Mike D'Antoni is not good enough for a title run
The Phoenix Suns, New York Knicks, Los Angeles Lakers, and Houston Rockets all made a similar mistake within the last 14 years. However, it may not be an obvious one considering all of these teams have achieved some success over the last 14 seasons. While the Lakers have won two NBA Championships in this period, and the Knicks, Suns, and Rockets have all made multiple playoff appearances over the last 14 years. However, there is one thing that all of these franchises have in common, and they all fell victim to hiring one of the best regular season coaches in NBA history that will never win an NBA Title.
​
Mike D’Antoni has lead some of the greatest offensive teams in NBA history over his head-coaching career in the NBA, but he is yet to make the NBA Finals. It may be hard for some people to understand why exactly this is. Many will say he has been unlucky, his teams were not that good, but his offense made them good, and he is just coaching in an extremely tough era. While some of these claims may be partially true, the reason he has not won a ring and never will, is because he does not preach defense, and defense wins championships. When a team does not play solid team defense over an 82 game stretch, they will not just have the ability to turn it on in the playoffs despite being professionals. Defense needs to be preached throughout the entire season, so it is second nature when it comes playoff time. The Houston Rockets have experienced quite the turnaround from a year ago, but their defense is horrendous. They win games by outshooting their opponents from 3-point range, which is an terrible strategy to maintain throughout a season. While understanding that the Rockets have some of the best shooters in the NBA including James Harden, Trevor Ariza, Lou Williams, Eric Gordon, and Ryan Anderson, this strategy will not work. Setting the NBA record for threes in a season as a team is very impressive, but what many do not realize is that this should be alarming and should cause concern. All it will take is for the Rockets to miss their threes, and they will find themselves out of the playoffs in a hurry. The way Mike D’Antoni likes to play has great success in the regular season because teams are not guarding as tightly on the perimeter as in the playoffs. Mike D’Antoni teams become too one-dimensional, and they are never able to win games in more than one way. The Phoenix Suns in the mid 2000’s could only win games if the pick and roll was working, and this years Houston Rockets can only win games if they are splashing trey bombs. Mike D’Antoni may be a very good coach on the offensive end, but he never makes the adjustments necessary to win in the postseason.
​
Mike D’Antoni has helped the Rockets and even James Harden reach new heights that seemed unthinkable after last year, but they are not capable of winning an NBA title together. I would not put the blame on the way the team is assembled, because teams built this way can win a championship. An example of a team with many shooters that won a title is the 2015-2016 Golden State Warriors. There is one difference, however, and that is the Warriors adjusted and won in other ways besides shooting three pointers. They were able to play much better defense than the Rockets do, and this all comes back to D’Antoni not challenging his players to play hard on both sides of the ball.
​
The Rockets are going to be a great team for the next several years, but they will never win an NBA title as long as Mike D’Antoni is leading their team.
