Tracking the D’Antoni case, what a wild 8 days it’s been and we’re not even at the finish line yet.
Yahoo Sports reports on May 1st that Steve Kerr wants D’Antoni to return to the Suns following their playoff exit:
General manager Steve Kerr acknowledged differences with the coach but insisted on Wednesday he wants D’Antoni back for a fifth season with the Suns. He said he and owner Robert Sarver would meet with the coach in the next few days.
“I’d like to see him back,” Kerr said. “I’d like to see us working together. It’s been well documented we have some different ideas and different approaches. And what we have to do is talk and communicate and make sure we can get on the same page in terms of how this organization can get better, how this team can get better.”
D’Antoni, though, might not want to make the changes Kerr believes are needed, whether they be expanding his rotation, changing his defensive scheme or altering his staff.
D’Antoni response? He wants to have their meeting first to talk through some items
“I think we’ve just got to talk and I’m not going to be able to sit here and explain, guys,” he said. “I hate to be abrupt but we’ll all sit down and talk and evaluate everything and see where we are. I’d love to go on but I’ll keep talking and kill myself.”
D’Antoni has the support of several players
“I think Mike has been outstanding here,” Nash said, “and I think that once he sits down and talks with management, they can come sort of consensus on how they can move forward together. Obviously, that’s what I hope for. I would imagine that’s what’s going to happen.”
Nash said he had not told Kerr specifically about his feelings.
“He knows I love Mike and want him back,” Nash said, “but we haven’t had a huge talk about it yet.”
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“I hope he comes back,” O’Neal said. “I’ve played for a couple of Hall of Fame coaches, and he actually has what it takes to get the job done. It’s our job as players to make him look good.”
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“I think Mike’s strength is having played and knowing how to give people space,” Bell said, “not micromanaging, and the freedom to kind of explore your game and grow as a player. I’ve seen a lot of players do it under Mike, me included.”
Since then Marc Stein over at ESPN has been at the center of the D’Antoni coverage. The next day, May 2nd, Marc starts out by by detailing the philosphical differences between D’Antoni and Kerr that Jack MacCallum wrote about:
hose Phoenix philosophical differences, in short, break down thusly:
D’Antoni considers Kerr’s strategic suggestions to be meddlesome and inappropriate after the Suns’ success over the past four seasons, three of which ended with playoff losses to the execution masters from San Antonio.
Suns management and a veteran player or two, I’m told, all want D’Antoni to stay. But they also want more practice time spent on defense and want to see two mistake-prone young talents — Amare Stoudemire and Leandro Barbosa — to be challenged more by the coaching staff and held more accountable for their mistakes.
Yet there are some in Phoenix who believe that a truce can still be reached. We should know soon.
Stein also discusses the possibility of Chicago
The signals are growing stronger that D’Antoni, if he gets his wish, could well be addressed as such in the very near future.
Sources say D’Antoni is increasingly likely to get an invitation to relocate to the Windy City if he can indeed extricate himself from the Suns. As covered in this cyberspace Wednesday, moving to the Eastern Conference with Chicago is an idea that has D’Antoni more than intrigued and which apparently has a few Bulls players (presumably Luol Deng and Ben Gordon) already salivating.
That meeting between Sarver, Kerr and D’Antoni was on Friday, the third of the month. On May the 5th, the Phoenix Suns allowed D’Antoni to speak to other clubs
On Sunday night, KTAR Radio (620 AM) in Phoenix reported what Kerr confirmed Monday, that D’Antoni has been granted permission to speak with other teams, including Chicago and New York, about their coaching openings.
Kerr commented
“As we have continued to convey, we value Mike D’Antoni as the head coach of the Phoenix Suns and would like him to continue leading this basketball team. Because he has requested to speak to other teams about their head coaching vacancies, we have granted him permission,” Kerr said in a statement.
Some details on the meeting
D’Antoni met with Sarver and Kerr for more than two hours Friday, with Kerr saying afterward that they all wanted to take a few days to digest what was discussed. Kerr stuck to his earlier pledge that he and Sarver remained hopeful of convincing D’Antoni that the parties’ philosophical differences could be resolved.
But sources close to the situation have maintained for days that D’Antoni does not want to continue coaching in Phoenix if he must implement the changes suggested by his bosses, which include increasing the time spent practicing defense and a more stern approach with younger players such as Suns forward Amare Stoudemire and guard Leandro Barbosa.
Here’s a few other nuggets
McCallum reported last week that D’Antoni considers those differences to be “irredeemable.”
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D’Antoni considers Kerr’s strategic suggestions to be meddlesome and excessive after the Suns averaged 57 wins over the past four seasons
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But sources say Suns management and some veteran players, while all hopeful that D’Antoni will stay, want more emphasis placed on defensive preparations and want to see the likes of Stoudemire and Barbosa held more accountable for their mistakes.
Mid afternoon on May 6th Marc Stein added some information to the Chicago links
Mike D’Antoni’s strong interest in coaching the Chicago Bulls emerged last week. Now it’s being officially reciprocated.
NBA front-office sources told ESPN.com on Monday night that Bulls general manager John Paxson came away from two interviews with D’Antoni in Phoenix impressed and seriously interested in the coach
But their may be a snag
Yet it remains to be seen how much the Bulls are willing to spend on a new head man when they still owe an estimated $6 million to new Milwaukee Bucks coach Scott Skiles, according to NBA coaching sources.
It has been suggested in coaching circles that D’Antoni could be too expensive for Chicago, especially if the Bulls are also required to provide Phoenix with some form of compensation for letting him out of his contract.
Later that same evening the RealGM offered this
But a Phoenix radio station is reporting that D’Antoni is closer to a deal with the New York Knicks because money is getting in the way of a Bulls’ deal
Then Jerry Reisendorf added this beauty
And Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf once told WSCR-AM (670) that the next head coach will have to adhere to the organization’s defensive philosophy. D’Antoni is an offensive-minded coach.
May 7th, Marc Stein offers another update
The Phoenix Suns think they’ll know by Friday whether coach Mike D’Antoni has found a new job, according to sources close to the process.
The expectation in NBA coaching circles remains that D’Antoni’s most likely destination is Chicago, provided that the financial obstacles facing the Bulls can be dodged.
Although D’Antoni and agent Warren LeGarie continue to hold talks with the New York Knicks — with the Knicks said to be genuinely interested and contemplating whether to make an offer — it has been known for days that Chicago is the job D’Antoni wants.
The complication of Skiles wage on the Bulls next hire
As a result, Skiles walked away with a guaranteed $5 million send-off that was not erased by the estimated $18 million over four years that he just received from the Milwaukee Bucks. That means Chicago would be spending more than $8 million on head coaches next season if D’Antoni were to receive an annual salary in his current wage bracket.
To complicate things even further, Stein’ sources say Chicago haven’t made up their mind yet
But sources say Chicago could still decide that it can’t afford D’Antoni — or recently dismissed Dallas coach Avery Johnson — and choose to pursue a more affordable coach with less experience such as Boston assistant Tom Thibodeau, who widely is credited with providing the schemes which enabled Kevin Garnett to transform the Celtics’ defense this season.
Back to NY
New York did interview Johnson on Tuesday — with new team president Donnie Walsh flying to Houston to meet with him — and still has ESPN analyst Mark Jackson on its radar as the presumed favorite for the job if the rebuilding Knicks can’t convince D’Antoni that they have more to offer than the Bulls.
And what about Phoenix? After all they still have their head coach under contract
Yet it might be even more difficult to sort out what happens if D’Antoni isn’t hired in Chicago or New York … or whom Phoenix pursues as a replacement if D’Antoni does leave this week as widely anticipated.
D’Antoni staying in Phoenix to coach seems inconceivable now that details of the Suns’ in-house discord have been made so public. The Suns, though, clearly don’t want to fire D’Antoni, who likewise won’t walk away from his contract without a new gig, raising the possibility of an ominous impasse unless the sides are amenable to a buyout or a reassignment for D’Antoni until he finds a new job. Identifying potential successors in Phoenix might be even tougher.
So where are we now? Marc Stein tells us on May 9th
In brief, NY is the trailing the play but going all out anyway and will try to outbid Chicago
The New York Knicks are well aware of Mike D’Antoni’s strong desire to coach the Chicago Bulls, as well as Chicago’s strong interest in hiring D’Antoni.
They’re simply ignoring all that. NBA coaching sources told ESPN.com on Wednesday that the Knicks continue to regard D’Antoni as their new No. 1 target to replace Isiah Thomas and are preparing a “staggering” financial offer they hope will prove too steep for Chicago to compete with, thus convincing D’Antoni to spurn the Bulls. It was widely assumed in coaching circles — and even by the Knicks to some degree — that New York’s involvement was pursued by the D’Antoni camp mostly to get Chicago to increase its offer. But sources close to the situation were stressing Wednesday night that the rough monetary estimates in circulation from the Knicks, believed to be $6 million or more annually, are too substantial not to make them a real threat to the Bulls.
Yet sources maintain that Chicago remains D’Antoni’s preferred destination and the favorite to land him, now nearly one week since the story emerged that the Phoenix Suns coach and the Bulls were a likely match. It’s believed that neither the Bulls nor the Knicks have formally extended a contract proposal, but The Chicago Tribune reported on its Web site Wednesday night that the Bulls are determined to “pay D’Antoni only on their terms” and won’t engage in a “protracted price war” with the Knicks.
Some non-monetary concerns and interests out of Chicago
Concerns that D’Antoni’s offensive bent would clash with Paxson’s philosophy — which is much more conservative and defensively focused, like that of his pal and Phoenix counterpart Kerr — appear to have been allayed. Sources say that Reinsdorf himself has voiced an interest in the Bulls’ returning to a more defined offensive system like they had in their Michael Jordan/Scottie Pippen/Phil Jackson heyday. D’Antoni obviously doesn’t run Jackson’s famed triangle offense, but Chicago management is said to be intrigued and excited by the possibility of coupling D’Antoni’s creativity with several skilled young players who’ve been linked to Phoenix in trades in recent years (Joakim Noah, Tyrus Thomas and Thabo Sefolosha) as well a budding star (Luol Deng) who was drafted with a pick traded by the Suns to Chicago.
Later that morning Marc Stein broke the expected offer from NY
But the latest estimates on the five-year package New York is prepared to formally put on the table fall in the $30 million range. Although that figure had been projected Wednesday by coaching sources to be even more “staggering,” it’s a level of annual compensation exceeded by only a few coaches in the game, such as Phil Jackson and recent retiree Pat Riley.
So that’s where we are. Mike D’Antoni sure has been getting around the town recently. I’m a little confused by everything but I know one thing – He’s still under contract in Phoenix and hasn’t changed clubs. Let’s see where this goes tomorrow, it must be close to ending by now.
