Mike D'Antoni makes sense for Nuggets revival
Mike D'Antoni hasn't won a playoff game in seven years. His tenures with the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers ended in fan and media outcries. He's a 63-year-old with more than 900 games coached, any semblance of a new-car smell worn away years ago.
Yet D'Antoni might be the perfect fit for the Denver Nuggets. This time, at least.
USA TODAY Sports' Sam Amick reports D'Antoni is interested in the Nuggets' head coaching job, which came open with the Tuesday afternoon firing of Brian Shaw. Though Shaw assistant Melvin Hunt will be the interim coach and a midseason hiring seems unlikely this late in the season, D'Antoni absolutely should be in the discussion this offseason.
True, D'Antoni and Denver didn't mix well the first time. He took an Antonio McDyess-led team to a 14-36 record in the lockout-shortened 1998-99 season and promptly was fired. (General manager Dan Issel took on coaching duties himself at the end of the tumultuous decade for Denver.)
But nothing is the same for the Nuggets, nothing except that Denver, while a strong market, isn't New York or Los Angeles. And nothing is the same for D'Antoni, no longer a first-time head coach and now a grizzled veteran capable of guiding a team that already has a core capable of pushing for a playoff bid next season. Rather than tarnished goods, D'Antoni has a 455-426 career record. The Lakers wanted him back, even.
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The personnel in Denver fits. This roster worked so well under George Karl because it got out and ran. The Nuggets won 57 games as the most fun team to watch in the league in 2012-13, after which Karl was a victim of bizarre (and regrettable) circumstance. Shaw kept the Nuggets running, to his credit, but his own coaching philosophies and history seemed to be more in line with a slower game.
The result: The Nuggets went from fifth (in Karl's final season) to 16th to 24th this season in points per possession. The decline was expected, but they also never improved on defense, which was Shaw's forte. The first-time head coach failed to find reliable rotations and left his players confused about his expectations.
But where Shaw wanted traditional big man, D'Antoni prefers athletes. Where Shaw wanted open shots, D'Antoni stresses smart ones. Where Shaw had to adjust away from the systems he learned with the Los Angeles Lakers and Indiana Pacers, D'Antoni will be building on the principles he helped develop with the Phoenix Suns.
None of this means a D'Antoni-Nuggets marriage will work. Maturity issues were the roots of a team revolt against Shaw, and the players need to buy in quickly to any coach hired by Nuggets President Josh Kroenke and general manager Tim Connelly. The front office might be better off considering major personnel moves, especially considering Connelly's recent critical comments of point guard Ty Lawson.
Lawson stands to gain the most from D'Antoni. (Power forward Kenneth Faried is right up there, though, because of his far-too-public clashes with Shaw.) He turned Steve Nash into an MVP, Jeremy Lin into an overnight sensation and Kendall Marshall into one of the top assist men in the NBA. D'Antoni's system focuses on fast decision-making by the point guard, often coming off pick-and-rolls. Lawson already is good at that and may be the quickest point guard in the NBA.
The offense would improve under D'Antoni. No one really doubts that. But he has never coached a top-10 defense, and that has been the Nuggets' biggest problem. Here's where the lessons learned come in.
D'Antoni is, by most accounts, among the smartest coaches in the NBA. He was running an analytics-friendly system before he even started using the numbers to justify it, as Hardwood Paroxysm recently explored. He may not have the kind of grasp on defense that Chicago Bulls coach Tom Thibodeau is known for, but he trusts that offensive system enough that he can put defenders on the floor within it.
The Nuggets may not have some of those guys yet, but having an offensive coach such as D'Antoni should allow Connelly and Kroenke to find defenders for the system. Backup big man Darrell Arthur's inconsistent role was one of the biggest strikes against Shaw because Arthur was the best defensive option down low for a coach who constantly bemoaned his team's lack of defense there.
Arthur is the kind of player who could thrive under D'Antoni. He has the versatility to defend four positions, and he can hit an open shot, the type that comes frequently when D'Antoni is coach. The former Memphis Grizzlies forward is a free agent, but if he stays, he could wind up working like Shawn Marion did with the D'Antoni Suns. Faried would look great on the pick-and-roll as the screener, running at the basket with a full head of steam. Small forward Danilo Gallinari, whom Shaw benched, also seems to fit well into the seven-seconds-or-less system.
There will be a push to reinvent the wheel in Denver. The Philadelphia 76ers blew up a roster capable of competing for a playoff spot because they had greater long-term aspirations, and the Sixers' model still may work one day.
But the Nuggets can fix what they have. Throw in a high draft pick in an increasingly praised class this year, and they may eventually turn this deep but confounding roster into a very successful outfit again. D'Antoni isn't Karl, who now is coaching the Sacramento Kings, but he could be the right guy to replicate and build on Karl's success.