Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Three NBA Coaching Suggestions...

1. Suns Fire Mike D’Antoni, Hire Rick Carlisle- Should a coach who’s averaged 58 wins over the last four seasons lose his job? Not necessarily. But D’Antoni is quickly becoming the Rick Adelman of running his players into the ground prior to the playoffs, and with Steve Nash and the Big Fraud well into the Back Nine of their careers, Steve Kerr needs to put Phoenix in the best position to win immediately.

That means hiring the one perceived retread who’s not a retread. Rick Carlisle has shown an ability to mesh both an up-tempo, and an inside-out style offense, while bringing a defensive mindset that D’Antoni left in Europe. And while Nash may initially object, just ask Chauncey Billups what Carlisle did to his career.

2. Knicks Hire Mike D’Antoni- With every job I want to take away, there’s another I need to create. While Marc Jackson may eventually be the perfect guy for the job, wouldn’t you rather hire an experienced coach to pull the Knicks out of the abyss so they can only occasionally make David Letterman monologues?

D’Antoni is the perfect guy to do that. In between all of the Isiah/Dolan/Starbury soap operas, everyone forgets just how turgid it has been to watch the Knicks. You think high pick and roll basketball is boring? How about swinging it around the perimeter until Eddy Curry gets open for a two-foot jump hook? D’Antoni can at least produce 40 wins with New York’s talent, and make them exciting. Then, you hire Marc Jackson to teach youngsters “the game of basketball.”

3. Memo to Marc Cuban: Let Things Be For One More Year- If anyone should be on the hot seat, it’s Donnie Nelson. Why would you give up your best defender(Devin Harris) who’s an underrated point guard to bring in a guy(Jason Kidd) past his prime to run an offense set up for isolations to Dirk and Josh Howard? Not even Red Auerbach could instantly transform the offense to a championship level in mid-season.
That’s why, as much as I think this trade was a dumb idea, give it a full training camp and season before rendering final judgement.

Editors Note: I forgot how much Mark Cuban hates bloggers. No further explanation needed to why Avery is now unemployed.

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