It’s been beautiful to watch Kobe “Magic Bean” Bryant dish like he’s on Real Houswives. It’s terrific that the Lakers had 34 assists on 39 made buckets Tuesday night against the Hornets. It’s been exciting to see the Lakers actually look like a team that gives a damn.
That said, Mike D’Antoni is still the wrong coach for this team, and all of his flaws and all of the Lakers flaws will be exposed if the Purple and Gold can indeed pull themselves into the playoffs.
D’Antoni is the wrong coach because he isn’t a coach at all. He’s an ideologist with a philosophy. A missionary with a religion. He’s more Plato, than PATFO. More Billy Graham than Bill Self.
D’Antoni is the wrong coach because he isn’t a coach at all. He’s an ideologist with a philosophy. A missionary with a religion. He’s more Plato, than PATFO. More Billy Graham than Bill Self.
D’Antoni preaches “ball finds energy” and like a backwoods fundamentalist refuses to stray from that dogma. Instead of trying to figure out ways to put his players in situations that provide energy for them, to put them in situations that compliment their skillsets (a la Popovich), he instead clings to his overly simplistic mantra.
D’Antoni knows one way of doing things and has remained against doing things differently. His last two coaching stops, with rosters that didn’t have the players necessary to make his religion work, have shown that he doesn’t know much. In fact, his words only reinforce this.
“I didn’t know Kobe could be so devastating that way,” D'Antoni said Tuesday night referencing Bryant’s passing abilities.
D’Antoni knows one way of doing things and has remained against doing things differently. His last two coaching stops, with rosters that didn’t have the players necessary to make his religion work, have shown that he doesn’t know much. In fact, his words only reinforce this.
“I didn’t know Kobe could be so devastating that way,” D'Antoni said Tuesday night referencing Bryant’s passing abilities.
So, the notion that giving the ball to Bryant to fill the Steve Nash role was somehow the masterstroke of an offensive genius can be tossed out the window by D’Antoni’s own admission.
I guess an argument could be made that D’Antoni so mismanaged the Lakers and put them in such a position of despair that the always unflappable Bryant finally flapped.
Bravo D’Antoni. Jean-Paul Sarte couldn't have done it better.
I guess an argument could be made that D’Antoni so mismanaged the Lakers and put them in such a position of despair that the always unflappable Bryant finally flapped.
Bravo D’Antoni. Jean-Paul Sarte couldn't have done it better.
“They went small,” D’Antoni said as to why Pau Gasol played exactly zero minutes in the fourth quarter—a quarter that saw the Hornets rally back from a double digit lead and nearly tie the game. “I couldn’t get Pau back in there because of the lineup change.”
Like I said, D’Antoni doesn’t know much. He doesn’t know that benching Pau Gasol during the fourth quarter of a game isn’t a good idea. He doesn’t know that what makes the Lakers special outside of Bryant is their size advantage. He apparently still doesn’t know that Gasol is one of the best post players in the world. You know, Gasol, who is the second longest tenured Laker, who was key to the Lakers going to three consecutive finals and winning two of them, who has been a world champion and a two-time Olympic silver medalist as the go-to guy for the Spanish National team. An upstanding player who accepted coming off the bench for the betterment of the team—but who is still the third best player on the team (arguably the second).
Instead, D’Antoni opted to go “small” with Antawn Jameson, who makes the chair that Yi Jianlian once famously destroyed during a workout look like Bruce Bowen. There’s a reason the Hornets made a run, and it has everything to do with who the Lakers had—or didn’t have (Metta World Peace was also on the bench)—out on the floor. There’s a reason Ryan Anderson scored 11 of his 16 points in the fourth quarter.
Gasol has been asked to come off the bench a la Lamar Odom, a la Jamal Crawford, a la Manu Ginobili. The thing is, all of those guys closed games as sixth men. Gasol needed to be out there in the fourth quarter with the second unit because, outside of Nash and Bryant, Gasol is the team’s best playmaker. In general, Gasol needs to be out there to close games because, simply put, he’s one of the best players in the world.
Instead, the bench unit, with Dwight Howard, proceeded to jack up a bunch of threes and outside jumpers and NOT feed the ball to their all-star center, which allowed the Hornets’ “small” lineup to get out in transition—where the Lakers have been dreadful defending all season. Not sure if D’Antoni knows this fact about LA’s defense either.
Which, brings me to something else D’Antoni apparently doesn’t know.
Despite the team’s “Come to Jesus” moment, despite all of the immature snipings about field goal attempts, D’Antoni doesn’t know that Dwight Howard wants to touch the ball on offense—that Howard’s effort level on defense directly correlates with how many touches he gets on offense. I’m not saying this is the right attitude to have (I am actually appalled by Howard), but D12 had 20 points at the half and the Hornets had managed to score a meager 42.
Howard scored four more points the rest of the game and the Hornets ended up with 106.
It’s one thing to have a dogma and to stick with it through tough times. In life, this could be looked at as commendable, courageous even.
But this is not a journey through life.
Howard scored four more points the rest of the game and the Hornets ended up with 106.
It’s one thing to have a dogma and to stick with it through tough times. In life, this could be looked at as commendable, courageous even.
But this is not a journey through life.
This is basketball.
And D’Antoni is supposed to be a coach.
Not a life coach. A basketball coach. (Though it’s amazing how if you’re good at the former, you’re probably good at the latter.)
And every coach, from the mediocre to the great ones, all understand that adjustments are part of the game. Phil Jackson and Tex Winters adhered to the principles of the triangle offense, but they were both open to letting Michael Jordan and Bryant freelance because they understood the benefits this freedom provided the team. Hard to argue with 11 rings.
Speaking of championships, John Wooden was arguably the greatest coach to ever do it. He too lived by a basic dogma. His Pyramid of Success taught principles that were primarily relevant to life, but had profound impact on how his players played the game of basketball.
Wooden’s dogma enhanced his coaching and prompted him to adjust how he coached based on who he was coaching. No other coach has won with such volume and with so many different styles.
You’d be hard pressed to find a single successful basketball coach in the country that has not been inspired by the Wizard of Westwood.
Case in point, I can almost guarantee that D’Antoni has never read Wooden’s book. And if he has, he read the Cliff’s Notes version.
Whether this is true or not is beside the point. The manner in which D’Antoni goes about his business is polar opposite of Wooden. And this is a problem.
Philosophy expands thinking, but is often too nebulous for it to be worth anything of substance.
Religion provides structure and stability, but oftentimes becomes narrow-minded and inflexible.
A coach who has a philosophy that he believes like it’s a religion, is a coach that lacks structure and is unwilling to change.
That kind of coach can succeed in the NBA’s regular season with superior talent. The Suns won 55-62 games a season for five seasons. But come playoff crunch time, come judgment—when all the other coaches are devising schemes and making adjustments with their own superior talent—that is not the coach you want in your corner.
And D’Antoni is supposed to be a coach.
Not a life coach. A basketball coach. (Though it’s amazing how if you’re good at the former, you’re probably good at the latter.)
And every coach, from the mediocre to the great ones, all understand that adjustments are part of the game. Phil Jackson and Tex Winters adhered to the principles of the triangle offense, but they were both open to letting Michael Jordan and Bryant freelance because they understood the benefits this freedom provided the team. Hard to argue with 11 rings.
Speaking of championships, John Wooden was arguably the greatest coach to ever do it. He too lived by a basic dogma. His Pyramid of Success taught principles that were primarily relevant to life, but had profound impact on how his players played the game of basketball.
Wooden’s dogma enhanced his coaching and prompted him to adjust how he coached based on who he was coaching. No other coach has won with such volume and with so many different styles.
You’d be hard pressed to find a single successful basketball coach in the country that has not been inspired by the Wizard of Westwood.
Case in point, I can almost guarantee that D’Antoni has never read Wooden’s book. And if he has, he read the Cliff’s Notes version.
Whether this is true or not is beside the point. The manner in which D’Antoni goes about his business is polar opposite of Wooden. And this is a problem.
Philosophy expands thinking, but is often too nebulous for it to be worth anything of substance.
Religion provides structure and stability, but oftentimes becomes narrow-minded and inflexible.
A coach who has a philosophy that he believes like it’s a religion, is a coach that lacks structure and is unwilling to change.
That kind of coach can succeed in the NBA’s regular season with superior talent. The Suns won 55-62 games a season for five seasons. But come playoff crunch time, come judgment—when all the other coaches are devising schemes and making adjustments with their own superior talent—that is not the coach you want in your corner.
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