Lakers and Mike D'Antoni Agree to a 4-Year Deal

[ram29jackson]

Did anyone actually thing Phil was coming back?

nope

[chicubs2003]

Don't blame the Knicks on him though. They essentially hired him because he was a perfect fit for the roster they had. Then they traded just about every player that worked well in his system for someone who is the antithesis of it (Melo).

And what more do you want from the guy, he turned a Suns team constantly in roster flux into a regular contender in the hyper-competitive Western conference. Never got to the Finals but like I pointed out look at the rosters he led to the WCF or at least relatively deep into the playoffs.

I do blame him partially for the Knicks mess, obviously he's not 100% to blame like most coaches..
Wilson Chandler and Gallanari wouldnt of changed his fortunes there..

And Im not saying he didn't do a good job with the Suns, but he did have a MVP Steve Nash and Amare Stoudemire when he was a freak, and Shawn Marion in his prime, those 3 in there prime could of competed with Duncan/Parker/Ginobli in my mind. They had the talent to match up against San Antonio.

I'm just not a fan of his work, I dont think hes championship pedigree, but i do think hes a good coach, but they should gotten Phil Jackson if they wanted a Championship breed of a coach. I think they should of gave Jerry Sloan a look, who would be a championship coach well if it wasnt for Michael Jordan and Company lol

I agree with you long term commitment is important but LA has always been and always will be about winning now.

Time will tell tho..Hopefully they got it right this time, because I knew from Day 1 that Mike Brown wouldnt work out in LA.

[ralaw]

What i mean was 61 wins/Coach of the Years is impressive, but it really dosent mean shit if you cant lead a team in the playoffs. You can have all the Coach of the Year awards in the world but it dosent always translate to NBA Titles. Which too me Id take NBA titles over Coach of the Year awards anyday. I agree there should be more to evaluating coaches then NBA titles, but shit Phil's won 11 of them, Won a few with just Kobe/Pau.

Im pretty bias toward D'Antoni i guess time will tell, i was just not impressed last year especially..

He went 18-24, With Melo/Amare/Chandler, Mike Woodson takes over a similar roster and has been 22-6 so far.. I dont know maybe he'll prove me wrong but i think its a mistake..

I've never been a big D'Antoni fan either, but with the Suns he was climbing and had his team's in contention. The road to a championship isn't scripted, so sometimes guys win COY awards before they actually win a title, while other guys win titles before they win awards. In NY it was obvious Melo didn't really care for him, which is why the team started winning the minute he was gone (ala Lakers with Mike Brown).

Having said that I have my concerns with his style with this team, because with the Suns he had long, athletic and versatile guys who were in their prime playing together as a team. Everyone knew their role and Nash was the QB that made it all work. However, Nash isn't that player anymore and the Lakers certainly don't have a lot of long, athletic and versatile players in their athletic prime. It will be interesting to see how it all comes together.

[EmpireWF]

When everything had become too hard with the New York Knicks, D'Antoni walked into the office one morning and surrendered. Carmelo Anthony had stopped listening to him, stopped running his plays, and ownership never supported the coach. When Anthony grumbled to Bryant about D'Antoni's defensive acumen on a trip to Los Angeles before the coach's resignation in New York, one witness says Bryant shot back to Anthony – only half-kidding – that, seriously, when the hell have you ever played defense?

-wojo

[FedEx227]

That's awesome... and true.