Mike D’Antoni is a revolutionary in the world of basketball, as his revered “Seven Seconds or Less” Phoenix Suns are viewed as one of the teams that paved the way for the uptempo style of play that is heavy on taking (and making) three pointers. D’Antoni has been regarded as an offensive visionary and his Suns teams were something of the blueprint for the offensive changes the league has recently gone through.
So now that he’s in Houston and his Rockets often take advantage of the fact that James Harden and Chris Paul are tremendous 1-on-1 players by leaning heavily on isolation play rather than the pace and space style he popularized, some fans wonder what happened.
The answer is pretty simple: Harden and Paul are so good at this style of basketball that it’d be foolish not to have them cook. Of course, the irony of this is that D’Antoni has run into an issue with past players — particularly Carmelo Anthony in New York and Kobe Bryant in Los Angeles — who wanted to play isoball despite their coach’s requests. D’Antoni has even gone so far as to say the pair rejected his system.
But as Tim MacMahon of ESPN wrote, D’Antoni has changed his system to fit his stars, and the Rockets’ coach admits it’s because he has something he’s never had before: Players who are efficient playing isoball.
“If the best that we have is an iso, or if my personnel on my team dictates that that is really good, then that’s what we’re going to do,” D’Antoni said during a visit in his office late in the regular season. “I’ve had trouble in the past because really good players weren’t real efficient [on isos]. They weren’t real efficient, so I’m looking at the numbers and going, ‘Somehow the efficiency has got to go up.’
“Before, we never really wanted to go one-on-one until we had to. With James and Chris, why not? It’d be stupid not to because it yields more points than other stuff.”
This certainly sounds like he’s taking a not-so-subtle swipe at his two former stars as much as he’s praising Harden and Paul. D’Antoni has figured out a formula that works for the Rockets, even if it is one that he so publicly rejected during other stops in his career.
(Via ESPN)
