Mike D'Antoni Enters Hall of Fame, Reflects on Nash, Kobe
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- Mike D'Antoni enters the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame this weekend in Springfield, Massachusetts, citing his '7 Seconds or Less' offensive philosophy as the reason for his induction rather than his 672 career wins or two Coach of the Year awards.
- D'Antoni called his biggest coaching regret not pushing the pace further with the 2005-06 Phoenix Suns, who ranked second in the league in offensive efficiency at 111.5 points per 100 possessions — a mark that would rank 26th twenty years later.
- D'Antoni said he took the Lakers job primarily because Steve Nash would be there, but Nash never fully recovered from injury, making the pairing 'doomed from the start' despite a 28-12 finish after Kobe Bryant's Achilles tear.
- D'Antoni recalled nearly drafting Steph Curry by one spot during his Knicks tenure and dismantling the roster for two years to pursue LeBron James, two heartbreaks he described alongside the high of 'Linsanity.'
- D'Antoni revisited the 2018 Western Conference finals Game 7 collapse, when the Rockets went 7-for-44 from three and missed 27 in a row against Golden State after Chris Paul pulled his hamstring in Game 5.
- D'Antoni credited analytic advances and James Harden's playmaking for letting him 'rev up' the Houston offense more than he could with the Suns, where he said the team hesitated because 'we were first to go through the door.'
Why it matters: D'Antoni's induction formalizes the league's embrace of the three-point, pace-and-space style he piloted with the 2005 Suns, and his own admission that the Suns 'didn't quite maximize' it underscores how far the NBA has run with his blueprint — three-point volume and pace are now league-wide defaults, not outlier tactics.
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