IN no time flat after Suns owner Robert Sarver excused Mike D’Antoni from the final two years of his contract to sign with the Knicks, he sold his Scottsdale home and all its contents for a princely profit to the second prospective buyer (rolling in cash) who walked through the door. He couldn’t wait to skate.
“Break-ups are hard to handle,” the Knicks coach said earlier this week, releasing a sad groan.
I wouldn’t know, I replied, facetiousness he failed to follow.
“You need to get out of your house more often,” he jabbed.
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Without any prompting D’Antoni has agreed to discuss what went wrong at the end of his almost unflawed six-year relationship with the Suns, as well as his frame of mind regarding Monday night’s return to a hot spot where he enjoyed so much success, everything but win a title.
“It really burned that we had four straight years of competing at the highest level, yet, in the end, (management’s) attitude was like we didn’t win a championship so we didn’t do nothing,” declared D’Antoni, whose teams during that stretch averaged 58 victories. “That really burned me more than anything!”
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When did you know you weren’t being fully appreciated by ownership or GM Steve Kerr or the fans, I wondered? Was there a certain instance that you recognized it was time to get out of Dodge?
“Things began to unravel toward the completion of the opening round against the Spurs,” D’Antoni said, still grieving the Game 1 loss. “Had we won, it would’ve changed the complexion of the series. But five or six minutes to go they hit a killer 3 when someone didn’t switch out and then [Tim] Duncan hit that unbelievable three, his first of the season, I believe, to put it into overtime Then we get crushed in [the] second game.”
Next thing you know, D’Antoni was being criticized from within for the first time and he admittedly was feeling the pressure.
“At that point it kinda got out in the papers that an internal difference of opinion and philosophies existed concerning defense and discipline. Between Games 3 and 4 I started to think seriously it was over. I was not definitive about leaving. But after we got knocked out I reassessed everything and felt it would be fair to no one to try to put it back together again.”
Particularly because there was at least one major condition attached to remaining “in charge.” Though it’s true Sarver gave D’Antoni the option to stay (after giving him permission to interview for the Bulls and Knicks) it was clear management wanted more of a commitment defensively should he continue. That almost surely would have meant having to add a defensive coach to his staff.
Head coaches, especially one who recorded 232 triumphs in four seasons and another 26 in the playoffs, take solemn exception to being told anything, much less how to run their fiefdom. D’Antoni felt he sufficiently focused on defense. He preached, practiced and presented concepts on film to his middle-of-the-pack team and tried to conserve players’ energy for crunch time when stops counted most.
“I’m a head coach,” D’Antoni said defiantly. “I’m neither an offensive nor a defensive coach. I’m a basketball coach. Maybe I should go to a seminar. But I think I know how to guard a guy. How do I get a player to guard a guy? Well, that’s harder to do.”
Sarver and Kerr also thought D’Antoni was too lenient. They wanted him to crack down on players for breaking rules. “I told them we’re too far along, we’re not going to change their personalities. As long as they apologized I treated them like men.” he said.
“Guys would occasionally be late for something, or they’d get upset about whatever, but it never became a big problem. Then, it comes out I didn’t punish a player for doing something in 2005, or I didn’t fine a guy for doing something in 2006. Come on, that’s weak. That stuff was thrown out there simply to try to justify their position.
“I’ve been on teams with a problem. The Suns were never a problem,” D’Antoni said with emphasis. “There were nuisances. Players had quirks. Some guys might not have liked their role, might not have liked playing second fiddle, might not have been happy campers all the time. But, you know what, you win and it all goes away.
“Management had a different philosophy. I wanted to tweak things. If you’re going to make me change this and change that the players would’ve caught on and said, ‘Who’s in charge? Who’s really coaching the team?’ At that point, the determining factor was, am I in position to do a good job? I was too close to the players to go into something that didn’t work. I definitively didn’t want to put anybody in that position.”
In closing, D’Antoni defends the Feb. 28 decision to trade Shawn Marion for Shaquille O’Neal.
“We had gotten stale the way we were. I felt the best way to win a title was to do what we did. And I’d do it again,” he said.
“I know Shaq’s presence changed our style. But we needed a defensive presence to match up with Duncan, and we needed more second chances. Shaq provides both elements. I wouldn’t have done it if Steve (Nash) wasn’t on board. Who knows, maybe I convinced him. Maybe he convinced me. I thought about it a week and said, ‘Yeah, let’s do it.’ Shaq gave us the best chance to win. I still believe it and I still believe we did everything possible to make it work.”
Then again, after repeatedly sticking to that story throughout most of two interviews, D’Antoni abruptly went the other way on me.
“Had Shawn’s contract not become an issue, I would not have done it. You cannot tell a player he’s not as good as he thinks he is (Kerr’s message the first time the new and naive GM met Shawn to negotiate an extension) and expect no carryover of negative feelings. We needed Shawn 110 percent. That’s where the unhappiness started.
“Shawn deserves blame, too. He was in a great situation and earning a great salary. At some point you’ve to understand what a great life you have. On the other hand, you’ve got to make him feel important. That’s when we got stale. If he were happy, we wouldn’t have gotten Shaq. We had a great style and players who were perfectly compatible with it.”