somewhere along the lines of where the Raptors are currently) and hover in mediocrity for the next several years. Along the way, they get lucky in the lottery and/or free agency. D’Antoni’s system turns Derek Rose into CP3 Redux. The rule changes affect the league enough that the run-and-gun system works well enough to make the team into a title contender. Everyone goes home happy and Donnie Walsh is exalted for his foresight. (Does anyone actually see any of this happening??)
Worst-case scenario: The Knicks score a lot of points. David Lee and Jamal Crawford become fantasy players extraordinaire but the team never wins a thing. Dolan gets impatient (I know, that’s a little bit of a stretch… but go with me on this) and he forces Walsh’s hand. The Knicks make a series of trades involving expiring contracts to try to acquire players that will fit Mike’s system. They fall further into the luxury tax abyss and are left with more players with big contracts that nobody wants. D’Antoni lasts 2 years before everyone realizes what an awful mistake they’ve made. Mike takes his severance package all the way to the bank and the rest of us are left chanting “Fire Dolan”…. Aaaahhh now those are the Knicks I know and love. (By the way, this sounds waaaayyyy too possible that I almost want to delete it)
The bottom line for me on this is that it just seems to send the exact opposite message from what I was hoping they’d do. I was hoping for patience over rashness. I was hoping for logic over ticket sales. I was hoping for a complete culture change that started with one key word sung as 2 harmonious syllables: DE-FENSE (clap clap). But most of all, I was finally hoping for acknowledgment that this team can not and will not win now. Maybe I’m wrong, and lord knows I hope I am, but signing a big name coach to an exceptional contract seems more like a “let’s win now” move than a “it’s time to rebuild” move to me. I don’t know who the right choice for the job would have been, but I’m pretty sure D’Antoni was the #1 wrong choice… and it makes me sad.
5 Comments
Derek on May 20th, 2008
http://www.knickerblogger.net/index.php/2008/05/19/opting-out-a-pipe-dream/
This is an interesting post written about a Newsday article that makes two points. 1) A faster-paced offense pads guys’ stats and makes them more attractive trade options. 2) Crawford, Curry and Richardson could opt out to make more on the free agent market. Though that seems pretty far-fetched.
Well, really any successful move by the Knicks seems pretty far-fetched at this point.
Jose on May 20th, 2008
uummm… why would guys opt out from their ridiculously large contracts to be paid less money… especially someone like Richardson?? no one will ever pay him near what he’s making. And 2… I dont want them to trade these guys. I want them to expire. Get under the f’ing cap and go from there
Derek on May 21st, 2008
6th pick! Woo!!
David on May 21st, 2008
hey the 5th pick worked for the Celtics… we’ll give you ray allen for the 6th?
Justin on May 17th, 2008
This message has been brought to you by Jose “Negative Nancy” Reyes. Seriously though, I do agree with most of your assertions. It’s just that now that we have D’Antoni, I feel like we should give it a chance. If he can simply give us some discipline to play like a team while hopefully not taking on anymore money, I consider the experiment to be a success. This is the Knicks though, and everything with this franchise is easier said than done, so we’ll see.