D'Antoni To Remain Lakers Coach

http://charlestondailymail.com/article/20140422/DM03/140429716/1278


Chuck McGill: D’Antoni courtship over, Marshall search changes course




CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Mike Hamrick put the full-court press on Mike D’Antoni.

The ultimate press breaker: A multi-year, multi-million dollar contract.

Hamrick, who is in his sixth year as Marshall’s athletic director, courted D’Antoni, the Los Angeles Lakers head coach, from the moment Tom Herrion resigned as Marshall University’s coach March 14.

The courtship, however, is over.

Sources told the Charleston Daily Mail on Tuesday afternoon that D’Antoni will remain the head coach of the Lakers and, thus, will not be in position to accept the vacant Herd hoops job.

D’Antoni is staying put. Hamrick is moving on.

It is clear Hamrick went all-in to lure D’Antoni from the bright lights of L.A. to the hills of West Virginia. The Herd AD visited D’Antoni in Los Angeles for four days to make his pitch for D’Antoni to come home. D’Antoni, 62, played college ball at Marshall from 1970-73, about 130 miles from his hometown of Mullens.

Make no mistake — there was mutual interest. That is why the coaching search is at 40 days and counting. Hamrick waited. And waited. And waited. If the Lakers made a move, Hamrick was ready to pounce and D’Antoni was ready to slip on that Kelly green jacket once and for all.

D’Antoni met with Lakers brass — team executive Jim Buss and general manager Mitch Kupchak — multiple times this week to discuss D’Antoni’s future with the organization. At this point, the Lakers just aren’t going to budge and are adamant about keeping D’Antoni as the coach. D’Antoni is two years through a three-year, $12 million contract he signed on Nov. 12, 2012. The Lakers hold a team option for a fourth season that would bring D’Antoni back for the 2015-16 campaign at another $4 million.

This season, D’Antoni compiled his worst full-season record (27-55) in 12 seasons as an NBA head coach and the injury-riddled Lakers finished in last place in the Pacific Division. But as Kupchak told the media last week, D’Antoni is “under contract for two more years. If anything changes, we’ll let you know.”

It doesn’t appear anything is going to change, so Marshall must change directions.

D’Antoni had to let Hamrick know the dream was not going to come to fruition, and now Hamrick must shift the focus to one of the six sitting Division I coaches he interviewed.

Expect the new Herd men’s basketball coach to be named by the end of the week or early next week, according to sources. Marshall officials are working with a short time frame before this weekend’s Green-White Spring Game festivities. Former NFL coach and current ESPN analyst Herm Edwards is speaking with the media on Friday at 5 p.m. before the Big Green dinner. The spring game is Saturday at 2 p.m., so if the coaching search cannot be wrapped up in the next 48 hours, the first of the week is a safe bet.

This has to be a punch to the gut for Hamrick and many Marshall fans, though. It is certainly a risky maneuver for Hamrick to wait from mid-March until late April to fill the vacancy, but he owed to D’Antoni — who’d been bypassed for the Herd job previously — and the fan base to pursue this with gusto.

The Mikes — D’Antoni and Hamrick — are tight. It is why D’Antoni agreed to be a co-chair of Hamrick’s Vision Campaign, and why D’Antoni contributed $250,000 to the fundraising effort. Hamrick retired D’Antoni’s No. 10 jersey number, which can never again be worn at Marshall. Next, Hamrick will name part of one of the new facilities for the D’Antoni family.

So far this offseason, there have been 39 coaching changes at the Division I level. All have been filled except for Maine, Southern Mississippi and Missouri ... and those three gigs opened in the past week.

It is a risk that Hamrick needed to take. He needed to give one of Marshall’s favorite sons the opportunity to finish the NBA regular season and learn his fate.

D’Antoni is still wanted in L.A., so he gave Hamrick the word — he won’t be joining the Herd.



bob
MY NOTE:  Will that encourage Rambis to talk to Phil about the job opening in NY?  No surprise, I'm a Rambis fan and NOT a D'Antoni fan and I think that if this were to happen that would be another big mistake by the Lakers' front office.  Dim Buss (btw, did you know that the letter 'D' in Portuguese is pronounced like "J"?  So, if I call him 'Dim' I'm just being international about it.  My girlfriend du jour is Brazilian, so I can get away with it.  I can tell all sorts of other Portuguese words too, just none of them fit for mixed company) said he'd step down in 3-4 years if the Lakers aren't back in contention.  Danny gave himself 5 years when he came on board in 2003, so 3-4 is a tight schedule and if Rambis leaves and D'Antoni doesn't work out (and with 2 more years of Kobe sucking down the salary cap) almost guarantees it, in my opinion.

The silver lining, here, for Lakers fans.  TJ?


.

I am sticking to what I have said all along.
I think there is no way that Mike D'Antoni coaches the Lakers next season.
Why should the Lakers be pressured because Marshall and D'Antoni are looking for answers about D'Antoni's availability?

I don't blame D'Antoni for the mess the Lakers are in, I just think it's time to go in another direction, with a new coach.

tjmakz wrote:I am sticking to what I have said all along.
I think there is no way that Mike D'Antoni coaches the Lakers next season.
Why should the Lakers be pressured because Marshall and D'Antoni are looking for answers about D'Antoni's availability?

I don't blame D'Antoni for the mess the Lakers are in, I just think it's time to go in another direction, with a new coach.

TJ,

So, you don't put any weight on the "D’Antoni met with Lakers brass — team executive Jim Buss and general manager Mitch Kupchak — multiple times this week to discuss D’Antoni’s future with the organization." stuff?  If the Lakers front office is saying "screw everybody else, we're moving on our timeline and we own D'Antoni and even if we think we're going in another direction and are going to terminate him anyway that's tough shit on him and everybody else", then that is going to reflect poorly on them, especially after the way they treated Brian Shaw, Mike Brown and Phil Jackson (redux).  That's not how you attract superior talent to your organization.

My opinion, based upon nothing but years of observation, is that Mitch Kupchak isn't like that.  Mitch has always struck me as a "straight up" type of guy.  I've not heard anybody, not a former Laker player nor a former Laker employee suggest that Mitch was anything but that.  Not surprisingly, I see this all as just more evidence that Buss is a bit of a self-centered spoiled little rich kid and a bit of a flake.  I don't expect you to agree with me on that, but that's my opinion until I see evidence to the contrary.  All the evidence of almost flighty decision making first started to appear after Dr. Buss took himself out of the day-to-day business and handed over the reins to his idiot son.

If you are right, and D'Antoni is gone, then the Lakers look callous.  Again, and unnecessarily so.
If you are wrong, and D'Antoni is here next season, then the Lakers have problems because D'Antoni is still a run-and-gun coach and they don't (and probably won't) have the horses he needs to do that.

I honestly do not understand how he could say that he'd step down in 3-4 years if the Lakers aren't back when they have Kobe for 2 more years and he has played a grand total of 142 games in his last 3 years.  That's a season-and-a-half, and he's coming off of surgery, again.  I mean, I can understand why he'd say it, but if he really wanted to stay in this job how could he realistically expect to get this done?  Maybe he will surprise me, shock me, floor me and pull it off.  We'll see.



.

Is Jeannie Buss still the Lakers' president? If so, and if her heartthrob is in NYC, has she compromised and moved to somewhere in Mississippi? And is the string that's tied to her can long enough to participate in personnel transactions by inter-can?

Regardless of what directions the Lakers' personnel might take, it'll be fascinating to see how they fit with D'Antoni's uptempo proclivities.

Sam

He was the wrong hire in the first place.


KJ

bobheckler wrote:

tjmakz wrote:I am sticking to what I have said all along.
I think there is no way that Mike D'Antoni coaches the Lakers next season.
Why should the Lakers be pressured because Marshall and D'Antoni are looking for answers about D'Antoni's availability?

I don't blame D'Antoni for the mess the Lakers are in, I just think it's time to go in another direction, with a new coach.

TJ,

So, you don't put any weight on the "D’Antoni met with Lakers brass — team executive Jim Buss and general manager Mitch Kupchak — multiple times this week to discuss D’Antoni’s future with the organization." stuff?  If the Lakers front office is saying "screw everybody else, we're moving on our timeline and we own D'Antoni and even if we think we're going in another direction and are going to terminate him anyway that's tough shit on him and everybody else", then that is going to reflect poorly on them, especially after the way they treated Brian Shaw, Mike Brown and Phil Jackson (redux).  That's not how you attract superior talent to your organization.

My opinion, based upon nothing but years of observation, is that Mitch Kupchak isn't like that.  Mitch has always struck me as a "straight up" type of guy.  I've not heard anybody, not a former Laker player nor a former Laker employee suggest that Mitch was anything but that.  Not surprisingly, I see this all as just more evidence that Buss is a bit of a self-centered spoiled little rich kid and a bit of a flake.  I don't expect you to agree with me on that, but that's my opinion until I see evidence to the contrary.  All the evidence of almost flighty decision making first started to appear after Dr. Buss took himself out of the day-to-day business and handed over the reins to his idiot son.

If you are right, and D'Antoni is gone, then the Lakers look callous.  Again, and unnecessarily so.
If you are wrong, and D'Antoni is here next season, then the Lakers have problems because D'Antoni is still a run-and-gun coach and they don't (and probably won't) have the horses he needs to do that.

I honestly do not understand how he could say that he'd step down in 3-4 years if the Lakers aren't back when they have Kobe for 2 more years and he has played a grand total of 142 games in his last 3 years.  That's a season-and-a-half, and he's coming off of surgery, again.  I mean, I can understand why he'd say it, but if he really wanted to stay in this job how could he realistically expect to get this done?  Maybe he will surprise me, shock me, floor me and pull it off.  We'll see.



.

Bob,

I am not saying that I don't agree with you that Jim Buss is a bit of a flake.
I would be fine if Jim left to join the poker tour and Jeannie and Mitch ran the organization with all decisions being finalized by Jeannie. Jeannie sure seems to be in charge of the Lakers while Jim and Mitch are empowered by her. This story was from last month.

http://espn.go.com/los-angeles/nba/story/_/id/10643617/jeanie-buss-says-boss-los-angeles-lakers-empower-others

 LOS ANGELES -- Lakers president and governor Jeanie Buss made it clear Thursday that the final say, the "final hammer" as Dr. Jerry Buss used to call it, lies with her now.

"I'm the boss," Jeanie Buss said in an hourlong interview on the "Mason and Ireland" show on ESPNLA 710 radio Thursday. "I am responsible ultimately for anything with the team and decisions that are made.

On major decisions, such as whether to offer her fiancée, Phil Jackson, a formal role, Jeanie Buss says she prefers to "build consensus" among her siblings and Lakers shareholders.

"In my position, I empower people that are in positions to do their jobs. [Executive vice president of player personnel] Jim Buss and [general manager] Mitch Kupchak are responsible for all basketball decisions. They are empowered to do that. My job is to make sure, as a boss, that I provide them the tools to do the job successfully. But it's up to them to make the day-to-day decisions on how they operate their area of the business."


Maybe I am wrong about D'Antoni. Maybe the Lakers are expecting another lost season and are just looking to take on one year contracts. Maybe D'Antoni will get to babysit for another season. The Lakers know they aren't winning a title in the 2014-15 season even if they signed LeBron James. After what a cluster this season was, it's hard to imagine LA not just eating the $4m and letting D'Antoni walk. I wonder if Rambis will be offered the Knicks job by Phil...???

bobheckler wrote:So, you don't put any weight on the "D’Antoni met with Lakers brass — team executive Jim Buss and general manager Mitch Kupchak — multiple times this week to discuss D’Antoni’s future with the organization." stuff?

Buss and Kupchak met with Mike Brown in the summer of 2012 and approved Brown's idea to switch to the Princeton offense, then Buss fired Brown after five games when the offense didn't work. Buss recently put himself out on a limb by saying he'd resign if the Lakers weren't back to contention within 3-4 years. So given the track record and Buss's somewhat desperate need to show results, I'd say that pulling the plug on D'Antoni is still an option.

Turns out all the rumors were true.  D'Antoni will be the head coach of the Lakers and D'Antoni will be head coach at Marshall.



Dan D'Antoni Hired As Head Coach Of Marshall
Apr 24, 2014 3:49 PM EDT


Marshall University has hired Dan D'Antoni as its next head coach.

The school will hold an introductory press conference at 2 p.m. Friday.

D’Antoni, the older brother of Los Angeles Lakers coach Mike D’Antoni, has served as an NBA assistant coach for the past nine seasons.

D'Antoni graduated from Marshall in 1970.

Via RealGM Staff Report



bob



.

His parents must have a sense of humor . . . really . . . Dan Dan?