The D'Antoni effect

Welcome to our community

Be a part of something great, join today!

His last season in Dallas wasn't nearly as good as his years in Phoenix. That's probably why Cuban let him go.

He was dealing with back problems that season. Later he learned how to deal with it.
 
His raw stats, yes. You seem to be arguing that the Nash we saw in Phoenix is not the "real Nash" and only an illusion of the system. The Nash we see in Phoenix is the real Nash and the Nash we'll be getting. If you're arguing that we won't be getting an MVP-caliber player, sure, I agree, but I don't think anyone was thinking we would. Nash was never MVP-caliber. We will be getting what Nash is and has always been (well, always since the light clicked on in Dallas)...an excellent All-Star-caliber point guard.

My point is that there's no D'Antoni effect in terms of Nash getting much better. If you want to say that there's a D'Antoni effect in causing the casual fans and media to overrate players, I can agree with that, since most people don't seem to understand the effects of pace.

I think Nash is the best case scenario of the system. He was perfectly built for it. He was a good player that the D'Antoni system made great. I'm saying that Nash will go back to being "good" with a chance that he might be "average" in Nate's system. Felton is below average in Nate's system.
 
I was using Hollinger's stats. Roughly the same, anyhow.

PDX - 94.8
PHX - 94.5

http://espn.go.com/nba/hollinger/teamstats/_/sort/paceFactor

What's worth noting is that while the Blazers are also 8th in OFF EFF, PHX falls to 17th.

NYK are 2nd in pace, and 24th in OFF EFF. Yep, D'Antoni is a real genius.

I'm kinda curious how Nate would play an allstar pg. I think he may do well actually. Unfortunately our management never gave him one to work with that had a decent shot. I think Nash would do quite well here.
 
I think Nash is the best case scenario of the system. He was perfectly built for it. He was a good player that the D'Antoni system made great. I'm saying that Nash will go back to being "good" with a chance that he might be "average" in Nate's system. Felton is below average in Nate's system.

How about we be real and admit that felton came in fat and out of shape? Feltons performance is based on that IMO. Why is Aldridge doing better?
 
How about we be real and admit that felton came in fat and out of shape? Feltons performance is based on that IMO. Why is Aldridge doing better?

Felton has always been kinda chunky.

Are you asking why Aldridge is doing better this year or why he's doing better in general?
 
I think Nash is the best case scenario of the system. He was perfectly built for it. He was a good player that the D'Antoni system made great. I'm saying that Nash will go back to being "good" with a chance that he might be "average" in Nate's system. Felton is below average in Nate's system.

He's still a great player, though, and his ASST% is the highest of his career this year, and last year's was is the 2nd-highest.

You realize that D'Antoni hasn't been Phoenix's coach for 4 years now, right? People keep pointing out the difference in Pace between PHX then and PHX now, but you seem to simply ignore it and lump Nash's entire PHX career as being credited to D'Antoni.

You're way out on a limb on this one, aren't you?
 
Felton has always been kinda chunky.

Are you asking why Aldridge is doing better this year or why he's doing better in general?

What I'm saying is if Nate brings players down, then why did Aldridge constantly improve his game? Why has Batum improved? Why did Matthews have such a great year last season? Why was miller better last season under Nate than he is under Karl?

I don't like Nate as a coach for our team, but he's not a terrible one. I just hate his mid game adjustments and stubbornness to keep players in when they are failing.
 
Felton has always been kinda chunky.

Are you asking why Aldridge is doing better this year or why he's doing better in general?

I disagree. He went from chunky to portly and he was very out of shape.

The mansion we could build with the bricks from his missed layups is a testament to how overly large he is and how out of shape he is. It has fucked his game up entirely.

That has little to do with Nate.
 
I think Nash is the best case scenario of the system. He was perfectly built for it. He was a good player that the D'Antoni system made great. I'm saying that Nash will go back to being "good"

If you felt he was "great" in Phoenix (I didn't), then he was great in his last three years in Dallas. There was a slight uptick in Phoenix (in actual performance, not raw stats), but nothing amazing. I think Nash has been excellent for years, starting from before D'Antoni was his coach, and that's probably the guy the Blazers will get. I don't think McMillan is going to make him worse.

Felton was below average most of his career. His good partial season with D'Antoni was probably more small sample size than anything else.
 
Wait, you think he's excellent, but not great?
 
He's still a great player, though, and his ASST% is the highest of his career this year, and last year's was is the 2nd-highest.

You realize that D'Antoni hasn't been Phoenix's coach for 4 years now, right? People keep pointing out the difference in Pace between PHX then and PHX now, but you seem to simply ignore it and lump Nash's entire PHX career as being credited to D'Antoni.

You're way out on a limb on this one, aren't you?

Gentry implemented the same system as D'Antoni, so in essence it was the same system regardless of whether the man was still there or not.
 
Wait, you think he's excellent, but not great?

Sure. I consider "great" to mean someone who's a clear Hall of Fame level talent. Someone like Kobe Bryant in his prime or LeBron James. I never thought Nash was on that level, two MVP awards notwithstanding.

Excellence, to me, just means a really good player.
 
Gentry implemented the same system as D'Antoni, so in essence it was the same system regardless of whether the man was still there or not.

And this year, with their pace the same as ours, and still performing at a similar level?
 
Sure. I consider "great" to mean someone who's a clear Hall of Fame level talent. Someone like Kobe Bryant in his prime or LeBron James. I never thought Nash was on that level, two MVP awards notwithstanding.

Excellence, to me, just means a really good player.

ok, cool.
 
Your argument completely breaks down if:

We don't trade Batum.

Nate is no longer our coach.

If we can get Nash without giving up Batum, I say go for it. Nash will make Batum and Aldridge much better. He would be a godsend with his passing, court vision and ability to create for others. He currently has an AST% of 57.7. If he maintains that, it will be an all-time record. He is simply the best passer in the game.

He is also one of the best shooters in the game. Let's face it, our current guards (ouside of the recently converted Batum) can't hit the broad side of a barn on anything approaching a consistent basis. Nash's outside shooting would open things up a lot more for Aldridge posting up and Batum cutting to the basket.

Combine his passing and court vision with his outside shooting and Nash would make this team so much better.

I agree, Nate is not a good fit for Nash (or any offense that involves ball movement). Either Nate agrees to turn the reins over to Nash, or he's gone. Simple as that. I would hope Nate's job is already on the line. Trying to turn Steve Nash into a billionaire's Steve Blake would be the final straw.

BNM
 
For those of you who are so sure that Steve Nash is the answer to our problems...

Steve Nash on Dallas - 14.5 ppg, 8.8 apg, 47% from the field last season in Dallas
Steve Nash on the Suns - 15.5 ppg, 11.5 apg, 50% from the field first season in Phoenix.

Until Phoenix he never averaged over 9 apg, after joining the suns he has only averaged under 10 apg one time in 08-09.

He also posted career best PERs of 23.3 and 23.8 in his second and third seasons in Phoenix.

Raymond Felton before D'Antoni - 12.1 ppg, 5.6 apg
Raymond Felton during D'Antoni - 17.1 ppg, 9.0 apg
Raymond Felton after D'Antoni - 10.2 ppg, 6.2 apg

Felton's career PER is 14.3 but his career best came with NY at 17.3

What makes you think Nash will fair any better under Nate than Felton has? This system is not built to cater to his play style. I suspect we would see a drop in numbers for him if he were traded here, and then people would chalk it up to his age and say he needs to retire.

But D'Antoni isn't coaching Nash now and he's leading the league in assists.
 
I agree with everything you said, BNM, though I think the high ast% is also partially because his teammates all blow/can't create for themselves.
 
Gentry implemented the same system as D'Antoni, so in essence it was the same system regardless of whether the man was still there or not.

Same (similar) system, but FAR less talent. I mean shit, look at the Suns current roster. The only two average, or above, players on that team other than Nash are Gortat and Jared Dudley. Compare that to the teams that has Amare', Shawn Marion, Joe Johnson, Quentin Richardson, etc. and what Nash is doing now (on pace for all time AST% record) may be even more amazing than what he did in his MVP years.

Look who he's passing to: Hakim Warrick .449 FG%, Robin Lopez .420 FG% (horrible for a 7-footer), Grant Hill .416 FG%, Channing Frye .405 FG%, Markieff Morris, .395 FG%, Shannon Brown .390 FG%, Michael Redd 0.374 FG%. Basically, if you take away Nash (he can't pass to himself), he's playing with a bunch of guys who miss 6 our of every 10 shots - and he's on pace to set the all-time AST% record. If he played on a team with some decent shooters, his AST would be over 60% and that's totally insane. In fact, his AST% the past three seasons (50.9, 53.1 and 57.7) has been higher than during his two MVP seasons (44.4 and 50.1) and the three highest of his career.

I'd love to have this guy setting up Aldridge and Batum!

I know he's old, but for the record, he's not 38 (as has been implied several times in this thread). He just turned 37 three weeks ago.

BNM
 
I agree with everything you said, BNM, though I think the high ast% is also partially because his teammates all blow/can't create for themselves.

Well, they also can't shoot, which reduces his AST%. Imagine if he played on a team loaded with good, or even average, shooters.

BNM
 
Haha too bad we don't have any of those :grin:

Actually, we do have more than Phoenix. Aldridge, Batum and Gerald Wallace are all better than their counterparts on the Suns. Where our shooting sucks is our guards. Replacing Felton with Nash would be a HUGE upgrade in our perimeter shooting.

BNM
 
Haha too bad we don't have any of those :grin:

You'd be surprised how much better our players would shoot if we had Nash. A lot of our players like Matthews, Crawford, lma and Batum shoot so much better when they get the ball in rhythm.
 
Actually, we do have more than Phoenix. Aldridge, Batum and Gerald Wallace are all better than their counterparts on the Suns. Where our shooting sucks is our guards. Replacing Felton with Nash would be a HUGE upgrade in our perimeter shooting.

BNM

Our starting 2, 3, 4 vs. Phoenix:

Aldridge 0.506 FG%
Warrick 0.449 FG%

Wallace: 0.488 FG%
Dudley: 0.477 FG%

Batum: 0.465 FG%
Hill: 0.416 FG%

Our starting 2, 3 and 4 shoot better than their starting 2, 3, 4 - and that's with Felton "setting up" our guys and Nash setting up their's.

Replace Felton with Nash and we actually have a very good shooting starting 5.

BNM
 
It is funny how quickly he went from close to being fired, and people realizing he is overrated, and then all of a sudden, the he is a coaching genius shit started up again.

As for pace, I was using basketball reference, that showed us both at 92.3 possessions per 48. Possible another sight had it different, though.

I think it had more to do with a system he runs that needs solid point guard play and he didn't have anyone worth a damn playing PG. Shumpert was horrible at it and Douglas failed miserably. You bring in Lin and bam, your getting guys like Novak and Fields good looks.

I don't think D'Antoni's a great coach, but if he gets players that fit his system he can be a very good coach. His style fizzes out deep in the playoffs though when they start facing quick, elite defenses.
 
....and all this Nash talk is hilarious. We don't have a snowballs chance in hell of getting him. We aren't parting with Batum and besides that we don't have anything to offer. Other teams are going to have a lot more pieces to part with.
 
I know I'm a little late to this party,

but coaches offensive systems don't make players Hall of Famers.
 

Users who are viewing this thread

Back
Top