D'Antoni gone

[tlance]

How many chances will this loser get?

There has been no one in NBA history that has won as little as him with as much talent.

LOL.

Too funny.

Winning titles is hard.

What team exactly was D’Antoni supposed to win with?

Not the Rockets. How soon people forget, they very nearly beat an all time great team in large part because of D’Antoni. People talk about 0-27, but they aren’t in position to go 0-27 without D’Antoni’s coaching.

The Suns? They had to contend with better Spurs and Laker squads. They could have snuck a title in there, but never managed it.

Does that make D’Antoni a failure?

Hell no. He made Shawn Marion and Joe Johnson. He never had a roster that was supposed to win.

D’Antoni was an innovative coach who helped usher in the modern era of basketball. His contributions to the game will be remembered for a long time. I suspect eventually with a HOF bid.

D’Antoni was/is a good NBA coach.

 

[tlance]

Morey should be fired. He has no ability other than "who is the biggest name that might be available and how can we cram contracts around to get him". Instead of trying to build a team of complementing parts, he just gets as much offense on the floor at one time. It's as if he thinks at some point a second ball will be put on the court.

Yeah, I can’t disagree.

He has made some really good moves, but blowing up the roster last summer was a mistake.

The pattern of trading good players for big names has back fired on him now multiple times.

He is the type of GM who always swings for the fences. Well, this time he struck out.

After Morey moves on, I wouldn’t mind seeing him land in Washington. We need his type of bold to make some splashes.

 

[Stakesarehigh]

It didn’t work because the Rockets don’t have great shooters.

Harden is excellent, but he takes a lot of bad shots reducing his efficiency. Gordon is also very good but struggled during the playoffs.

None of their other players are known for being great shooters. They are all averageish.

Tough to build a system around the 3 ball when your second best player can’t shoot them at all and most of your other guys are just average.

I actually think D’Antoni got a lot out of this group. The expectations were always unrealistically high. This is not a contender caliber roster.

They shot 40 and 42 percent from the 3 in game 3 and 4 but got absolutely devastated on the glass. They even shot significantly more free throws in game four.

Sure they played some catch-up but why were they doing so? Obviously the three point shot is more and more a part of the game but the W's still shot on average about 20 more twos than threes in their runs

In this bubble teams are shooting more 3's in general but Houston is the only one shooting the same amount of 2's and 3's.

 

[Stakesarehigh]

LOL.

Too funny.

Winning titles is hard.

What team exactly was D’Antoni supposed to win with?

Not the Rockets. How soon people forget, they very nearly beat an all time great team in large part because of D’Antoni. People talk about 0-27, but they aren’t in position to go 0-27 without D’Antoni’s coaching.

The Suns? They had to contend with better Spurs and Laker squads. They could have snuck a title in there, but never managed it.

Does that make D’Antoni a failure?

Hell no. He made Shawn Marion and Joe Johnson. He never had a roster that was supposed to win.

D’Antoni was an innovative coach who helped usher in the modern era of basketball. His contributions to the game will be remembered for a long time. I suspect eventually with a HOF bid.

D’Antoni was/is a good NBA coach.

I like D'Antoni as well. Just saying what I see as to why his teams hit a wall.

Agreed that Morey's moves were the bigger issue.

 

[tlance]

They shot 40 and 42 percent from the 3 in game 3 and 4 but got absolutely devastated on the glass. They even shot significantly more free throws in game four.

Sure they played some catch-up but why were they doing so? Obviously the three point shot is more and more a part of the game but the W's still shot on average about 20 more twos than threes in their runs

In this bubble teams are shooting more 3's in general but Houston is the only one shooting the same amount of 2's and 3's.

Sure.

Again though, it comes down to roster construction.

They have a bunch of guys like Covington, Tucker, Rivers, Green etc. who are good role players, but streaky shooters.

They have good individual defenders but just can’t match up with a team like the Lakers. You have to be able to stop them or outscore them.

The Rockets weren’t able to stop them because they were too small. They weren’t able to outscore them because their shooters aren’t good enough.

 

[Stakesarehigh]

Be interesting to see what they do with the roster now

 

[trojanfan12]

I don’t know that I agree with that.

I think small ball could win if you had the right players.

The Rockets don’t have the right players.

This is unrealistic, but substitute Hayward and Thies for LeBron or Kawhi.

You don’t think that team could win a title?

I do

What true small ball team like the Rockets or Suns has ever won a title? I suppose it could happen. But a team coming back from 3-0 could happen too. It just never has.

 

[Stakesarehigh]

What true small ball team like the Rockets or Suns has ever won a title? I suppose it could happen. But a team coming back from 3-0 could happen too. It just never has.

That's my take. Houston would've needed to shoot 18/33 from 3 if all else stays the same in game 4 to win the game. It's not at all reasonable to expect to shoot at that clip in a best of 7. And that was with a massive advantage in free throw attempts. They got basically zero second chance efforts.

I still say the team was better with Capela even if you go with Westbrook.

 

[trojanfan12]

How many chances will this loser get?

There has been no one in NBA history that has won as little as him with as much talent.

He's actually won a lot. But the vast majority of his winning is done in the regular season. His teams are fun to watch, always get to the playoffs and get to the occasional conference finals. His teams put butts in seats too.

As @tlance said, winning titles is hard. Just like there are a lot of very good to great players who never won a title, there are also a lot of very good coaches who have never won titles.

 

[Shanemansj13]

What true small ball team like the Rockets or Suns has ever won a title? I suppose it could happen. But a team coming back from 3-0 could happen too. It just never has.

Yeah I’m not buying a small ball team is winning a title. CP3 was obviously fit veey well with that team but people forget how valuable Capela was to that team. That pick n roll with Harden was unstoppable vs the W’s at times. The difference between those rockets team and this one is huge. Not sure why they thought RoCo was making them that much better

 

[Stakesarehigh]

You can do much much worse than Mike D'Antoni. In his defense I think with the right roster construction he could pull off a title. Maybe the sixers are that team but they need to undo some terrible decisions.

 

[trojanfan12]

That's my take. Houston would've needed to shoot 18/33 from 3 if all else stays the same in game 4 to win the game. It's not at all reasonable to expect to shoot at that clip in a best of 7. And that was with a massive advantage in free throw attempts. They got basically zero second chance efforts.

I still say the team was better with Capela even if you go with Westbrook.

Yeah, I posted on this or another thread that even when the Lakers "went small" they were still bigger than the Rockets. The Lakers bigs minus Dwight and Javale are still 6'8" to 7 feet going against the Rockets bigs who range 6'5" to 6'7".

 

[Shanemansj13]

Yeah, I posted on this or another thread that even when the Lakers "went small" they were still bigger than the Rockets. The Lakers bigs minus Dwight and Javale are still 6'8" to 7 feet going against the Rockets bigs who range 6'5" to 6'7".

Lebron was just as much of mismatch for them than AD. They have solid defenders but no rim protectors. While their forwards are pretty good rebounders for their size...if Danny Green is beasting on the offensive boards you know you have a big problem. That's the thing you are going to run into a big team that can also shoot from the outside and that's all it takes. I mean think about OKC, right now they have zero stars...pretty good depth. They had 5 guys averaging 5 rebounds or more a game...and 2 of them were guards lol. Capela would have made all the difference in the world and even just a decent big behind him.

 

[Geems]

He's actually won a lot. But the vast majority of his winning is done in the regular season. His teams are fun to watch, always get to the playoffs and get to the occasional conference finals. His teams put butts in seats too.

As @tlance said, winning titles is hard. Just like there are a lot of very good to great players who never won a title, there are also a lot of very good coaches who have never won titles.

That's fair, but he is a loser when it comes to being able to get over the hump.

Ohn and don't forget how he quit on the Knicks.

 

[Shanemansj13]

That's fair, but he is a loser when it comes to being able to get over the hump.

Ohn and don't forget how he quit on the Knicks.

Well that kinda goes back to what Tlance and Trojan are saying. Those Knicks squads weren't beating those Celtic or Heat teams. The Celtics had a big 3 and the Heat had a big 3. The Knicks had Melo and Amare which was a deadly combo, actually had some nice role players too but they didn't stand a chance.

 

[Used 2 B Hu]

Yep. Wouldn't surprise me either. As I posted earlier...at this point, everyone knows what D'Antoni is bringing. If the FO buys in, then it's on them when they get the same results everyone else has gotten.

And that's not to say D'Antoni's system is all bad. It has some merit to it. It's fun, players want to play in it, it puts butts in seats, it's gets you a bunch of regular season wins and trips to the playoffs.

But in the playoffs, it's a bunch of 1st and 2nd round exits with a conference finals appearance mixed in...but no finals appearances or titles.

Couldn't winner this, so I gave it the next best thing

 

[Used 2 B Hu]

D’Antoni was an innovative coach who helped usher in the modern era of basketball. His contributions to the game will be remembered for a long time. I suspect eventually with a HOF bid.

Wait, who else is playing his style? Are you saying everybody has copied him? Because I don't think that's the case at all

 

[Heatles84]

Well only so much could have been expected out of that midget line-up the Rockets had. I wouldn't be surprised if the next change is Daryl Morey.

D'Antoni ruined that roster with his preferred style of play. James Harden needs to refine his game as well as heavy ISO ball is never a winning formula. But this roster has been gutted with very little maneuverability going forward.

 

[Stakesarehigh]

Well that kinda goes back to what Tlance and Trojan are saying. Those Knicks squads weren't beating those Celtic or Heat teams. The Celtics had a big 3 and the Heat had a big 3. The Knicks had Melo and Amare which was a deadly combo, actually had some nice role players too but they didn't stand a chance.

Amare was pretty much always injured with the Knicks

 

[msgkings322]

He's actually won a lot. But the vast majority of his winning is done in the regular season. His teams are fun to watch, always get to the playoffs and get to the occasional conference finals. His teams put butts in seats too.

As @tlance said, winning titles is hard. Just like there are a lot of very good to great players who never won a title, there are also a lot of very good coaches who have never won titles.

Don Nelson