NEW YORK — So the recruitment of one of the NBA’s brightest coaching minds was done with a tantalizing lure. Donnie Walsh couldn’t sell the present to Mike D’Antoni, but because of the well-known Madison Square Garden resources, the future always has unlimited potential.
Come hell or high loss totals along the way, Walsh will get the Knicks under the salary cap by 2010. The Garden is always an attractive place for free agents and landing a players’ coach only sweetens the pot. A person with knowledge of the situation said Bulls players were filling team executive John Paxson’s inbox with text messages, begging him to bring D’Antoni to Chicago.
“They wanted to play for Mike,” the person said.
And Walsh is banking on this to be just another reason for LeBron James to seriously consider making the Garden his home if he declines a $17.1-million player option and becomes a free agent in 2010.
It would take a lot of payroll maneuvering in the meantime and, perhaps, some tough decisions. As the roster stands, the Knicks will have just $28 million against the cap going into the 2010-11 season.
“I think those thoughts are very prominent in the front office,” said a person with knowledge of the situation.
D’Antoni, who will be officially introduced as Knicks coach this week, had a two-time MVP in Steve Nash running his high-octane offense and all-stars Shawn Marion and Amare Stoudemire as key pieces in his system with the Suns.
One person with knowledge of D’Antoni’s thinking suggested he “would probably use (James) at the four spot (power forward). … He would fit in anywhere.”
James is the mold of the ideal player for the D’Antoni system. “Ideally,” said one person with knowledge of D’Antoni’s thinking, “you would have a bunch of 6-9 guys who can handle the ball and shoot threes.”
But this is all hypothetical. Right now, D’Antoni is taking over a team that won 23 games last season. There is a prevailing belief that D’Antoni’s freewheeling style is not the right fit for the Knicks as they are currently constructed. But those who have worked with D’Antoni insist he can and will adjust to the personnel he has.
“It’s a block of clay, and they’re working the clay right now and trying to decide what the possibilities are,” said Memphis Grizzlies coach Marc Iavaroni, who spent the previous three-plus seasons as an assistant with D’Antoni on the Suns’ coaching staff. “They are not married to anything as of right now, that I would think. They would probably be talking about what can we do that will move this one step at a time; whether it’s a roster move, whether it’s a style move, whatever it is.”
Make no mistake, the style eventually will be what we’ve seen in Phoenix, where the team lived by the “Seven Seconds” mantra, which encouraged players to look for their shot in the first seven seconds of a possession. It is a philosophy that leads to more possessions and, therefore, more opportunities to score. It also means there are fewer passes within an offensive set, which results in fewer turnovers.
“Most coaches believe defenses are more vulnerable late in the shot clock, that you can get them out of position with a lot of passing,” D’Antoni said in the Oct. 31, 2005, issue of Sports Illustrated. “We think defenses are most vulnerable before they get set.”
According to 82games.com, 43 percent of the Suns’ possessions this season resulted in a shot within 10 seconds of the 24-second shot clock. By comparison, the Knicks took a shot in the first 10 seconds 37 percent of the time.
Opponents of this style say there is too much emphasis on offense, and defense is an afterthought. Even Walsh had long believed the traditional way — half-court-based, inside-out offense and a grinding, in-your-face defense — was the way to go.
“He and I have had numerous philosophical conversations regarding the new Suns-like style versus the classic style; the Heat with Riley, the Spurs and Boston,” said one league executive who has been a longtime Walsh confidant. “We usually ended up in the same place: The classic style teams seem to be sizing for rings.
“That said, the Pacers hired a new-style guy in (Jim) O’Brien last season. and I know that Donnie liked the selection.”
As the story goes, D’Antoni came upon this style out of basic need. During his first training camp as coach of the Suns in 2004-05, he looked at his roster and realized he did not have an experienced, traditional power forward.
So D’Antoni thought that instead of inserting an inexperienced, somewhat overmatched player in his starting five, why not just add another swingman? So unwittingly began Marion’s career as the smallest power forward in the NBA. But it worked. With an extra athlete on the floor, the Suns scored a league-high 110.4 points per game that season.
“We’re in the entertainment business,” D’Antoni told his players, according to the SI feature. “Our fans came out last year because we were exciting to watch. The NBA wants an up-tempo game because they can sell it better. And when you start cutting up the pie, it’s a lot bigger when the fans respond.”
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