<div align="center"> <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Steve Nash, who led the third-biggest turnaround ever for an NBA team, is the winner of the most valuable player award for the just-completed regular season, NBA sources said Friday. Nash looks like he?ll be joined by Mike D?Antoni in the awards picture, as a Tribune survey shows the Suns coach with a significant lead for the NBA?s coach-ofthe-year prize. Both would become the franchise?s second winner of the respective awards. Cotton Fitzsimmons won the coaching honor in 1988-89, while Charles Barkley won the MVP in ?92-93. The official MVP announcement is set for Sunday, while the coaching award will be announced Tuesday. Nash, once an obscure high school player in Victoria, British Columbia, won the MVP in an unconventional way. </div> </div> Source
He's got 5 All-Star calibre players, and he wins COY. Pathetic. I would have given it to Carlisle or Skiles. When my bias doesnt kick in, I probably would give it to Carlisle, because of what his team has been through. Oh boy.
I agree I completely agree, he has the best frontcourt in the league and probably the best starting lineup as a whole so how is his coaching job excellent enough to deserve the COY award? He doesnt even coach, he just lets them run.....
Skiles is my COY. He's much more impressive especially since the Bulls started off 0-9 and got home court advantage.
I would give it to Carlisle. With all the Pacers went through this season he deserves a lot of credit for keeping the boat afloat. One would think the Pacers would have missed the playoffs after all that happened to them. But I think Carlisle was one of the biggest reasons why they were still able to make it in.
Carlisle was my COY. All the adversity his team faced and he is now in the 2nd round of the playoffs? Unbelievable.
This is such crap. Big whoop, his team went from bottom of the barrel to best in the league (record wise). He still doesn't deserve it. He's got the single most talented starting lineup in the league and probably the best team as a whole when it comes to players 1 through 6. He had a talent laden team that should have won. No team, by any means, should lose with a team that has that much offensive firepower in one starting lineup. In my opinion, it should have been Skiles. He took a team that wasn't expected to do much, wasn't doing much at one point, and turned them around into a playoff team. The other think I don't like about D'Antoni winning this, he had a healthy team all year for the most part. Chicago had to battle through losing Deng, Hinrich, and Curry for stretches during the season, and they were still able to pull out wins. This was not a well deserving COY if you ask me. There were two other much better candidates than him.
okay <div class="quote_poster">Quoting Moo2K4:</div><div class="quote_post">This is such crap. Big whoop, his team went from bottom of the barrel to best in the league (record wise). He still doesn't deserve it. He's got the single most talented starting lineup in the league and probably the best team as a whole when it comes to players 1 through 6. He had a talent laden team that should have won. No team, by any means, should lose with a team that has that much offensive firepower in one starting lineup. In my opinion, it should have been Skiles. He took a team that wasn't expected to do much, wasn't doing much at one point, and turned them around into a playoff team. The other think I don't like about D'Antoni winning this, he had a healthy team all year for the most part. Chicago had to battle through losing Deng, Hinrich, and Curry for stretches during the season, and they were still able to pull out wins. This was not a well deserving COY if you ask me. There were two other much better candidates than him.</div> I completely agree that D'Antoni doesnt deserve it but I think that more than Skiles deserves it I believe that Rick Carlisle deserves it. Obviously at the beggining of the year they were expected to win around 60 games but after the Palace brawl many expected them to miss the playoffs. You spoke of adversity that the bulls faced but the Pacers face much more adversity. They lost Stephen Jackson (30 games), Ron Artest (season), Jermain O'neal (25 games plus 13 to injury), Reggie (16 games to injury), Jamaal Tinsley (42 games to injury), and Jeff Foster (21 games). You had Autin Croshere and Fred Jones starting a combined 36 games. They were at the point where they had to bring DALE DAVIS out to start 25 games for them. And you also talked about how D'Antoni doesnt deserve it because the Suns are so talented but the Bulls are SOAKED in talent. Granted everyone thought it might take another year to get where they are they are still extraordinarily talented. So leading a more talented team (although they are less expirienced) through less adversity qualifies Skiles for COY more than Carlisle? I don't think so.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting JWohl:</div><div class="quote_post">I completely agree that D'Antoni doesnt deserve it but I think that more than Skiles deserves it I believe that Rick Carlisle deserves it. Obviously at the beggining of the year they were expected to win around 60 games but after the Palace brawl many expected them to miss the playoffs. You spoke of adversity that the bulls faced but the Pacers face much more adversity. They lost Stephen Jackson (30 games), Ron Artest (season), Jermain O'neal (25 games plus 13 to injury), Reggie (16 games to injury), Jamaal Tinsley (42 games to injury), and Jeff Foster (21 games). You had Autin Croshere and Fred Jones starting a combined 36 games. They were at the point where they had to bring DALE DAVIS out to start 25 games for them. And you also talked about how D'Antoni doesnt deserve it because the Suns are so talented but the Bulls are SOAKED in talent. Granted everyone thought it might take another year to get where they are they are still extraordinarily talented. So leading a more talented team (although they are less expirienced) through less adversity qualifies Skiles for COY more than Carlisle? I don't think so.</div>The Bulls do have talent. This is true. However, I didn't see Carslisle coaching his team to the 4th seed in the East after losing their first 9 games. That's tough right there. Carlisle, I do give him credit, he did do a great job. But, his team was expected to do good. The Bulls were expected to be crap. They were for that matter, at one point. However, for Skiles to be able to take that young team full of rookies (5 to be exact, only 4 that contributed though), and get them to win that many games and play that good of defense is simply amazing.
Not saying D'Antoni deserves it but how many of you thought the suns had the "most talented team in the league" before the season started? I can answer for you... none. Nobody even thought the suns would be this good. Most people thought they would be one of the lower seeded teams in the playoffs, and some people didn't even think they would make it to the playoffs.
Don't know how you can say he doesn't deserve It. Just because you have talent doesn't mean you always win. You have to have the right chemistry and get the players believing in each other, believing you can play the style they did and get them to stay level headed at all times. He did that and got them to 62 wins. He said they were going to play a certain style from day 1 and never looked back. That took some nerve to do by playing small ball with no one expecting what It would turn out as, the plan worked and they won over 60 games. A 33 game turn around from the year ago is too much for him not to get It.
okay <div class="quote_poster">Quoting Moo2K4:</div><div class="quote_post">The Bulls do have talent. This is true. However, I didn't see Carslisle coaching his team to the 4th seed in the East after losing their first 9 games. That's tough right there. Carlisle, I do give him credit, he did do a great job. But, his team was expected to do good. The Bulls were expected to be crap. They were for that matter, at one point. However, for Skiles to be able to take that young team full of rookies (5 to be exact, only 4 that contributed though), and get them to win that many games and play that good of defense is simply amazing.</div> No, most people didnt think that skiles would be able to take the Bulls to the 4th seed after losing the first nine but you cant totally disregar the first nine. None of that was his fault? So he is COY for digging out of (at least partially) his own mess? carlisle had to get out of other people's mess (JO, Artest and Jackson) without having a consitant lineup for almost the whole year and still won 44 games. The pacers didnt have ANY contributor that didnt miss at least 5 games to injury / suspension. The award is Coach of the YEAR not coach after the first nine games. If you arent going to look at the whole season why not pick George Karl for COY?
Some arguments against him is that he has the most talented team...OK...what about Denver? They are a talented team.....and it took a GOOD coach to get them playing well. What about the timberwolves? They went from BEST in the west to not making the playoffs. Was this flips fault? If they would of had a good season, would it be flips doing? See my point? You are trying to say he didn't have anything to do with the Suns successes, but yet here it is...the suns finished the season with the top record and arguably the best team in the league. So the Suns coach didn't do anything?
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting SFnymHOUphxNJ:</div><div class="quote_post">Not saying D'Antoni deserves it but how many of you thought the suns had the "most talented team in the league" before the season started? I can answer for you... none. Nobody even thought the suns would be this good. Most people thought they would be one of the lower seeded teams in the playoffs, and some people didn't even think they would make it to the playoffs.</div> WORD...i am a Suns fan and i thought maybe the 8th seed....
Time to put my Sonics hat on. Nate McMillan before the season was going into his final contract year. He had most of his team coming into free agency, and most people tipping the Supes to finish near the bottom of the NBA. - He had an inexperienced, young point guard running the show. - He had two starters that averaged around 5ppg, and one who only just averages 10. - Most didn't expect him to last the season. Instead, he's turned this team, with everything that has been against them, into division champs. Everyone raved about the Nuggets' finish to the season - well, guess who beat them to the Northwest crown? 1) Nate McMillan 2) Scott Skiles 3) Mike D'Antoni/Rick Carlisle
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting SFnymHOUphxNJ:</div><div class="quote_post">Not saying D'Antoni deserves it but how many of you thought the suns had the "most talented team in the league" before the season started? I can answer for you... none. Nobody even thought the suns would be this good. Most people thought they would be one of the lower seeded teams in the playoffs, and some people didn't even think they would make it to the playoffs.</div> They were still very, very talented. Perhaps none of us thought of them as some of the best talent in the league, but hell, you put Nash, Richardson, Johnson, Marion, and Stoudemire on a team, in preseason I would have told you that that's a damn good team. <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">Time to put my Sonics hat on. Nate McMillan before the season was going into his final contract year. He had most of his team coming into free agency, and most people tipping the Supes to finish near the bottom of the NBA. - He had an inexperienced, young point guard running the show. - He had two starters that averaged around 5ppg, and one who only just averages 10. - Most didn't expect him to last the season. Instead, he's turned this team, with everything that has been against them, into division champs. Everyone raved about the Nuggets' finish to the season - well, guess who beat them to the Northwest crown? 1) Nate McMillan 2) Scott Skiles 3) Mike D'Antoni/Rick Carlisle</div> While I agree McMillan deserves it more than D'Antoni, I feel Carlisle or Skiles should have won the award. Carlisle's been through roughly 30 starting lineups this year because of that brawl. Many ruled them out of the playoffs completely after the brawl, but Carlisle didn't let it happen. If you told me that the Pacers would be in the second round of the playoffs after the Ron Artest, O'Neal, and Jackson suspensions, I would have called you crazy. But there they are, and they have a shot to get even past the second round. Here's my argument for Skiles: His team started 0-9, and after that managed to get the team to go 47-26. Twenty-one whole games over .500. For a young team like us, that's huge. This young Bulls squad has 2-3 people that have been on winning teams, so Skiles had to mentor and teach this young team on how to win. Again, if you told me the Bulls would have homecourt advantage, the 3rd best record in the East, and no trades were made from the beginning of the season, I would have called you crazy. You can't go wrong with those 2. McMillan would be my 3rd choice. D'Antoni didn't deserve it in my eyes.
Ugh I knew this would happen. The reason that team has done so well is because like said earlier a talented lineup and a great PG who practically runs the whole team. COY should be given to the coach who really knows how to run the team and knows how to work his team on the court well. I don`t think D`Antoni has any of that. My COY would of been Skiles, McMillian or Carlise.
