|
Suns' D'Antoni named NBA Coach of Year
(Agencies)
Updated: 2005-05-11 09:03
After directing the Phoenix Suns to a 33-win turnaround and installing a
fast-paced, high-scoring style praised throughout the league, Mike D'Antoni was
rewarded as the NBA's coach of the year on Tuesday.
Mike D'Antoni,
pictured 01 May 2005, was named NBA coach of the year, just two days after
guard Steve Nash was chosen league MVP. [AFP]
| D'Antoni, in his first full season as Suns coach,
molded a squad that transformed a 29-win team a year ago into one that led the
NBA with a 62-30 record.
The easygoing Suns coach, who spent two decades in Italy as a star point
guard, then highly successful coach, received 41 first-place votes and 326
points overall from a panel of sports writers and broadcasters from the United
States and Canada.
Rick Carlisle of Indiana was second with 26 first-place votes and 241 points.
Nate McMillan of Seattle was a close third with 234 points and 30 first-place
ballots.
"It's an unbelievable honor," D'Antoni said at a news conference. "I was just
honored to be mentioned with them, and to really win it is beyond my wildest
expectations. It's not something that I did. There are so many people involved."
After Phoenix acquired Steve Nash and guard Quentin Richardson, D'Antoni
decided to go with a small, speedy lineup, persuading Amare Stoudemire to switch
from power forward to center, and Shawn Marion to shift from small forward to
power forward.
"I've been touting him for a long time this year, so call me a prophet,"
Miami coach Stan Van Gundy told reporters. "If you go back, there were a lot of
you writing that it wouldn't last a year. Stoudemire couldn't hold up playing
against centers, Marion against power forwards, that style of play wouldn't
work."
"I heard all of those things and Mike stuck to those guns and proved to
people that it can work."
The combination worked far beyond the expectations of anyone in the Suns'
organization, averaging 110 points per game, the most in the NBA in a decade.
"Out of 82 games, I think maybe we were flat one time," D'Antoni said.
"That's these guys. They come out every game and play hard. That's rare. It's
hard to have a group like that. The chemistry's just perfect."
Nash, named the league's most valuable player on Sunday, shares D'Antoni's
philosophy of how the game should be played.
"We didn't really need to talk about it that much," Nash said. "We just have
the same feelings about the game in a lot of ways."
D'Antoni gives Nash the freedom to create whatever he feels is best on the
court, and leaves the game largely to his players.
"He's the reason we play the way we do," Richardson said. "He put the team
out there and wanted us to play that way, so he's certainly the coach of the
year in my book."
D'Antoni said he's always coached that way.
"I think that the best way to get things out of players is trusting them and
their instincts," he said. "I just don't believe that when you take men — and
they are men — that you're going to change them much."
D'Antoni thanked virtually everyone in the Suns organization by name, down to
the last player on the bench. At the end of his list, he thanked his wife Laurel
and 11-year-old son Michael, then choked up with emotion and had to pause.
The 54-year-olds first stint as an NBA head coach was with Denver, where he
went 14-36 in the lockout-shortened 1999 season.
He was fired at the end of the season and general manager Dan Issel named
himself coach. D'Antoni was a scout with San Antonio and an assistant to coach
Mike Dunleavy in Portland before returning to Italy in 2001.
A year later, he was lured back to the NBA to become an assistant to Suns
coach Frank Johnson. When Johnson was fired in December 2003, D'Antoni took
over.
The young team finished 20-41, but the seeds of this year's turnaround were
sown when Phoenix traded Stephon Marbury and Penny Hardaway to the New York
Knicks.
That cleared salary cap room for the signing of Nash and Richardson.
Suns president Bryan Colangelo thanked D'Antoni for sticking with the
long-term plan through the many losses last season and creating a friendly
environment.
"Mike's likeability and his personality and his character seem to shine
through," Colangelo said. "Everywhere he goes, people like Mike D'Antoni."
Nash echoed that opinion.
"It's unbelievable in our day and age, when coaches are hired and fired, for
him to be relaxed and not have a huge ego. It is a terrific testament to his
character," Nash said, "and probably a huge reason we've been successful."
|
 | | | Juventus edge AC Milan 1-0 | | |  | | | Sochaux vs Strasbourg | | |  | | | Sui Feifei | | |
|
| |
 |
|
|
|
|
Today's
Top News |
|
|
|
Top Sports
News |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
