Top 25 Phoenix Sports Stories of 2008 - #1 - The end of the D’Antoni era

Photo: Sabo/NY Daily News


An average of 58 wins per season. Four consecutive trips to the playoffs. Two trips to the Western Conference Finals. Three straight seasons of leading the league in scoring. NBA Coach of the Year in 2004-05.

Those are just some of the credentials on the coaching resume of Mike D’Antoni. It’s fair to ask one question. With credentials like those, why is he no longer the coach of the Phoenix Suns?

After Phoenix was eliminated in 5 games from the NBA Playoffs by the San Antonio Spurs last April, the rumor mill started turning. The Suns allowed other teams to talk to D’Antoni about their head coaching openings. The Chicago Bulls and the New York Knicks came-a-calling, and on May 10, just about two weeks after being eliminated from the playoffs, D’Antoni accepted the New York job–for a lot of money. D’Antoni got a 4-year deal believed to be worth $24 million to take the reigns of the NBA’s biggest (and most expensive) dysfunction.

The stink of it is, team owner Robert Sarver and general manager Steve Kerr wanted to place more of a premium on defense and also wanted a deeper roster that would provide Steve Nash and Shaquille O’Neal more rest during the regular season and keep them fresh for the playoffs. Sarver and Kerr apparently wanted to hire highly-regarded defensive coach Tom Thibodeau, who had been with the Houston Rockets, to replace Marc Iavaroni, who became the head coach of the Memphis Grizzlies. Apparently Thibodeau was offered a contract, but D’Antoni scoffed, and instead hired his brother, Dan to take a spot on the bench. This was the story relayed by Sarver on Sports 620 KTAR leading up to D’Antoni’s Knicks making an appearance at US Airways Center. (Anybody else find a hole in that story? Dan D’Antoni had already been on the staff for two seasons.) Anyway, Thibodeau went on to be hired by the Celtics, who ranked 2nd in the league in defense, and won the NBA Championship.

The Knicks, who were the laughing stock of the NBA under previous coach Isiah Thomas, who had a 56-108 record in two seasons, are showing signs of progress under D’Antoni. They are 12-18, and 2 games out of playoff position right now. The Suns, with new head coach Terry Porter, are 18-12 and in 8th place in the tightly-bunched Western Conference.

Links from around the web about Mike D’Antoni’s departure from the Valley…

• Suns will allow D’Antoni talk to other teams about head coaching postitions [ESPN.com]
• Does Mike D’Antoni want to come to Chicago? [Foul Balls]
• The Mike D’Antoni might-get-fired saga will drag into the weekend [NBA Fanhouse]
• Knicks hire Mike D’Antoni as 24th head coach with 4-year, $24M deal [Daily News]
• Sarver: We wanted Mike D’Antoni to stay [PlanetOrange.net]
• Knicks coach rips old Phoenix bosses [New York Post]

Read the rest of Fanster’s Top 25 Sports stories of 2008 here

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Tags: Marc Iavaroni, Mike D'Antoni, Phoenix Suns, Robert Sarver, Steve Kerr, Terry Porter, Tom Thibodeau, Top 25 Phoenix Sports Stories of 2008