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Originally Posted by afobisme
they've lost to the spurs 3 times in the past 4 years... and have you seen the suns play defense? they were so bad with pick and rolls, there's no way you can win playing that kind of defense.
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And the Spurs won 2 championships in those 4 years, what is your point again?
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Originally Posted by afobisme
jerry sloan in my opinion is a winner because he gets his teams to play on both ends of the court. the suns have been good the past 5 years or so, and the suns offense is good... but how often have you seen an offense-only team winning the championship? the best bad defensive team was probably the kings, and they were much better than the suns are.
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And how many rings have Sloan won? Remember those years with Malone and Stockton and how they lost to pretty much every good team in the early 90s and then losing to the Bulls 2 straight years? Afterwards they lost to the Spurs/Kings as well? How does that make Sloan a winner according to your standards. Even now the Jazz with Sloan haven't gotten over that hump. If D'Antoni has problem getting over that same hump, Sloan has been trying for about 20 years now with 2 separate cores. And that makes him a winner?
Again, I'm not calling Sloan a loser because I don't agree with your assessment. But it's pretty ridiculous for you to consider Sloan a winner and then turn around and call D'Antoni a loser when the both of them have as many championship rings as I do.
Winning a championship in the NBA isn't something as simple as you are trying to describe. If there is a "Winning type" of basketball then everyone would be doing it and everyone would be winning. Every team has a style that will maximize that team's chance of success. If it was up to D'Antoni himself I'm sure he would trade Amare for Duncan and Raja Bell for Kobe. But when it comes down to it there are many different factors that contribute to the Suns being the team that they are today and D'Antoni isn't the only one responsible. His job is to maximize his roster's performance and for the most part he has done that and the team has been amongst the best in the league for many years.
The only way that I would consider a coach a loser is if he has lost the focus and respect of his team and himself being the reason that the team is underachieving. D'Antoni does not fall into this category by any stretch of the imagination.