Mike D’Antoni is a candidate to be the Nuggets’ next head coach. (Ethan Miller, Getty Images)
There is rarely a mention of Mike D’Antoni that doesn’t include “seven seconds or less,” a reference to his revolutionary style of play that made the Phoenix Suns one of the most exciting teams in the league in the mid-2000s. Led by point guard Steve Nash and complemented by Amar’e Stoudemire and Shawn Marion, the Suns brought a new brand of play to the NBA, with speed, pick-and-rolls and open 3s.
Former Sports Illustrated writer Jack McCallum had a front-row seat to the team’s remarkable 2005-06 season, capturing the behind-the-scenes moments and on-court feats in his book “.”
McCallum changed the game in his own right with the book and his near three decades of covering the NBA for SI. He’s he remained close to D’Antoni, and Nash, over the years, so when word got out that the Nuggets, with whom he started his NBA career in 1997, had interviewed D’Antoni for their head-coaching job, McCallum was kind of enough to offer his thoughts:Do you think D’Antoni is opposed to a rebuild?
MCCALLUM: “Letap preface this by saying as close as I am to him, I don’t know. But my best guess is that I can’t see him taking a rebuilding job. Essentially, the Knicks were a rebuilding job and, as weird as it sounds, the Lakers kind of turned into one. They were two not very good teams. The Knicks were clearly a rebuilding job. The Lakers job is tough to turn down, even if they have you and me in the backcourt.
“My answer to that is, I don’t know. We haven’t talked specifically — we always talk around this stuff — but it would surprise me to see him take a rebuilding job.”
Is the Nuggets’ roster a problem for D’Antoni’s style of play?
MCCALLUM: “Yes, I think it is. D’Antoni is not taking a job to win a championship right away, as is the case with 25 other coaches. Now the question is can you win? I think Ty Lawson is really good. I don’t know what Mike thinks of him, but I think he’d be a really good guard in his system. So if he’s there, that would be No. 1. I know that he obviously really likes (Danilo) Gallinari; I know he liked him with the Knicks. So far as (Kenneth) Faried goes, you need those type of guys — and (Wilson) Chandler is a little of the type of guy — but Mike likes skill guys. He needs shooters. He turned Raja Bell into a 3-point shooter and, basically, thatap all Nash needed, because he was one. And actually, Shawn Marion wasn’t a bad 3-point shooter.
“So he likes skill guys, he likes up-tempo guys. Lawson is an awfully good start, but without him, man, I don’t know what they’ll do.
“He will not play guards who cannot shoot. They didn’t draft (Rajon) Rondo — a lot of teams didn’t. They didn’t draft Rondo, who was there at like 21 in 2006 because he couldn’t shoot. (Note: The Suns traded their rights to the No. 21 pick and Brian Grant to Boston for Cleveland’s first-round pick in 2007 — Rudy Fernandez, who was traded to Portland — and cash.)
“Now, it turns out that they probably would have won the NBA championship the next year if they hadn’t, if Rondo hadn’t gone crazy yet and he could have played with Nash and he didn’t have to take a shot, all he had to do was penetrate. So Mike doesn’t take guards who take shoot.
“I honestly don’t know whether Mike is interested in the job, but I know he wants back and itap hard for anybody to turn down a job that they really want.”
Do you think he’d be willing to wait for the right job if this isn’t it, or is he just trying to get back in?
MCCALLUM: “I think — and this is just my guess — that he probably thinks he’s at the age where he has to get back pretty soon. He’s an impatient guy and he’s been out now long enough, as he sees it. I know he liked Denver when he was there — he likes the place. So I wouldn’t discount it and, again I don’t know, but it doesn’t look to me like his kind of scene.
“Now, they’re thinking about retaining Melvin Hunt, right?”
He’s said to still be a candidate, yes.
MCCALLUM: “Not that Mike needs the money, once you make the money he made — you know, he made $6 million a year with the Knicks over four years and I can’t remember what he made with the Lakers — a guy doesn’t come in and say, ‘Well I’ll work for $1.5 million.’ Not that he needs the money, but that doesn’t happen.”
Do you think Nash would ever become a coach?
MCCALLUM: “No, I don’t think so at all. He’s got too many other things going on. I guess things could change, but he has a whole agenda of things that he wanted to do in life, and coaching right away certainly was not one of them.”
What was your favorite memory in working on “:07 Seconds or Less?”
MCCALLUM: “The playoff run was simply unbelievable. If you went back and looked at it, they were down 3-1 to the Lakers and they came back and won three straight. They were 2-2 against the Clippers and won the series. My favorite memory was the unbelievable, sort of unlikely playoff run. When they won it and got to the Western finals, I think by that time, they were the favorites. I’m always pessimistic and I thought they were going to beat the Mavericks, and they didn’t. The whole season was so much fun. They had good guys. Steve was at the height of his career. Shawn Marion was at the height of his career. Amar’e got hurt, but he was still a factor on the season. Raja Bell was a good guy and a real serviceable player. So they had a real nice team, a real nice staff. Their system was kind of semi-revolutionizing basketball, so there was that kind of ‘us against the world’ feeling that they had.
“Thatap something about Mike. Mike has total belief in that system. He’s not going to come in there if he gets the job and say, ‘Well, you know, I think I’m going to hold the possessions down.’ He’s not going to do that. He’s convinced still that his system, thatap what he knows. Thatap what he likes. Thatap what he can coach. And thatap why he needs certain types of guys, and without a really good point guard, I don’t know why you’d hire him.”
The knock against him defensively — is it valid, you think?
MCCALLUM: “The proof was that they did lose because of defense. The Spurs finally beat them (in 2007) because of defense. However, the Mavericks did not in my opinion. The Mavericks were sort of an offensive-minded team, also. I’m not ready to conclude that. I look at the Warriors, and they kind of play that way. They just happen have Andrew Bogut who can sort of crush everything inside. They one thing he didn’t have — if that team would have had a Bogut or even a Timofey Mozgov, to center it a little bit — I think they would’ve been a bit better. I know D’Antoni would never say it upon penalty of death, but I’m not ready to say it either.”
