Miracle? or Disaster?
Knicks Pull a Fast One With D'Antoni
The Donnie Walsh regime has begun in New York. He plans to rebuild the team while getting them under the cap. Apparantly he also wants to put an entertaining product on the floor. For a long time, it appeared as if the new Knicks head coach would be Marc Jackson, former Knick point guard and a well respected basketball mind. Even Jackson himself was convinced he would have the job after preliminary interviews with Walsh. Reports state that he had already started to find a staff and tell his friends that he would have the job. But Walsh didn't go that way.
Instead Walsh went with Mike D'Antoni, former Phoenix Suns head coach, and the founder of the "seven seconds or less" style of offense. During his tenure in Phoenix, the Suns averaged over 50 wins a season, making the playoffs each of his 4 full seasons as coach of the team. After a new GM (Steve Kerr) took over in Phoenix and the highly publicized Shaquille O'Neil trade just resulted in another exit via the San Antonio Spurs, D'Antoni was told he could talk to other teams about becoming a head coach elsewhere. Walsh jumped all over this opportunity, and within a week, hired him to be the head coach of the Knicks. It would appear as if many Knick fans resent this decision, and would have preferred the aforementioned Jackson, even though he has no coaching experience whatsoever.
The move makes sense though for the Knickerbockers. While D'Antoni is often criticized for his teams not playing defense, it is very likely that it is just a product of the players on his team as well as his high octane offense. His offense leads to more possessions for both teams, and thus more points are scored. Simply looking at the PPG average of the Suns' opponents isn't very fair to the Suns or D'Antoni, although that is what many so called "experts" will use against him. Let's face it though, the Knicks should not be a very good team for quite some time. Even if they can make the playoffs in the near future, they will probably only be a seven or eight seed in a very weak Eastern Conference. D'Antoni will, if nothing else, sell tickets and keep the Garden alive. That's right Knick fans, your team will actually be watchable this season. D'Antoni is very well liked around the league, which should help when the Knicks actually get under the cap and can spend some money. He could be intricate to them landing a LeBron James or a Chris Bosh in a few years.
I say embrace D'Antoni, pray to get Derrick Rose in the draft, and enjoy watching some up tempo basketball. You never know, the Knicks could be next years Atlanta Hawks or Philidelphia 76'ers.
