Not the same old song
Despite popular belief DA’ ntoni’s system with Rockets mirrors evolutionary offense he ran with Suns, evidence says otherwise
The phrases will come in like a mantra repeated for days, said so often that they should come with a warning that they are not triggers in a drinking game. “Mike D’Antoni’s system.” “Mike D’Antoni’s offense.” The words will fire off as frequently as the Rockets take 3pointers, sometimes used to explain everything from James Harden’s rise to the presumed NBA Most Valuable Player and the easy mix of Harden and Chris Paul to the Rockets’ run to 65 wins in the best regular season in franchise history.
Images of D’Antoni’s Suns and the “Seven Seconds or Less” era that helped dramatically change the NBA will rush to mind. There is, however, something that seems overlooked.
The Rockets don’t play “Mike D’Antoni’s offense,” at least not in the mold of the Suns team that is the touchstone for all those conversations. This isn’t “Mike D’Antoni’s system.”
The Rockets still shoot with the usual green light, but the offense they run has become very different from anything D’Antoni had in mind when he took over, made Harden a point guard and sent the Rockets to two seasons spent rewriting their record books.
“It’s like night and day, but that speaks to his greatness as a coach,” former Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy said of D’Antoni’s offense then and now. “He doesn’t have to do it on one way to be successful. They’re prolific offensively in both places, doing it in different ways. Here, they dribble and isolate more than any team in the league. Yet, it’s very effective.
“They don’t play with that same pace or push that Phoenix did. This would be 14 seconds or less or 18 seconds or less. That’s what I love about him. He figures out what a team can do really well and plays to that.” ‘It’s completely different’
There are basics to his philosophy beyond the insistence that 3-pointers are worth more than 2s. As with his ground-breaking work with the Suns, he is in no way devoted to whatever had been done before, and he will believe most of all in pragmatism over system.
“It’s completely different,” D’Antoni said. “We do a lot of iso basketball, which we didn’t do in Phoenix. We shoot a lot more 3s than we did in Phoenix, run a lot less than what we did in Phoenix. It’s a completely different thing. It’s based on the characteristics of players and getting the most out of them that you can.”
With the Rockets, that has led him to empowering Harden and Paul to play at the pace they prefer, rather than one D’Antoni had long preached, and they go oneon-one far more often than D’Antoni’s taste might dictate if that were all that mattered.
The Rockets go one-on-one on 14.3 percent of their possessions. The next-most is Oklahoma City running iso plays on 10.9 percent of its possessions. The Rockets do it because they score on a league-best 48.1 percent of those possessions, averaging the most points per possession. But when it comes to pace, they rank 14th, often scoring rapidly or in the final seconds of the shot clock.
“When they get a switch, Harden and Chris Paul dribbledribble-dribble, dribble-dribble, dribble-dribble, dribble, and then finally, they get by or shoot a 3,” Van Gundy said. “It’s incredible to watch.”
It is also the clearest indication of how the Rockets’ offense has been tailored to its talent, with an MVP favorite very different from two-time MVP Steve Nash.
“That’s called great coaching, right there,” Harden said. “You don’t overthink it. You don’t be stubborn and say, ‘This is how I want the offense to be run.’ You look at the team you have from top to bottom and put a system out there that fits your guys.”
At their best, the Rockets rarely move without the ball. There are occasional cuts. More pindown screens have been added to free shooters. But the Rockets would happily station shooters in each corner and on the wing, run pick-and-roll in the middle and have the point guard determine which standstill shooter is open to shoot a 3.
“Let’s face it, if you don’t say ‘ball movement, player movement,’ you’re castigated by the media,” Van Gundy said. “You’re called stuck in old ways. Mike doesn’t get that because they are being so successful.”
D’Antoni said he is just fine with having his wing players stay in one place if they end up with good, open shots there. But when asked how he’d operate if perpetual-motion John Havlicek exited a time machine to take a place on his roster, D’Antoni laughed and said, “Then we’d move without the ball.” Willing to change
That flexibility demonstrated a level of confidence and trust in his players. It did not go unnoticed.
“That just shows how much of a team player our coach is,” Rockets forward Trevor Ariza said. “Coach has a system. Every coach does. If it’s not going to work for the players that he has or be best for the players he has, he’s not one of those people that will say, ‘It’s my way or no way.’ He’s willing to give and work with the talent he has.”
He is also willing to go all-in in his belief in whatever he considers best with a particular team and time. In Phoenix, he said, he did not go far enough, secondguessing himself when he was considered so unconventional. There was vindication when so many teams had been influenced by the way the Suns played under D’Antoni, especially with the Warriors 3-point shooting their way to a pair of championships.
“It makes you feel better,” D’Antoni said. “I didn’t want to be an NBA laughingstock. I didn’t want to do something that was completely wrong.”
The Warriors and Rockets run a very different offense, with Steve Kerr tailoring his style to the Warriors’ strengths.
In that way, D’Antoni’s offense then and now do share a willingness to do what works best with no loyalty to what had been done before, even if it was dictated by the same guy.
“I didn’t sit down one day and say, ‘Wow,’” D’Antoni said. “It was a way to save my job. Playing traditionally, I was going to get fired. Doing it my way, it worked. The 3-pointer wasn’t in vogue, but the players started getting better at it. One of the reasons, the NBA didn’t shoot a lot of 3s, nobody could shoot it. Now, you’re crazy not to shoot it. Things change.”
D’Antoni’s offense changed, too. With the Suns, he had Nash to orchestrate, if not often look to shoot, with Amar’e Stoudemire able to play center with Shawn Marion at power forward to create spacing and mismatches. With the Rockets, he has marksmen in the corners with a pair of one-on-one masters handling the ball.
The Rockets shoot far more 3s than any team ever has, and they get them very differently than D’Antoni’s teams had before. But many things have changed since the ‘90s, even if when talking about the offense run by D’Antoni’s team runs, the operating system comes with the same brand name.
“Everybody is trying to put a label on things,” D’Antoni said. “Sometimes you can’t. Players dictate how they play. We’re just trying to let them be the best version of themselves and go with it.”