The Houston Rockets’ decision to hire Mike D’Antoni to be their new coach is the latest example of a team struggling with an identity crisis. Throughout the 2015-16 season, the Rockets believed they were championship contenders but played like a club destined for the lottery. Poor chemistry and inconsistent effort doomed a team that backed into the playoffs just a one year after making the Western Conference Finals.
For Houston to re-establish itself as an elite team, it needed to go back to the drawing board and start from scratch. They needed a veteran disciplinarian who could straighten out a locker room that fell apart during the season as well as a defensive specialist who could retool a unit that gave up 106.4 points per game this season.
So, naturally, the Rockets hired an offensive guru whose teams had a reputation for being sub-par defensively.
Before delving into why D’Antoni was the wrong choice, let’s break down what the 65-year-old brings to the table. He’s an experienced leader who led three different teams (Phoenix Suns, New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers) to the postseason, including taking the Suns to the Western Conference Finals in 2004-05.
He’s a former Coach of the Year winner whose fast-paced offensive philosophy laid the groundwork for the dynamic Golden State Warriors scoring machine that dominated the NBA the past two seasons. Now, D’Antoni will be bringing his offensive chops to a team with one of the game’s most electrifying scorers in James Harden.
That’s the good news. Here’s the bad news.
D’Antoni is a lifetime 455-426 in the regular season, which is just a shade above .500 (51.6 percent, to be exact). His teams finished with losing records in six of the 12 seasons he’s been a head coach. Even worse, he’s 26-33 in the playoffs despite overseeing a championship-caliber roster in Phoenix for five seasons led by two-time MVP Steve Nash. Also, unlike fellow head coaching candidates Jeff Van Gundy and David Blatt, D’Antoni never led a team to the NBA Finals.
That level of success pales in comparison to the other candidates who interviewed for the job. If Rockets general manager Daryl Morey’s game plan was to bring in a coach who could keep Houston competitive, why not opt for someone with a better track record?
(Note: Candidates such as Kenny Smith, Stephen Silas, Adrian Griffin and Ettore Messina were left out because they have no prior head coaching experience. Scott Brooks was hired by the Washington Wizards before Rockets’ coaching search began but was believed to be a favorite for the job. Frank Vogel (Orlando) and Dave Joerger (Sacramento) both accepted jobs before Houston hired D’Antoni.)
Records courtesy of Basketball-Reference.com
The most glaring red flag — and the one Rockets fans should be most concerned about — is D’Antoni’s inability to produce a solid defense. In 12 seasons, his defenses ranked higher than 16th in efficiency just once. That was in the lockout-shortened 2011-12 campaign when the Knicks finished fifth with a rating of 98.4. It’s worth noting that D’Antoni only lasted 42 games (18-24) that season and the team was drastically better after Mike Woodson took over (18-4).
Stats courtesy of ESPN.com
Furthermore, D’Antoni couldn’t make competent defenders out of notorious walking turnstiles such as Nash, Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony. Now, he gets his hands on Harden, who regressed back into being on basketball’s worst defenders this season.
While D’Antoni is expected to surround himself with a solid defensive mind in former Nuggets coach Jeff Bzdelik, we’ve seen this movie before. He had Steve Clifford in Los Angeles and Woodson in New York. Neither did enough to make those teams even passable defensively.
The upside is D’Antoni’s scheme may actually make Harden an even more dangerous scorer. D’Antoni made a name for himself in Phoenix by employing a “seven seconds or less” offensive system. When Harden held the ball between 2-6 seconds, he produced an effective field-goal percentage of 50.1 percent during the regular season.
However, optimists shouldn’t get too excited thinking D’Antoni will turn the Rockets into Golden State 2.0 or even a revamped remake of the Nash-led Suns teams. Steve Kerr took over a Warriors club with plenty of offensive firepower from Stephen Curry to Klay Thompson to Harrison Barnes. He turned virtual unknowns like Draymond Green and Mo Speights into versatile weapons.
In Phoenix, D’Antoni had stars such as Nash, Stoudemire, Joe Johnson and Shawn Marion at his disposal.
Beyond Harden, D’Antoni’s other scoring options in Houston include Trevor Ariza (career 10.3 points per game), defensive specialist Patrick Beverley (9.2 PPG) and talented-but-raw big man Clint Capela (6.4 PPG).
Besides, how much better can the veteran coach make this Rockets offense anyway?
J.B. Bickerstaff was an inexperienced, defensive-minded coach when he took over for Kevin McHale in mid-November, and the Rockets still managed to finish fourth in scoring with him at the helm. That was also with Dwight Howard, who clashed with D’Antoni in Los Angeles and is expected to depart in free agency.
Unless Morey can snag a marquee free agent like Kevin Durant or Al Horford, it is going to take some time for D’Antoni to build a roster that fits his specifications, which would seem to fly in the face of the Rockets’ “win now” logic.
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