The Philadelphia 76ers Subtle Small Ball Success

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D’Antoni Started It All

And so, while the Golden State Warriors decimate the rest of the NBA, the man who brought small ball to the NBA has quietly rejoined his former GM/Owner in Philadelphia. And what is Mike D’Antoni’s thoughts about the success of his small ball scheme? The Warriors incredible success has even surprised Mike D’Antoni, who was ahead of everyone but Don Nelson in the small-ball revolution.

"“Shoot,” he said, laughing, “maybe we didn’t even go small enough in Phoenix.”- Mike D’Antoni"

You see, that Phoenix Suns team was all about pace, space and pass. The very same mantra drilled into the head of the Sixers players by head coach Brett Brown. In that first full season under D’Antoni, the Suns led the NBA in pace, averaging 98.62 possessions per game—a full possession (97.54) more than the next-best team and five more than the league average (93.57). They attempted 24.7 three-pointers per game—nearly nine more than the league average (15.8). And they fact that neither D’Antoni, nor his then and present boss Jerry Colangelo, had tasted the ultimate success.

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In a nice interview with Sports Illustrated’s Jake Fischer, D’Antoni gave his thoughts on the small ball revolution and the current wave of NBA elites taking advantage of that style. When he was asked to analyze the success of the Warriors and relate is to this own early success with the Phoenix Suns:

"SI.com: Obviously you had a tremendous amount of success in your first year as the head coach in Phoenix, as did Steve Kerr this year. Did his immediate success remind you of yourself? D’Antoni: Yea, and they played a very similar style. They have Stephen Curry who can shoot it as well, if not even better than Steve Nash, and a lot of the same type of players. Draymond Green can guard inside, outside, plays a little bit like Shawn Marion. Everyone has their strengths and weakness and everybody’s a little different, but they played a very similar style that we tried to play in Phoenix. SI.com: There was always a knock on your Suns teams struggling to defend. Does that make the Warriors’ run even more impressive, the fact they were able to push the tempo, play small, but still lock in defensively? D’Antoni: Yea, it does. And that’s a credit to the individuals they have. They have some great defenders. I think we kind of got a bad rap, we defended a lot better [in Phoenix] than what people were saying and when they didn’t think we could win that way. So, that’s what they knock you on. But we were just a couple steps away from winning a championship and it just didn’t work out for us. That’s why you gotta give Golden State credit. They took that and just went up another level. Winning 67 games in the regular season is incredible. They just did it all year. SI.com: On that note, when Alvin Gentry said after Game 6, ‘Tell Mike D’Antoni he’s vindicated,’ how did that make you feel? D’Antoni: Well, Alvin always makes me feel good. Alvin’s great and he didn’t have to say that but that was obviously—I appreciated it and it was nice. But, I didn’t feel vindicated anyway. I was just happy for him and happy for a bunch of good guys winning. SI.com: There are a ton of teams starting to fully embrace this small ball strategy. Did you ever anticipate this would become so widespread, where teams like the Indiana Pacers essentially just banished Roy Hibbert because they didn’t want to play with traditional big guys anymore? D’Antoni: Well, the league has always been a copycat league. I’m sure somebody is going to come up with something else and it will then go some place else. It’s just the game has changed. The rules have changed and the ability of players to be able to shoot threes and space the floor and be a power forward and be able to space all the way out to the three-point line—even centers can go out and shoot threes—it’s changed and people have to follow that. You give it enough time and I just think that it was kind of going that way anyway. And then what Golden State did, I just think it put everybody on notice and in order to beat them, you’re going to have to play that way. I think it’s a great thing. Obviously, I like that type of basketball. I like watching it. I think it’s exciting and I think fans love it. You’re trying to win and entertain and I think the Golden State Warriors accomplished both. SI.com: I read about the presentation you gave during the Las Vegas Summer League and, essentially, you said to build a team’s offensive attack around a post player playing with his back to the basket is wasting an opportunity offensively. Why do you think that? D’Antoni: If you look at the stats around the league, a post-up is not a very good shot. [Laughs] It just isn’t. Now again, in our business and leagues, a lot of times you say something and people take that as 100%: You’re always going to have post-ups and you’re always going to have 15-foot shots. They have not become the best shots. The best shots are layups and foul shots and three-point shots. So you try to gear your offense to where you can exploit those three things. And then, other teams are smart: They run you off the three so you have to shoot a 15-footer, or you can get a mismatch inside where you can post-up, and when you get a mismatch, you have to exploit that. But to go down and put your best offensive player on the block against their best defensive player, it’s just not a great option anymore. It just isn’t. – Interview October 2, 2015 of Mike D’Antoni by Sports Illustrated writer Jake Fischer"

Next: Some Small Ball Success for Sixers