I wrote my thoughts on what was at the time still a potential D’Antoni hiring last Friday. For the most part, those sentiments remain in tact, but I do have a few additional remarks now that the hiring has become official:
- As I tweeted last night, it’s very likely that owner Les Alexander is currently very smugly pleased with himself over what, in his mind, was another big-fish signing. To that end, what I’m most fascinated by at present is the market interplay between consumers, public opinion, and ownership. If you have been reading the Rockets blogs and forums or on Twitter interacting with Rockets fans the past few weeks, pretty unanimously most everyone in those die-hard venues was in opposition to this hiring. In such echo chambers, you would have seen sentiments bemoaning this apparent slap in the face of the fan base, even encouraging boycotts of ticket sales. But is this really a slap in the face to Les’s target audience? As I had argued in Episode 99, I don’t think so at all. It’s easy to get lost in the echo chamber and think your own surroundings are representative of society at large, but I would assert that the vast majority of ticket-buying consumers have no idea who Mike D’Antoni is, much less that he’s gone 202-290 since his Phoenix stint. People aren’t that informed about something as inconsequential as sports, nor do they really care. So to that end, if Les is even aware of the staunch opposition to this move by the fringe elements of his customer base, there’s absolutely no motivation for him to care. It’s not going to affect his bottom line in the least.
- Where I do think Les is wrong is in his presumed belief regarding the correlation between offense and ticket sales. All reports have been that dating back to Van Gundy’s firing, Alexander has held an interest in having his team play a faster paced style. First, I think its fairly safe to assume that this desire for an exciting, up-tempo team is not borne from some belief in its conduciveness towards winning given the conventional wisdom regarding “defense win[ning] championships.” In 2010-2011, the Rockets had the 4th ranked offense in the league in terms of offensive rating, playing at the 8th fastest pace, but finished 20th in attendance. In 2013-2014, the Rockets again had the 4th ranked offense in the league in terms of offensive rating, playing at the 5th highest pace, but were 13th overall in attendance. Last year, the Rockets had the 12th best offense, played at the 2nd fastest pace, finishing 14th in attendance. And this year, Houston was 7th in offense, 7th in pace, and 15th in attendance. I don’t think there’s any elasticity of demand as a factor of offensive output and pace. Maybe you could argue that at the very margins, perhaps if D’Antoni improved the offense to second overall, attendance would benefit, but I would counter that just putting out a better product overall would be the best course of action in this market. When it comes to basketball, there hasn’t been any evidence that Houstonians will strongly support anything but a consistent winner.
- You might see a shift in personnel strategy now that it seems general manager Daryl Morey has been slightly marginalized. All reports of course were that this hiring was ownership’s call, with Morey showing support for more defensive oriented candidates such as Jeff Van Gundy and Frank Vogel. D’Antoni shares Morey’s belief in pace and space, but who really doesn’t these days? More importantly, when one has been stripped of his autonomy in a decision to which his own destiny is inextricably intertwined, how does one react? Don’t kid yourself if you don’t think there will be teams lining up to interview Morey if he eventually is out.
- Of course, there will be statements in the upcoming presser exhibiting a unified front and unabashed support. They’ll speak of D’Antoni’s innovative brilliance, and Leslie will cite the title teams he inherited at least once. But I hope someone present will directly ask about the defense and how the team plans for it to be fixed. I’d like for someone to ask Les about Daryl’s remarks about defense being the primary objective in this hiring and to reconcile that with D’Antoni’s track record.
- At the end of the day, I’m trying to remain positive, because, after all, what else can I do? This is my team, and the team I’ve been writing about now for seven years. As I stated in the previous piece, my disdain for this hiring isn’t necessarily D’Antoni himself, but rather the process that took place. I don’t like the prospect of ownership meddling in personnel affairs over the heads of the men empowered to make such decisions. But I’m trying to convince myself that some good can come from this. D’Antoni was a pioneer, but his principles have been disseminated – there really isn’t any value left there that isn’t already common knowledge. But maybe he can modernize the team’s offense by instituting some forms of unconventionality? Some out-of-the-box routes I’ve advocated in the past are Harden at power forward, or Harden at point guard full-time. If anyone would be open to such ideas, it would be D’Antoni. Harden at power forward intrigues me the most because he’s shown an ability to defend the post, can rest on defense (God knows we won’t be getting the accountability route), and would be even more unguardable at the other end.
- I don’t like this hiring. I said the primary objective should have been to identify someone who would instill a culture of discipline and accountability – that was the only way to extract maximum potential out of James Harden. If anything, this hiring further enables Harden. And I’m not of the mind that a team of “strong defensive oriented assistants” can impact team agenda in a meaningful way. But maybe things will be different? All I can really do is remain optimistic about the team’s prospects. At the least, the team should be exciting to watch. To that end, Les will have gotten what he wanted.
