‘Superteams’ in the NBA haven’t always worked out, a well-known example being the 2012-13 Los Angeles Lakers that featured Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, and Steve Nash.
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Mike D’Antoni is widely regarded as one of the greatest offensive coaches in the history of the NBA. He won the Coach of the Year award in 2005 with the Phoenix Suns with Steve Nash as his point guard.
He also won the award for a second time with the Houston Rockets in 2017 with ‘The Beard’ James Harden as his biggest weapon on the offensive end. While D’Antoni has achieved tremendous success as a coach, he hasn’t made it to an NBA Finals in his career.
When the Los Angeles Lakers acquired Steve Nash from the Phoenix Suns and Dwight Howard from the Orlando Magic, it certainly looked like the team will not only reach the Finals but win it all, well at least on paper.
D’Antoni discusses the tumultuous 2012-13 season that the Lakers had to endure
The Lakers would lose Kobe Bryant to a season-ending Achilles tendon rupture after 78 games and also had to deal with various other injuries during the course of the season.
They ended the season with a 45-37 record, their worst since 2007, and D’Antoni was at the helm of affairs. The former NBA Head Coach recently sat down with JJ Redick to discuss the tumultuous season of the 2012-13 Lakers.
Mike D’Antoni on the difficulties of coaching the Lakers, not having a healthy Steve Nash in LA, and “friction”. pic.twitter.com/oD5SD4ZpzP
— JJ Redick (@jj_redick) April 11, 2022
“Friction? I thought I was going to get killed!”, remarked D’Antoni when asked by Redick about whether that was the first time in his career that he experienced some friction while coaching a team.
What made D’Antoni take the risk?
The former Rockets coach went on to mention that he wasn’t able to get the team on the same page on several occasions, that players didn’t like each other, and that they lacked the talent to win basketball games.
He wanted to play Steve Nash but he was unavailable due to injury, Bryant and Howard never really got along and the pressure to perform under the bright lights of Los Angeles mounted every night.
The only reason D’Antoni ended up taking the job was that he was reuniting with his point guard Nash and felt that he would be the anchor that could steady the ship but unfortunately he got hurt and had to be away from the team.
He was asked about the current Lakers team and how they were similar to the 2012-13 team to which he replied that anything apart from winning a championship was considered to be a failed season.
D’Antoni is currently working as a consultant with the New Orleans Pelicans but many teams will be going after him for their Head Coach position this off-season.
