D’Antoni has title: a gamechanger

But an NBA crown would validate offensive genius

Stephen Curry and Draymond Green admire Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni from afar for how he empowers all his players to be scorers.

No matter who you are, just let it fly. And for the Rockets that means regularly from threepoint range — and in transition, whenever possible.

Golden State coach Steve Kerr praises D’Antoni for influencing the way NBA teams now play offence: the pace and the space; playing small without a traditional centre; shooting at will and from way back.

Still, for all his success in leading the West’s top team, D’Antoni might need a championship to validate his style.

Standing in the way are the defending champion Warriors, who open the best-of-seven Western Conference final at Houston on Monday night.

“He empowers everyone to shoot the basketball — and that’s dangerous,” said Green, Golden State’s bruising forward. “That’s why he’s been so successful, especially on that side of the ball with any team he’s ever coached, because that’s definitely an area where he’s a mastermind.”

D’Antoni downplays his significance in developing today’s game.

“I think a lot of things combined to change it,” he said. “One, they changed the rules and, two, the analytic people came in and put validation over threes and stuff we were doing in Phoenix. Yeah, we kind of jumped out there because of the team we had and Steve Nash, before anybody really caught on. And it worked ... But there was a lot of factors.”

D’Antoni’s teams recall those running, high-flying Denver Nuggets of the ’80s, led by Alex English, Dan Issel and Kiki VanDeWeghe.

While Kerr has long expressed how much he learned from mentor Gregg Popovich of the San Antonio Spurs, he notes, “I was inspired by Mike.”

“The guy who deserves the most credit for changing the way the league is played is Mike D’Antoni,” Kerr said. “He’s the guy who just eliminated the centre position and said, ‘Let’s go small and fast and shoot more threes.’

“Mike created all that much more space … The influence is there in the strategy and then over the last10 years every player in the league has spent his summers shooting 500 threepointers a day.”