Former NBA head coach Mike D’Antoni sat down for a wide ranging interview with Sports Illustrated, during which he spoke about the Warriors, Pelicans, and Steve Nash, among other things.
D’Antoni spoke at length about the NBA champion Golden State Warriors, who largely used a small-ball style in their incredible run to the title. The Warriors’ style resembled that of D’Antoni’s Phoenix Suns, led by Steve Nash, and D’Antoni said just as much when asked if Steve Kerr’s immediate success coaching the team reminded him of himself:
Yea, and they played a very similar style. They have Stephen Curry who can shoot it as well, if not even better than Steve Nash, and a lot of the same type of players. Draymond Green can guard inside, outside, plays a little bit like Shawn Marion. Everyone has their strengths and weakness and everybody’s a little different, but they played a very similar style that we tried to play in Phoenix.
The Curry-Nash similarities have been talked about for a long time now. Both are among the greatest shooters in NBA history while also establishing themselves as gifted passers and playmakers. The Green-Marion comparison is a newer one but one that makes a ton of sense. At the peak of the Suns’ deep playoff runs, Marion was the most important non-Nash player on the team, playing a role as a do-it-all forward. Green played the same role for the Warriors throughout the last season, leading the team to victories through his defense, passing, and rebounding.
D’Antoni also spoke about the state of small-ball in the league as a whole. D’Antoni was one of the pioneers of the “pace-and-space” movement, at a time when very few teams had the personnel or desire to put together such lineups. Now, it seems as though teams with multiple non-shooting big men on the floor at the same time are the outliers. D’Antoni believes that that will continue to grow due to the Warriors’ success in playing with that methodology:
Well, the league has always been a copycat league. I’m sure somebody is going to come up with something else and it will then go some place else. It’s just the game has changed. The rules have changed and the ability of players to be able to shoot threes and space the floor and be a power forward and be able to space all the way out to the three-point line—even centers can go out and shoot threes—it’s changed and people have to follow that. You give it enough time and I just think that it was kind of going that way anyway. And then what Golden State did, I just think it put everybody on notice and in order to beat them, you’re going to have to play that way. I think it’s a great thing.
Now the champions will also be benefiting by adding a future hall-of-famer and floor general of small ball in Steve Nash as a player development assistant. D’Antoni spoke about what Nash could bring to the team that seems to have everything:
The guy’s already pretty doggone good, but it can’t hurt that’s for sure. And I’m sure Steve will be able to—Steve’s biggest thing is that Steph’s already there—he was always a true professional and got himself ready to play every night. That to me, that was his strength and he’ll be able to demonstrate that. I don’t know how much more Steph is going to learn, but everybody else around him, Steve will do a great job. I haven’t been around Steph that much to see, but obviously the pick-and-roll and how to just consistently attack, might be something that he can watch. But again, Steph Curry is one of the best players and he will be one of the best players ever by the time it’s all said and done. There will be little nuances that he’ll pick up and learn from Steve just as he does from experience. He’s a very heady and smart basketball player and as he gets older he’ll get better: Which is scary. But I’m sure there will be things he will pick up, he’ll have to tell ya, because you never really know what a player can learn or what he can’t quite do. But it’s certainly a great shot to get one of the great players even better.
Finally, D’Antoni briefly talked about the New Orleans Pelicans who will now be coached by one of D’Antoni and Kerr’s former assistant coaches in Alvin Gentry. With a superstar in Anthony Davis, the team is poised to continue growing under Gentry and eventually become a legitimate title contender. According to D’Antoni, Gentry is just the right coach for Davis:
Well, I think that Anthony has a real chance to become the best basketball player in the league in two, three years. That’s a possibility. And I think with the system that’s going to be put in there and his freedom and ability to be able to change the game, again, that’s kind of where it’s going. He can play a 3, a 4, or the 5. He can step out and shoot threes. That’ll be fun to watch him mature as a player, but he’s already one of the best and it’ll be great to see if he can be the best.
It’s no secret that D’Antoni is one of the best basketball-minds in the modern NBA, if not in NBA history. He should be back on the sidelines before long, coaching a team who will likely already be playing the type of way that he revolutionized. For his part, D’Antoni is ready:
Yea, I love basketball and when you grow up and that’s what you do, that’ll never go away. So whatever comes about, I will evaluate. I will always be in basketball some way or another. You never know. It’s a great league, but it’s also a weird league. It’s been good to me, and whatever opportunity comes, we’ll just be able to see what happens.
