If only we could, in some delicate, scientific process, combine Mike D'Antoni and Alvin Gentry, then the world could meet the greatest basketball coach of all time.
D'antoni averaged 58 wins per season in his 4 full seasons as Phoenix Suns head coach. Pretty gosh darn good. He also accumulated 26 playoff victories in that time. I'd like that number to be the maximum 64 as much the next guy, but 26 is not too shabby.. Compare that 26 to any team other than the Spurs and Pistons and I'd bet that the Suns are looking pretty good.
Gentry is a measly 13-11 so far in his head coaching tenure with the Suns. That's bad, but we need to remember that he has done nearly all of it at much less than full strength. Amare Stoudemire has missed all but two-and-a-half of those and Leandro Barbosa has missed 10-12 of those games. Those two are huge components in a run-n-gun system.
Now, if we could just find a guy that's as much of an offensive genius as D'Antoni and have that guy play his bench as much as Gentry does. That would be perfection. I do believe the Suns offense was much better under D'Antoni than it is with Gentry. That might be difficult for some to understand because the three games that Gentry had the Phoenix Suns at full strength they scored 140 each game. However, two of those were against the injury ridden Clippers and the other was against the lowly Oklahoma City Thunder.
As much as my blog may indicate that I didn't like Mike D'Antoni, I really did like him. I just wished that he would've told his starters to "Grab some bench" more often. Look at Goran Dragic. He would've never played under D'Antoni and Porter never played him, but Alvin Gentry stuck him out and told him, "Don't worry if you make mistakes. Just play through them and we'll look at the film later. Just don't make the same mistake again. And when you do make a mistake, don't look at the bench of you're gonna be grabbing some bench." That may not be an exact quote.
So, I need those filthy liberals to mess with God given genetics and find a way to combine the philosophies of these two men.
3 comments:
Well, well...I probably agree with MOST of this. I'm especially happy to see how Dragic, Dudley and Tucker have blossomed under Gentry. Usually all it takes is to just get a chance. I hope they keep the team and coaches intact for next season--maybe add Eddie Johnson as an assistant!
So, are the Suns even going to the playoffs? I sorta hate having no professional basketball team to really follow. I'm losing my understanding of the game--just a little--and I just have no idea what you are talking about. However, I do like to hear these tidbits since I don't know what's going on.
Since I'm a liberal (I don't know about the filthy part...:D), I will get right on it. Those genetics need to be messed with!...On a less tongue-in-cheek note, I really liked this post--which is weird, because for one thing, I didn't even know who the Suns' new head coach was (me + basketball = bleh)...but I actually got what you were saying, and I agree with you, even though I never had a position on the whole coaching issue before that. Wow, I'm rambling now. Anyways, good perspective. :)
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