Fact Checking Stephen A. Smith

It's been more than two years since Ken Tremendous, Dak, Junior and the rest of the contributors at Fire Joe Morgan stopped scouring the sports media landscape for paeans to grit or attacks on reason. Sadly (for the rest of us), the success and stresses of their day jobs in the wider world had forced them to stop directing traffic at your local thoroughfare of debate, leaving us gridlocked, gawking at the latest roadside pile up of Bill Plaschke's mixed metaphors.

During the ensuing months, their methods have occasionally been applied by other practitioners, notably Drew Magary over at Kissing Suzy Kolber. FJM's titular muse has even been stripped of (or given up, depending on who you ask) his national platform for disseminating skepticism about the veracity of facts since the guys have closed up shop.

Perhaps in deference to its diminished capacity for nonsense and misplaced vitriol with Morgan no longer in the fold, the Worldwide Leader allowed Stephen A. Smith back onto its website not so long after the Hall of Fame second baseman was no longer calling ballgames. For those of you out there blissfully hard of hearing or otherwise unaware of this sports personality, Smith has alternately carved himself cozy and lucrative niches in print, radio and on the Interwebs over the past decade thanks in large part to the sheer force and volume of his ego and his inexhaustible supply of outrage.

Tireless and unchastened by setbacks, Smith is something of a marvel. If you didn't consume sports media and/or happened to be related to him then you'd likely be very impressed with how well he has done for himself and how many more famous people he knows than you. But if you consume sports media then it's likely you've come to loathe and/or mock Smith. In all three mediums, and under the employ of various media companies, Smith has eventually outstayed his welcome. He has left Philadelphia. He has left New York. He moved from South to North. He has gone from ESPN to FOX. And back again. He's even popped on MSNBC and in a feature film. In August 2005, at what looks to have been height of Smith's career, he was awarded a daily one-hour talk show. The show ran until January 2007, when it was cancelled due to low ratings and high levels of unintentional comedy. At his zenith, Smith was branching out from hoops, his area of expertise (read=contacts) and was offering opinions on other sports and even politics. Enter FJM.

With Smith back in print and writing about the Knicks, I've felt obligated to take matters, along with a copy of The Chicago Manual of Style, into my own hands. Since Smith seems to have no fear of being fired, I propose something that might actually embarrass him: Fact Checking. Without further ado, welcome to the first installment of "Fact Checking Stephen A. Smith."

HED: There's no defense for Mike D'Antoni
DEK: Amid the wreckage of a first-round sweep, it's clear the Knicks need a new head coach

Byline: Stephen A. Smith

Source: ESPNNewYork.com

Now that the broomsticks have been unleashed and it has been emphatically established that the New York Knicks, for all their bluster and bloviating, are nothing more than an average franchise with an exorbitant payroll, it's time to move forward. To put legitimate pieces in place to preserve assets and eliminate liabilities.

For a man with no inside voice, who traffics exclusively in bluster and bloviation even after losing several high-profile jobs, I'm mildly surprised that Smith finds these qualities objectionable in another group just because they lost a playoff series. But I'm even more surprised to read "for all their bluster and bloviating" in regards to these 2010-2011 Knickerbockers. Who blustered? Who bloviated? Was Toney Douglas calling up WEEI in Boston to spread rumors about Delonte West having slept with Ray Allen's mom?

As best as I can tell, there was nobody wearing a Knicks uniform who was mouthing off before or during this series with Boston. For all the starpower of the new New York Knickerbockers, they haven't held any celebratory events in the vain vein of the Miami Heat. There were no guarantees. There were no ultimatums. No one even stated that it was personal. Is Smith confusing the Knicks with Rex Ryan's Jets? Could Smith have found Chauncey Billups' comment about the Knicks being a "tough out" this inflammatory? Perhaps he is conflating the chorus of barks from media members, like himself, surrounding the 'bockers since they returned to relevance over the past year with statements made by actual members of the team. In any case, we're off to an inauspicious start here as Smith is already imbuing the subjects of his story with attributes that suit his conclusion.

Also, the sentence fragment that concludes this opening paragraph makes me wonder if Smith is aware of how NBA front offices, especially the successful ones, spend the offseason. Had the Celtics not taken their brooms off their leashes(????) and allowed the Knicks to win one of those first two games before advancing to the second round would the Knicks not be putting legitimate pieces in place, preserving assets and eliminating liabilities? When Smith contends that circumstances have made it time for those activities isn't he just stating that the Knicks have entered the offseason? Or does assume that only losers have to worry such things? Does he know what RC Buford has been doing in San Antonio all these years?

It's true that the Knicks had an exorbitant payroll as they bottomed out in recent years, but Donnie Walsh took a can of gasoline and a box matches to the roster that Isiah Thomas had recklessly constructed. Several controlled burns later and the Knicks' 2010-2011 payroll of $67,327,114 ranked 16th out of 30. Without one of the top 10 earners in the league this season, the Knicks' salaries are closer to the cheapskate Sacramento Kings then they are to the high rolling (and title contending) Los Angeles Lakers at the top of the heap.

And after watching the Knicks' first-round loss to the Boston Celtics -- how they spent most of Easter weekend stinking up Madison Square Garden before a 36-year-old journeyman point guard nearly came to the rescue -- priority No. 1 is too obvious to ignore any longer: Mike D'Antoni has to go.

My dad suggested the same several times during my family's Easter Brunch. Please show your work, though, Mr. Smith unless you want to be relegated to Shit My Dad Says status.

It is not easy to call for the exodus of a coach who averaged 58 wins a season in his previous job, who is as kind and decent as they come. Nor does it seem fair to call for the head of a coach who, some would say, helped resurrect this franchise and made the Knicks relevant again. But when players are devoid of respect for a coach's basketball acumen, when the opposition laughs over the transparency of his game plan -- so much so that D'Antoni's players intimated they had instituted their own changes at halftime of a close-out game -- the need for a change simply cannot be denied.

In other words: What Smith is doing here is hard work. Not many journalists have the necessary fortitude to call for the jobs of decent, successful coaches. But, fear not readers, our scribe has been doing this since his college days at Winston Salem. The coach at WSU when Smith arrived on campus with college hoop dreams was the legendary Clarence "Big House" Gaines, who had already captured a Division II national championship and been inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame. As the door closed on his stillborn basketball career, Smith found his star on the rise in the student newspaper. The story that got everyone's attention? Smith calling for Gaines to resign or be removed from his post. Smith contended that the coach's flagging health was hurting the team and lobbied for the icon to be dumped.

Aside from his penchant for calling for coaches to be fired, you'll also notice that Smith always works in absolutes. Well, mostly. Sometimes he equivocates, but mostly things are must, always, never, now, impossible and obvious as described by Smith. Which, is why he asserts that his assertion about D'Antoni "simply cannot be denied." Really? Watch me.

The rare display of heart and guts the Knicks exhibited in the second half of Sunday's Game 4 didn't happen just because they started hitting shots and the Celtics suddenly forgot how to defend them. "We got tired of the way things were going," one player explained in the wee hours of Sunday night, long after everyone had departed from the Garden.

Considering Amar'e Stoudemire's standout game and the overall defensive effort in Game 1 and Carmelo and the Crickets nearly pulling off a shocker in Game 2, I find it a bit disingenuous to say describe the late rally in Game 4 as a "rare display of heart and guts." As the Yiddish saying goes, a half truth is a whole lie.

Smith seems to approach his written work as if it were being broadcast on AM radio. Knowing that he's filed columns via Blackberry, I wouldn't even be shocked if this were dictated and never revised. However, the ephemeral nature of talk radio allows high-volume half truths, recurring inconsistencies and outright exaggerations to flutter off into oblivion. As more and more journalists become talking heads on television and drive-time yakkers on the radio, the lines between these mediums are blurred and the work across all platforms tends toward the lowest common denominator.

"We walked in at halftime and said 'We can't go out this way.' We were pretty ticked off, especially at us not seeming to have any answers scheme-wise. We knew Boston knew everything we were going to do, how we were going to do it, so we needed to do something differently. We just couldn't keep going the way we were going."

Now, a quote like this shows the ace in Smith's hand: He's got access and contacts that the rest of us don't have. He's the Peter King of the NBA, regaling us with tales of his text messages with Allen Iverson. I don't doubt that this quote is at least paraphrased from a statement made by a player on the New York roster, but I also am not certain that Smith isn't using it somewhat out of context to further his point.

Clearly, Smith would like us to assume that the "we" used by the player does not include the coaching staff while the "us" does refer mostly to the coaching staff. He's also refusing to mention, for context, that the Celtics may have known what the Knicks were running because the team was thoroughly depleted by injuries to Billups and Stoudemire and the ineffectiveness of Landry Fields. Should D'Antoni have drawn up more plays for Jared Jeffries to keep the Celtics guessing?

As coach of the Knicks, D'Antoni deserves credit for inserting Anthony Carter into the game, allowing him to defend Rajon Rondo. He also deserves credit for allowing the team to go zone on occasion, for switching on shooters Ray Allen and Paul Pierce, with Carter serving as the catalyst. But if D'Antoni deserves credit for allowing those things to take place, he also harbors culpability for going a full game-and-a-half without a true point guard on the floor, for making little to no adjustments, for leaving the players to essentially decide for themselves at halftime Sunday that swinging back wouldn't entail just jacking up 3s inside of 10 seconds.

Buried in this counterproductive paragraph (insofar as it does more to disprove Smith's thesis than to show why the coach should be fired) is one valid point against D'Antoni. Perhaps it did take him too long to lean on Carter. To my untrained eye, Douglas seemed tentative from the moment that he picked up his first foul in Game 2. Every ill-advised and out of character backpedal on defense seemed rooted in his fear of fouling out with Billups in street clothes.

By my count, Smith credits D'Antoni with four things in this graph while citing three errors. I'm going to absolve him of going a game-and-a-half without a true point guard on the floor because his true point guard was injured in the waning moments of Game 1 and the consensus was that Douglas was the point guard to run out against Rajon Rondo. He wasn't up to it. And perhaps D'Antoni took too long to accept that fact. But how do you write about that without even mentioning in passing that starting point guard was unavailable due to injury?

It seems like Smith is unaware that Games 1 and 2 took place. Almost.

Notwithstanding the tremendous effort displayed in Games 1 and 2, the New York Knicks cannot play defense, folks! Primarily because schematically it's never important, nor has it ever been a priority in D'Antoni's mind.

Well, Smith is aware of the pair of tightly contested games in Boston. He just isn't going to let them sway his opinions. So, notwithstanding those two games in the four game series when the Knicks held a higher-seeded championship contender to 87 points and 96 points, respectively, this team didn't defend at all! Except when they did. My glasses aren't orange-tinted enough for me to claim this a stout defensive team or even an average defensive team. They allowed 110.1 points per 100 possessions and the league average was 107.3 this season. That ranked them 22nd out of 30 clubs.

Points per 100 possessions (DRtg) is a much better tool than points allowed because it normalizes the pace. That hasn't stopped most columnists from lambasting D'Antoni's teams through the years as the worst defensive teams in the league. Smith is clearly working off that assumption. However, the numbers tell a slightly different story.

Year	DRtg	League Rank	League Average
2007–08	108.1	16	107.5
2006–07	106.4	13	106.5
2005–06	105.8	16	106.2
2004–05	107.1	17	106.1

Contrary to popular belief, D'Antoni's teams in Phoenix were not terrible on defense. They were mediocre and were about league average per 100 possessions the entire time that he was at the helm. This competency was masked by the pace at which they played, fastest in the league in his first two seasons and then third and fourth in the next two. The faster pace may have allowed the opponent more chances to score but D'Antoni's clubs defended those chances about as well as most teams while scoring much better than most. I find it hard to believe that most teams wouldn't sign up for a league average defense with a top 5 offense.

Also, Smith's use of "notwithstanding" makes me think of the scenes in Talladega Nights when Ricky Bobby keeps beginning sentences by saying "With all due respect."



Mike D'Antoni's NBA teams have always excelled at the offensive end of the floor. He is an innovator on offense.

Yes, he is. Having conceded this point, Smith isn't going to trash his offense. Is he?

The same coach who's being paid $6 million per season here was out in Phoenix because he would not heed former Suns executive Steve Kerr's advice that he simply couldn't win a championship with his system. Fast-forward to three full seasons later and nothing has changed.

The same "former" Suns executive Steve Kerr that has been providing color commentary during these 2011 NBA playoffs rather than leading a team that aforementioned championship? Yup, that'd be the one. There is no doubt that Kerr's tenure was hamstrung slightly by cash-strapped Sun owner Robert Sarver but it seems like Smith might be rushing to credit the former sharpshooter as an authority on winning just because he presided over D'Antoni's exit from the desert.

I'm sure there are snarky Phil Jackson quotes that could have been employed here to much greater effect, but Smith isn't about to do research. That being said, I think many Knicks fans would like to see a de facto defensive coordinator added to the coaching staff.

There are high pick-and-rolls. There's Amare Stoudemire coming from the corner, getting the ball near the elbow, with everyone and their grandmother knowing that's exactly what is going to occur. Or there's Stoudemire coming from the low block to set screens -- except everyone knows he's getting the ball and that he's not going to set a screen. And intertwined with it all is the arrival of Carmelo Anthony, assigned to doing pretty much the same thing.

"We are easy to scout but tough to play against," John Wooden confessed to Time in 1974. "With Bill Walton in our lineup, our strategy is simple," Wooden explained. "You go to him until the opposing team stops it. Then you go to others. If you don't go to Walton, it's like using Babe Ruth in your lineup to bunt."

The Time article goes on to state that "The Wooden approach is, of course, more sophisticated than that; the Bruins always play within a well-rehearsed plan. On offense, Wooden's first love is the fast break, with Walton firing lead passes to his teammates streaking down the court to score before the opposition's defense can set up."

Sound familiar? After conceding D'Antoni's talents for offensive just a few sentences ago, it seems counterproductive for Smith to turn around and start taking shots at that aspect of his coaching. Perhaps, he meant to write "Notwithstanding D'Antoni's status as an offensive innovator..."

"Coach knows offense," one player explained. "It would be nice to set plays, control pace and not jack up shots just because you're open. But that's what Coach does. You could live with it if we played defense. But obviously, we haven't done that much. Good, bad or otherwise, all I can say is that I've never seen anything like this."

To me, this sounds like it might be Chauncey Billups, who is chummy enough with Smith to have appeared on Quite Frankly while it was on the air. Regardless of the source, Smith continues to take shots at the offense. To take issue with the quote itself, one could certainly argue pushing the tempo is controlling the pace and that D'Antoni's offense creates more open looks than the iso sets that one presumes would constitute the plays being suggested.

What team has a 6-foot-9, 230-pound player like Shawne Williams assigned to stand around and shoot 3s?

The answer to this question during the past two seasons was no one would have used him that way. Because nobody was using him in any way. Out of the NBA last year, Williams played just 15 games in 2008–09 for Indiana. Before he swiped the last spot on this Knicks' roster from Patrick Ewing Jr., Williams was an NBA washout with legal trouble and a bad reputation. During the season he played his way into the rotation and was briefly the most accurate three-point marksman in the league. He also added toughness to the defense, including a stellar effort on LeBron James in one of the Knicks' victories over the Heat.

Letting Williams play his way into the rotation from the bottom of the bench, seems to me an example of D'Antoni's flexibility more than anything else. Just a terrible choice to show that he's stubborn as far as I'm concerned. Talk about his refusal to use Eddy Curry or Stephon Marbury or the insistence of having Jared Jeffries on the floor for the final offensive possession of Game 2. How does a writer constructing a case for D'Antoni's dismissal based largely on the NYK-BOS series not mention Jeffries? Oh, wait, it's probably because Smith is notwithstanding Games 1 and 2.

What team has an athlete like Bill Walker, who's 6-6, 220, programmed to do the same?
See above. Having played sparingly in 1+ seasons in Boston and only in bursts in New York as trades and injuries have opened up playing time, I'd say there isn't exactly a book on best practices for Bill Walker. Again, Smith has chosen to call out a player that really isn't helpful in proving his point? Talk to me about the waiving of Corey Brewer if you're trying to show me that D'Antoni is unreasonable.

How can such a haphazard, frenetic brand of basketball -- you constantly hear D'Antoni screaming at players to shoot whenever open, no matter how much time is on the shot clock -- be permitted to continue when your $100 million franchise player just completed his ninth season? When Anthony, your other franchise player, just completed his eighth season? When both are signed for more than $80 million apiece over the next four seasons, yet based on the fatigue and injuries, neither looked as if he was physically conditioned to go another game in this series?

Just as important, what kind of players will you draft if this system remains in place? Knowing D'Antoni won't play guys who don't fit in?

Please just ignore the fact that Smith is now slamming D'Antoni's offensive acumen just a few graphs after heaping praise on it. Let's move on. So, if D'Antoni won't play guys who don't fit in then your drafting choice would seem straightforward. Draft guys that fit in. And who would that be?

1) Point guards with pace who can run the pick-and-roll.

2) Athletic Bigs that can get up and down and the floor to finish on the breaks that pacey point is initiating. Shot blocker preferred. And the ability to drop in a mid-range baseline jumper would be ideal but not required.

3) Hard-running wings who can keep opposing defense honest with ability to hit three.

Would it really be such a travesty to draft exclusively guys that fit this system?

The New York Knicks need a coach -- not a system. Coaches smirk at the luxury of preparing a game plan against it. Even folks like Charles Barkley have characterized D'Antoni's refusal to recognize the futility of his ways as "pure stubbornness."

Smith is right insofar as he states that the Knicks need a coach. Every team has a coach. Even the Toronto Raptors. But very few teams have a coach with a system. And, last I checked, a bejeweled, creaking fellow by the name of Phil Jackson was lauded for his use of (Tex Winter's) the Triangle Offense. Pete Carrill worked out fine for Princeton with that aptly named "Princeton Offense."

But if "even folks like Charles Barkley" disagree then maybe I should reconsider. What? Even paid commentators with a vested interest in being controversial? Mild-mannered, thinks-before-he-speaks Sir Charles? For a guy that railed against the blustering and bloviating by guys that didn't win at the top of this story, Smith sure seems to give a lot of credence to what Chuck has to say. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy watching Barkley on TNT, but I'm not about to make any personnel decisions because of something he said.

This city will have plenty of time to debate the future of Donnie Walsh as the president of the franchise, and whether he should stay so he can hire former St. John's star and present ESPN/ABC analyst Mark Jackson -- or whether MSG chairman James Dolan should let Walsh go and offer the coaching job and all of the basketball operations to a man in the last year of his deal, who just finished beating up on the Knicks: Celtics coach Doc Rivers.

What's not open for debate is that it's time for D'Antoni to go.

So, let's get this straight: Smith believes Walsh's future is open to debate despite having turned over Isiah's roster and gotten Melo and STAT fitted for Knickerbocker blue. He also believes that D'Antoni's future is sealed because his team didn't have a better showing in a first round loss to a team that he'd picked to win in the first place. And that Mark Jackson, who has never coached basketball at any level professional or amateur should replace D'Antoni before he has even one entire season with his tandem superstars.

Like a lot of fans and sportswriters, Smith makes the "perfect" the enemy of the "much, much, much better." He's refusing to accept a team that is so much better than anything the Knicks have fielded in ages because it is not yet perfect. He also seems to be assuming that anything that replaces this "very good" will be perfect.

But how does firing D'Antoni look when the Knicks are forced to interview retreads and lifetime assistant coaches? How does it look when Doc Rivers decides to have another go with Boston or to take a year off to watch his son play college ball? If Smith could look further into the future than RIGHT NOW, he might realize the smart play (for those looking to jettison D'Antoni) is to allow him to coach out next season and then go after Rivers once his son is one-and-done at Duke. There's also the reality of the looming lockout to consider? Do you want to hire a new coach and then pay him for a lost season while you're still paying D'Antoni? Of course, I guess Smith wouldn't concern himself with details of this sort since he still thinks the Knicks have the league's highest payroll.

Lest we want Amare and Melo to expire a helluva lot quicker than their contracts will.

Did Smith just intimate that retaining D'Antoni is tantamount to murdering Amar'e and/or Melo? Yeah, I think he did. At least, he didn't use an exclamation point.

Not Worth Saving

As a kid growing up in a leafy suburb in New Jersey, I couldn't wait for the start of Daylight Savings Time each Spring. From Groundhog Day on, I would intermittently ask my mom when we could change the clocks. I would pester her about it almost as often as I would ask my dad when was the next Knicks game that my grandpa had tickets for.

An annual harbinger of the ending of the academic year, Daylight Savings Time seemed more an act of god than a piece of civic legislation. I mean, all of a sudden there might as well have been 25 hours per day. To me, that was a miracle on par with snow days. This new found time was best used in three ways.

1.Full-field scrimmaging till dusk at soccer practice while a phalanx of Chevy Suburbans and Dodge Caravans lined the edge of the field behind the Catholic church in town.

2. Riding bikes.

3. Practicing post moves that I'd cribbed from Patrick Ewing in the driveway but would never really be tall enough to use in a game not against my two younger brothers.

Having no driveway and no soccer practice these days, I drove out to West Orange, NJ on the first day of Daylight Savings Time to get an Italian hot dog from Jimmy Buff's. I was moderately puzzled by the differences between the clocks in the car, kitchen and on my phone as I traversed the Mordoresque expanse of Kearney, but I figured this unsettled feeling had as much to do with my having slept on the couch as it did with the loss of any hour.

By the time that I'd polished off my combination order (one hot and one sausage) with all the fixings (peppers, onions, potatoes) in the inimitable pizza bread, I was feeling even more aware of the hour of sleep that I'd lost at some point in the night. Driving home, knowing that I needed to be at the Garden somewhat soon for the 6:00 p.m. tip-off, it felt like that hour had been stolen from me.

No way, though. Thoughts like that almost seem resentful of Daylight Savings Times. That grogginess must have been the gunmetal sky conspiring with the 17 tablespoons of unadulterated cooking oil that I'd ingested as part of my lunch, I assured myself. Because who would dare slander Daylight Savings Time? Even if just in my head while pushing my own weight eastbound on Route 7? Nobody. That can't be true. It's not possible.

False. There have actually been opponents of DST (as it's called in the Swatch biz) ever since George Vernon Hudson first suggested the practice in New Zealand in 1895. Apparently, the lives of others are not ordered precisely as my own youth. Odd, I know, but bear with me. For those DST detractors, the benefits of that extra hour of natural light in the evening didn't cover the cost of that lost hour in the morning. Farmers and rural folk have always disliked this custom intended mostly to help city slickers save a bit of coin on incandescent street lights and such. Oddly enough, the fast food lobby actually mediated the conflict at some point, as they convinced the farmers of America that the extra hour of daylight in the summer meant that substantially more french fries and burgers complete with lettuce, tomato and onions could be sold at places that probably last passed a health inspection the same year as Jimmy Buff's.


The Knicks-Pacers tilt at the Garden was getting underway at 6:00 p.m., which by Saturday's timetable would have been 7 p.m. To me, this meant I'd be home by 10 instead of by 11. No matter how jarred my body clock was, this was terrific news because it meant there might be time to watch an episode from season 1 of Breaking Bad before bed. But for some of the supporters of the Knicks' opponent it meant something else.

Indiana is in both the Corn Belt and the Grain Belt. It's also a place for cattle and dairying. Soybeans aren't an afterthought, either. So the Pacers' constituency counts among its members some of those rural types who have really never cared for all this clock changing business. To make matters even worse, Indiana is also one of 13 states straddling time zones. Mostly Eastern but partially Central, Indiana has had a contentious relationship with time pieces and timekeepers for decades. For many reasons, most of Indiana refused to participate in Daylight Savings Time. Cities near the Kentucky and Ohio borders would observe it unofficially to help keep pace with their neighbors. Over the years, counties have petitioned the state legislature to move from one time zone to other. A group of counties whose temporal status was forever murky became locally known as "the seesaw six." There was even a US naval base straddling three counties and two time zones. Finally, in 2006, it was decreed that all counties, regardless of time zone, observe DST. And people were pissed.


Which may explain why the Pacers attacked the game from the first whistle. They were most definitely playing like a team that was making up for lost time. The Knicks, meanwhile, looked like me in the driveway as a kid. Practicing, slow deliberate moves that were not much use in game situations.

Georgetown alum Roy Hibbert got as close to "rampaging" as his plodding frame will ever allow him, scoring the first four points of the game himself. Even with our defensive stopper Jared Jeffries in the starting lineup, the Knicks had no answer for this team that boasted both a legitimate center in Hibbert and a bulky power forward in Tyler Hansbrough. The Knicks can handle a team with one of those two types. And, by "handle," I mean allow that one player to kill it in the post while doing their best to run at everyone else on the wings. But two post players? This Knicks group doesn't have the equipment, physically, emotionally or schematically to handle that sort of balanced team. With Pacers point guard Darren Collison keeping the ball on a string and solid wing play from Paul George (and later Dahntay Jones), the visitors sprinted to an 8-1 lead before the 'bockers seemed to even know that the cameras had been turned on. Playing without its best player, Danny Granger, and mired in what seemed a terminal skid, this Pacers club made the Knicks look amateurish, like they might as well not go on the road while the NIT is in town later this month.

Midway through the first quarter, the Knicks would make their only true run of the game to go momentarily ahead, 17-16. That spurt consisted of Carmelo Anthony, Chauncey Billups and Amar'e Stoudemire scoring points. Of course it did. But once that run concluded with a made Melo free throw, the game was never really interesting again. In fact, it was downright boring. Baskets were traded as thoughtlessly as business cards at a Rotary Club meet and greet. There was no urgency or fluidity to what the Knicks were doing. There was little ball movement on offense and not enough moving of feet on defense. They were stagnant. And, the crowd followed suit. After watching three quarters Hansbrough dunking and altogether outplaying his more talented and better paid peers, even the chants of Dee-FENSE were lackluster. The malaise was so severe that I could barely muster enthusiasm for the t-shirt launch.

Perhaps you just don't want to play the Heartland's Hoops Team on a day as apparently fraught with tension as the start of Daylight Savings Time. Perhaps the home crowd and the home team approached this game, played at this early time, as if it were a lazy summer lark. Or perhaps the Knicks just got their own floor mopped with their own asses. I guess, we'll find out when these teams meet again a few nights from now in Indianapolis.

D'Antonisms

"They don't have Deron Williams. We don't want to get to excited. We'll just, you know, chill out. But, you know, that's three games in a row where I thought we were moving the ball. I thought we were playing well. You could see a little spirit starting to, you know, get between and them and that was good."
-On win over Jazz

"It's unbelievable. The guy can't jump at all and he's uh, well, you know, I don't even think he played particularly well but he's 25 and 14. There's maybe one other person in the world who can do that and he does it. And you gotta give him credit. He didn't, you know I told him at one point, I had to remind him that we were in the white shirts and not the blue shirts. He kept hitting the blue guys. So, you know, but he's got a knack and, like you said, those offensive rebounds, and come up, he came up with a couple big defensive plays and a couple of big hoops.
-On Zach Randolph's strange but effective skillset

Real Geniuses

Donnie Walsh and Mike D'Antoni Edition

Although the product on the court isn't exactly transcendent, or even mediocre, there have already been signs that both the Knicks new President and Head Coach are as clever as their press releases would have you believe. In fact, I'm willing to concede genius. Real genius.

As the papers filled with stories of Eddy Curry's large spot on the bench and Stephon Marbury's ever-imminent removal from the roster during the preseason there was something amazing happening. Because genius was at work. Lazlo-level genius.

I didn't understand what was happening at first. Because I am no genius. In fact, I was so far off the scent just a few weeks ago that I thought the opposite of genius was at work at MSG. I thought both Walsh and D'Antoni were experiencing a bit gun-shyness due to the enormity of the problem that they inherited from Isiah Thomas. I was puzzled when the Knicks didn't pull the trigger when they could have traded the Zach Randolph to the Los Angeles Clippers in July. The Clips were dealing from a position of weakness after Elton Brand's shock defection to the 76ers and the Knicks would have been able to shed Randolph without having to take back substantial contracts in return. I was bewildered, bordering on bepissed when Walsh rebuffed the offer. A few weeks later the Knicks again didn't trade Randolph when the chance arose. This time the potential suitor was the Memphis Grizzlies and the haul included a bunch of spare parts featuring Dark Milic.

At this point, I was not bewildered or befuddled. I was beside myself. What were they waiting for? Why weren't they taking what they could get for the man who I spent most last season referring to as the Zach-hole? Why weren't they packing the bags of the player this side of Steve Francis who most exemplified Isiah Thomas's facile understanding of team building? Everyone knew that dumping his contract (he's due $14.7 million this season, $16 million next and $17.3 million in 2010/11) was the keystone to constructing a bid for Lebron James when he enters free agency after next season. Everyone knew that it would be near impossible for the Knicks to clear the necessary salary cap space without moving Z-Bo. In the New York Post, Marc Berman equivocally said the only way [signing Lebron] would be possible is if they can deal Zach Randolph for shorter-term contracts.

What were they waiting for? I thought, as Berman did, that the team needed to get rid of him in order to turn this thing around. And that was the problem. If I knew it then so did every General Manager in the NBA. And, therefore it was impossible that Walsh would get fair value for a guy who, in spite of his many foibles, is one of the few players in the Association capable of putting up 20/10 each and every night. A good GM doesn't just get cap space (which is what the Clippers deal offered) or spare parts (the Grizzlies deal) for a player with that statistical potential. A good GM finds a contending team needing a scorer to put them over the top and cherry picks the most promising youngsters of the roster. A good GM doesn't trade a player when his perceived value is at his lowest. And, Zach Randolph's perceived value could hardly have been any lower than it was during the second half of last season and the first half of the offseason.

What did Walsh do? He got together with his head coach and in a matter of weeks the two of them turned Randolph from headache to honor roll, albeit in a severely remedial class. D'Antoni has benched Marbury, railed against Curry and stood by as the seemingly unquashable confidence of Jamal Craword was thoroughly quashed. And now, we're a week away from the season opener and Randolph is no longer the Knicks main problem. Quite the opposite. It could even be argued that he is the team's most dependable player. He will score and he will rebound for a team with very few stats you can project in pen. Moreover, with Curry seemingly out of the rotation to start the season Randolph will have free reign in the post when the Knicks settle into a halfcourt set on offense. He won't be pushed out to the perimeter by a teammate, where he was at his ball-stopping worst last year. Rather, Randolph will be the focal point of the offense and likely be able to work against centers who are not quick enough (and, yes, it does feel so very wrong to talk about someone not being quick enough to handle the flightless Z-Bo) to stay with him.

Now, has Randolph fundamentally changed at all? No. Is moving him any less important to the team's goal of landing Lebron James? Nope. But does it seem like those things are true? Maybe. Does it seem like Marbury and Curry are more pressing problems right now? It sure does. Especially if you read the papers. That is the beauty of this "plan" that I have given Walsh and D'Antoni credit for. And quite possibly conjured from thin air. I think they think that Randolph still needs to go. I think that they just don't want everyone else to think that they think that. You follow? So rather than driving a FOR SALE sign into the front lawn for the neighbors to see they have gotten to work repainting the house's siding and fixing the broken shutters. They stopped saying that they were going to sell their home. They turned down a few lowball offers and told the neighbors how great the house was and how many points it was going to score. And in a few months when a neighbor's roof starts to leak he may stop by and ask if you ever thought of selling that great, point-scoring house of yours.

Before we know it Randolph will be averaging more than 18 points and 10 rebounds per game. After a few weeks of getting the ball in whatever semblance of D'Antoni's "seven seconds or less" offense the Knicks manage to scrap together, Randolph will again be considered the go-to offensive force that he was considered when Isiah Thomas traded for him. Or, at least, the numbers will be about the same. And then everyone won't think that Walsh needs to trade Randolph. After all, he'll be the team's leading scorer and second-leading rebounder. He'll have those magical 20/10 numbers that make GMs salivate. Back when Randolph was acquired by the Knicks the move made no sense as far as team-building strategery was concerned, but his numbers were so impressive that Knicks fans uncomfortably got behind the deal. Those numbers make lesser men (read: Isiah Thomas) do things that don't always make sense. Donnie Walsh understands this.

Walsh was named Knicks President the day after April Fool's Day and in less than seven months he is well on his way, with a great deal of help from Mike D'Antoni, to fooling just such a lesser man around the league. Because he is smarter than they are. While we've been debating Duhon vs. Marbury and pondering the potential of Wilson Chandler and Danilo Gallinari these two have been slowly and surely rehabilitating Zach Randolph's image.

In about a month and a half Walsh will have everyone right were he wants them. And, then Randolph will be shipped to the Cavs to provide the scoring that Ben Wallace can't or he'll head to Detroit to provide some off-the-bench offense for a team that has everything but that. And, in return Walsh and D'Antoni will get back far more than the Clippers or Grizzlies were willing to offer when they thought they had the Knicks over a barrel. Just watch.

Well played, sirs.

Better Know Your Head Coach (Part II)

The second in WWOD?'s three-part series Better Know Your (NEW) Head Coach gets a tremendous assist from the fine folks at the even finer Phoenix Suns blog Bright Side of the Sun. The sun-tanned denizens of the valley of the sun were kind enough with their time too answer a deluge of questions that I sent them. And, they did so with a generosity and insight that amazed me. They are very good at what they do. So, read on and, all-together-now, get to Better Know Your Head Coach.

WWOD?: Vizzini always told us, "Go back to the beginning." So let's do just that. How on Walt Clyde Frazier's green Earth did the New York Knicks end up with Mike D'Antoni? One minute we were all talking ourselves into Mark Jackson (who we love for his St. John's and Knickerbocker history but who has also never even held an assistant coaching position on a high school team) and the next minute we're signing up the 2004-2005 NBA Coach of the Year and arguably the most innovative hoops mind of the past decade. How did this happen?

Bright Side of the Sun: Sometimes guys are so good at one thing that they start believing their pub and refuse to change. D'Antoni is that guy.

You first have to understand that he was an NBA nobody when he lucked into the Phoenix job after the Suns fired Frank Johnson a few weeks into the 2003-04 season. What you won't read is that Johnson was fired not so much for his poor record but because of a sex scandal that made him unacceptable to the puritanical Jerry Colangelo. So really, D'Antoni can thank Frank's wandering pecker for his big break and the irony is that he is again replacing a head coach with his own "woman problems". Mike D of course did amazing things in Phoenix and for the league in general and he (and Nash) turned the Suns into a contender.

His public failings – lack of defensive focus and poor player development – are well documented but from my cheap seat his real failing is his stubbornness.But before I slam him, let me also debunk another myth about the Suns. Seven Seconds or Less (7SOL) didn't die in early February when Shaq came to town. That system died when the Suns lost to the Spurs in the 2007 playoffs. It wasn't the suspensions that killed the Suns; it was the inability to adjust to playoff basketball against defensive teams that were able to defend in transition and slow the game to a grind.

D'Antoni recognized this and spent all of the 2007-08 season slowing the Suns down and learning to run an execution style half court offense. This meant more ball handling duties for Hill and Diaw and less of a dependence on Nash to create everything. It was a fairly encouraging development in the eyes of yours truly. The problem was that while he was able to adjust the offense to a more slow down half court game, he wasn't willing to adjust defensively and play bigger, slower less talented players so that the interior defense and rebounding improved.

In the first two years of his reign the Suns could get away with being small because they were so fast and so explosive. When they gave that up they no longer could afford that weakness. And that lead to the Shaq gamble. Right idea. Wrong player.

He and the Suns should have brought in a big guy like Diop and kept Marion or at least traded Marion for the same kind of defensive athletic big along with picks, young talent, etc. Instead D'Antoni insisted on a big that could rebound and defend but also be a threat in his beloved offense. That insistence lead to $40m worth of reputation that couldn't defend away from the hoop, couldn't hit a free throw and could barely score from 2ft in the post. Sure, the Suns GM and owner signed off on this but it was D'Antoni's refusal to consider other options that lead to it and D'Antoni was the biggest advocate for the trade.

And as the final straw of D'Antoni's hard-headedness was his refusal to bench an injured Grant Hill in the first 3 games of this year's Spurs series. He hadn't used enough depth and variety in his rotations to prepare the team to play without Hill and he personally couldn't get it through his head that Hill wasn't able to deliver. He waited until game 4 to adjust and by then it was too late.

Finally, when Kerr came to him and asked that he spend a full 30 minutes per practice on defensive schemes and rotations and consider playing a deeper rotation ala Detroit he decided that was too much intrusion and interference and left for the Big Apple.

It was time for a change for all involved.

WWOD?: Should whatever went down in Phoenix to catalyze this coaching change concern Knicks fans or should we just be happy to pick up the pieces?

Bright Side: I have no idea but I am curious to see how things work out for D'Antoni in New York. History shows that great coaches can adjust and can be successful in different places. In the next year or two we will find out if D'Antoni is really a great coach or a guy that had the perfect storm of an innovative system and Nash, Amare and Marion to run it.I can't think that after the Brown and Isaiah debacles that the Knicks could have done any better. You can only go up from there. The true test will come in a few years if the Knicks actually get competitive to see if Mike can get over the hump.

One thing is clear though – he is in a place where he's got some room to fail and so does Terry Porter. That wouldn't have been the case if he had stayed in Phoenix. Freedom to fail and lowered expectations should let D'Antoni and the Suns (and Suns fans) enjoy the next season or two a lot more then the last one which was a joyless pressure cooker for all involved.

WWOD?: What was your first reaction to the news that D'Antoni was on the way out? Was the writing on the wall? It seemed sort of shocking from afar. We ran a poll of potential coaching candidates (which included employed coaches known to be on the proverbial hot seat) and D'Antoni never even entered the conversation.

Bright Side: It was no surprise. There was talk at the end of last season that if he couldn't get it done that a change might be in order. And as the season progressed and it became clear that he wasn't going to do the things everyone agreed he needed to do that he was in trouble. In December, he and Kerr had a fight over direction which leaked out as well. They both said all the right things, but the writing was on the wall that they weren't on the same page.

Then during the Spurs series there were some very public signs. After game 1, D'Antoni "blamed" the Suns offense and Kerr "blamed" the defense and as the series went on Kerr and Sarver refused to openly support him and I think Amare quit on him as well. He was a non-factor in games 4 and 5.

WWOD?: What was the feeling in Phoenix when the word spread that D'Antoni was out? We always got the impression that he and his team were well liked. Was this the case?

Bright Side: Mixed I guess. We had quite the debate about it over at Bright Side of the Sun.

Fans everywhere are driven by expectations. As the Suns went from crap to contender all was well. As they got closer and closer to the ring the expectations increased so when he wasn't able to deliver then things turned.

I am guessing Yankee's fans know a thing or two about that and clearly watching some recent D-Backs/Mets games the boo's at Shea are expressing the same thing – frustration at an underperforming team.

WWOD?: Which players currently in Phoenix do you think would have an interest in playing for their old coach in the Garden? Which would the Kerr consider letting loose? Ditto for the assistant coaches?

WWOD?: Well, we already know that Brother Dan and Phil Weber are going to the Knicks. You can have them. Nothing special there other then loyalty to the boss.

As for players – well, this is a much larger can of worms of course and I don't have the time, energy or brain power to think through all the possible trade possibilities.

Obviously, the two guys that benefited most from the D'Antoni's were Barbosa and Diaw. He protected and coddled both of them and most Suns fans feel that he didn't get the best out of either.

I am ready to trade Barbosa to get back either a backup PG or backup Center that really is good enough to start about 40 games b/c that's about all you can expect from Shaq. I don't know that the Knicks meet either of those needs (don't even think about sending us Marbury or Curry).

So unless its some kind of multi-team deal, I wouldn't hold your breath for either of those guys.

And frankly, I am not in favor of letting Boris go despite his issues. There are very few players that can do what he can do on both ends of the floor and perhaps with Porter he will be better motivated and utilized.

I think Barbosa has pretty much peaked in his career as far as potential. He's not a PG and he can't cover anyone. Don't you already have that guy? Or seven of them?


WWOD?: Speaking of former pupils of the Italian master: Do you have any insight as to how Marbury might be feeling about reuniting with D'Antoni? Do you think that there is any way that Shawn Marion is sitting in Miami and thinking about heading north?

Bright Side: No comment.


WWOD?: What was the best thing about having D'Antoni as your coach (excluding his mustache)? What aspect of coaching in the NBA was he best at?

Bright Side: Mike D is a great at media, fan and sponsor relations. He can be funny and charming and "articulate". Have fun with that.


WWOD?: What was the worst thing about having D'Antoni as your coach (excluding his mustache)? What aspect of coaching in the NBA was he worst at?

Bright Side: See question 1 – stubbornness.

WWOD?: I've read 7 Seconds Or Less seven (or less) times since Walsh introduced D'Antoni. Is the sort of access that D'Antoni granted to the SI writer for that book indicative of his relationship with the press? In recent years, the Knicks organization has been compared to the Communist bloc when it comes to freedom of the press.

Bright Side I have to think that Donnie Walsh as part of his coming to NY is going to address that and in turn Mike D will be giving the opportunity to tear down the wall. If not, he's not going to last very long behind the Iron Dolan Curtain.

WWOD?: And lastly, what is the deal with the 'stache? Does it have powers? Will it steal my girlfriend?

Bright Side: I predict with Mike so close to Madison Ave, the mustache will be the new craze to sweep the nation just like the return of bell bottoms and long hair.

I would start work on mine now if I would were you.

Better Know Your Head Coach (Part 1)

The first in WWOD?'s three-part series Better Know Your (NEW) Head Coach explores the background and life story of Mike D'Antoni - from his hometown of Mullens, West Virginia to his new work place of Madison Square Garden. This is your official primer on D'Antoni.

In case you hadn't heard, the New York Knickerbockers of the NBA hired a new head coach back in May. The team's previous coach, Isiah Thomas, was fired after an interminable death march that makes the Willie Randolph saga seem like the joyous and brief harmony of a group of briskly strolling charolers on a mid December night.

Although the roster appears in shambles the New York Knicks gig is still one of the most coveted jobs in sports. Coaching the Knicks goes along with coaching the Lakers, Celtics and Bulls as the top jobs in the pro game. It's on par with coaching men's b-ball at UCLA or paid, grown-up football in Dallas, Texas. I mean, it's coaching hoops in New York City. In the Mecca. It's the Great White Way. Even if recent seasons were more vaudeville than Broadway this is the Big Time.So, for the first time in a long time, the Knicks as an organization were dealing from a position of power in conducting their coaching search. For the first time in a long time they had something that other people actually covet. Actually they had two somethings that many somebodies coveted: they had the job itself to offer and they had all the money that goes along with it. And, with both of those things Donnie Walsh was able to land the 2004-2005 NBA Coach of the Year, Mike D'Antoni.

Born on May 8, 1951 in Mullens, West Virginia, D'Antoni has been zigging when everyone thought he should be zagging throughout his entire life. He is a Taurus and true to his sign of the Zodiac has a great work ethic, is artistic (see the offense he installed in Phoenix) and has a good sense of humor (read 7 Seconds Or Less). Also, true to his sign, he can be stubborn and prone to getting stuck in ruts (more about that in Part 2).

D'Antoni's hometown of Mullens is a small no-movie-theater and no-bowling-alley place in the mountainous south west of West Virginia. It could be said that D'Antoni lived in the sticks. But the truth is that you had to drive several miles to the next town to find a five-and-dime store that sold sticks. Perhaps because of a lack of options, the D'Antonis were a basketball family. The family patriarch, Lewis, was the coach at Mullens High School. His sons Dan and Mike were the local hardwood heroes. Mike was the top-rated baller in the state during his senior year at Mullens High and had recruiters making their way to his out-of-the-way home. In spite of being heavily recruited out of high school by in-state powerhouse West Virginia University (where everyone in Morgantown was hoping he would prove to be the homegrown second-coming of Jerry West) and out-of-state programs like Duke and Davidson, D'Antoni chose to follow in the footsteps of his older brother Dan (who is now an assistant coach on his staff in NY) and head to Marshall University. He was 19-years old in 1970 when a tragic airplane crash claimed the lives of 37 Marshall football players and 12 coaches. Many of the students who perished resided in the same athlete-dorm as the young point guard and at least twenty were people whom he considered friends. During his time on campus Mike led the team to NIT and NCAA tournament appearances.

After his standout college career at Marshall University, D'Antoni was drafted by the Kansas City-Omaha Kings in the 2nd round of the 1973 NBA Draft. He was the second pick of the second round in a draft headlined by Doug Collins. The Kansas City-Omaha team that he joined had finished last in the Midwest Division the previous season in spite of the presence of Tiny Archibald at the point guard spot. The year before D'Antoni had been drafted Archibald led the NBA in minutes played, field goals made, field goals attempted, free throws made, free throws attempted, assists and points. Archibald had been 1st Team All-NBA selection. So, no matter how much D'Antoni shined in spot duty, and shine he did as he was was an all-NBA Rookie Second Team choice for 1974, there was not much room for him on the stat sheet or on the court.

After 3 seasons stuck behind Archibald with the Kings, D'Antoni tested the waters of the freewheeling ABA, playing for the Spirits of St. Louis in 1976. He signed with the San Antonio Spurs the following season and found himself back in the NBA thanks to the 1977 merger of the two leagues. The Spurs team that D'Antoni joined was George Gervin's squad. It was Gervin's team and it was Gervin's ball. Quickly realizing that his situation in San Antonio was no better (and perhaps worse) than Kansas City, his Spurs career lasted just two games before he left our shores for the fast-cars and fast-play of Italy.

The pairing of D'Antonio and Olimpia Milano of the Italian league was a near perfect union from jump street. His confidence, being an American player coming to the Italian league in his prime years rather than after his best years were behind him (see Gervin), started D'Antoni on a legendary European career. He would go on to become his club's all-time leading scorer and lead them to five Italian titles, two Euroleague titles, two Cups of Italy, one Korac Cup and one Intercontinental Cup. He was their Michael Jordan. He would be voted the league’s top point guard of all time in 1990, which is a far more illustrious honor than the NBA All-Time Top 50 memberships doled out stateside in 1996.

D'Antoni's nickname across the continent was Arsène Lupin for his deft ability to steal the ball from other players. Lupin was a fictional character, a gentleman thief, created by French novelist Maurice Leblanc. This dapper thief was a sort of rakish contemporary counterpart to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes. While Holmes solved mysteries from the right side of the law with his trademark erudition and logic, Lupin was a more mustachioed do-gooder who was trying to avoid detection by the bad guys and the "good" guys.

Like Lupin, Mike D'Antoni was a mustachioed phenom and most of his countrymen had no idea. Among the select few who Americans who knew full well the measure of this man was a young boy whose father's line of work caused him to spend several of his formative years living at the epicenter of D'Antoni's heroics. This young boy would eventually move back to America and take up the game of his idol (and not coincidentally, his father). In homage to D'Antoni this precocious hoopster would wear his No. 8 upon reaching the NBA. You might have heard of this D'Antoni disciple, his name is Kobe Bryant. He may have erroniously been dubbed the "next Jordan" but it was D'Antoni's number on his uniform through the first ten seasons of his career.

After hanging up his high-tops Arsene Lupin was ready to become a coach. He began his career as the head coach for the Milanese club where he became a legend. He patrolled the sidelines for Olimpio Milano from 1990 to 1994, leading the club to the 1993 Korac Cup. He was then tapped to coach Pallacanestro Treviso Benetton, another Italian club. During his 3-year tenure the team captured the Cup of Europe and Coppa Italia and won the league title. He was twice voted the Coach of the Year. In other words, he was awesome.With Europe conquered, he re-crossed the Atlantic Ocean. The first NBA coaching job ever held by D'Antoni was with the Denver Nuggets. He joined the Nuggets during the 1997-98 season as he was the club’s director of player personnel. The head coach of the Nuggets that season was Bill Hanzlik. His team finished in last place in the Midwest Division. The next year, D'Antoni took over the reins. It was the 50-game season shortened by the work stoppage and D'Antoni never got his team - featuring Nick Van Exel, Antonio McDyess and Chauncey Billups - turned around. They scratched out only 14 victories in that foreshortened campaign and the rookie head coach was fired without little thought. D'Antoni latched on with the San Antonio Spurs as a scout during the 1999-2000 season an was also an assistant for a Portland Trail Blazers squad helmed by Mike Dunleavy in 2000-01.

With progress in the New World slow, D'Antoni returned to Italy for a second stint as the coach of Benetton Treviso in 2001. In his one season back in Europe he picked up right where he left off, leading the team to a 28-8 record and a league championship. Perhaps reassured of his abilities (or perhaps having just reassured others back home) he returned to the NBA as a Phoenix Suns assistant in 2002 under Frank Johnson. In 2003, D'Antoni took over during midseason as Phoenix head coach and, despite leading the team to a poor record in the second half of the year, he received a vote of confidence for producing inspired play from an injury riddled team.

And, that bit of faith in him has arguably altered the trajectory of the NBA game. The patience that father and son Collangelo showed in their young employee was prescient. The next season, with D'Antoni's encouragement, the team acquired Canadian point guard Steve Nash. The introduction of Nash to a team which already included Shawn Marion and Amare Stoudemire produced a perfect storm and an incredible turnaround for the franchise. Whether the system made the players or the players made the system was inconsequential as the wins and rave reviews piled up.

The Suns averaged 58 wins in D’Antoni’s four full seasons and made the Western Conference finals in 2005 and 2006. They were one of four teams — along with Detroit, San Antonio and Dallas — to win at least 50 games in each of the last four years. The team's open, free-flowing style of play rejuvenated the league and lured back fans who had tuned out in recent years. His teams were the favorites of television programmers and players in the Association as well. D'Antoni would win the NBA Coach of the Year Award and his star pupil, point guard Steve Nash, would win back-to-back NBA Most Valuable Player Awards.

And, now D'Antoni is paired with Stephon Marbury. What could go wrong?