[h1]Knicks hope new coach can lure LeBron James to town[/h1]
By Ian O'Connor / The Record (Hackensack N.J.) | Wednesday, May 14, 2008 |
http://www.bostonherald.com |
NBA Coverage
Photo by AP
NEW YORK - Start with the relationship between Mike D'Antoni and LeBron James.
"A good one," D'Antoni's agent, Warren LeGarie, confirmed Tuesday.
How good?
"Very good," LeGarie said.
Before his client, D'Antoni, or D'Antoni's brand new fan base could get too carried away, the agent maintained that another one of his clients,Cleveland coach Mike Brown, has "an unbelievable relationship" with his franchise player.
But as the Knicks were making the only kind of news they ever make at playoff time - hiring or firing another multimillion-dollar savior - a guy who'sknown the new coach for a quarter century was doing a little talking on the side. And no, LeGarie wasn't tempering the notion that the Knicks already haveone eye on D'Antoni's system and the other on the dreamy prospect of LeBron James running it.
LeGarie reminded that D'Antoni is a Team USA assistant, James a Team USA player. I'll believe that Beijing will emerge from the Olympic Games withmore progressive ideas on human rights before I'll believe D'Antoni and James have never privately talked about someday uniting the ultimatefreewheeling system with the ultimate freewheeling star.
"There's been no promises of anybody being delivered here," LeGarie said. "Does Mike have a good relationship with LeBron on the nationalteam? You bet, because that's his job, to have a good relationship with LeBron.
"Is there any quid pro quo going on here? Absolutely not. ... Would Mike be open to the opportunity? Yeah, how do you not want to coach the best playerin the world?" D'Antoni's Knicks have yet to run their virgin fast break, and still everyone knows the score: The new coach is a living, breathingrecruiting tool, a player's best friend.
Donnie Walsh can't say the chief reason he hired D'Antoni is the hope the coach can convince James - valedictorian-to-be of the free agent class of2010 - that he needs to spend his prime in his all-time favorite gym, Madison Square Garden, where LeBron playfully dropped 50 points on the Knicks inMarch.
Walsh isn't sure James will definitely leave Cleveland. He isn't sure the Knicks will be good enough in two seasons to attract James. And heisn't even sure he'll have the salary cap room to close the deal in the event James does leave Cleveland and the Knicks have improved enough to gethim.
So it serves Walsh little good to paint D'Antoni as a master recruiter, the NBA's answer to Barry Switzer, when so much has to happen between nowand LeBron's liberation. Walsh isn't even allowed to talk about James, currently under contract to an Eastern Conference team making the right kind ofplayoff noise.
Meanwhile, the Knicks' president can't be fined or suspended for letting you read between the lines.
"If you get real good coaches," Walsh said, "I think they attract good players. But I can't tell you that I was making this decisionbased on the fact that down the road, when we get under the cap, that (D'Antoni) would end up getting us players.
"That's part of our plan, but the first thing is trying to get our team playing the right way. ... And then to add to it, you try to get to a pointwhere, yeah, we can go out and get a free agent to put us in a better position."
D'Antoni puts the Knicks in better position to get the one free agent who would put them in a much, much better position.
"There's a lot of wild speculation that this whole thing is set up that way," LeGarie said, referring to the belief that the D'Antoni hirerepresents the first dozen roses sent to LeBron in what will be a not-so-discreet two-year courtship.
"Believe me, we took the job based on the job. ... This is where Mike wanted to come. He really felt he was recruited here."
The recruited now becomes the recruiter. D'Antoni sure has a way about him, a persona that attracts greatness.
When he was a kid in Italy, there to watch his father play pro ball, Kobe Byant idolized D'Antoni, the Italian League legend, and came to wear hisnumber, 8.
Grant Hill took a minimum salary to play for D'Antoni in Phoenix. Shaquille O'Neal bolted Pat Riley's gulag for a chance to play with a coachwho doesn't treat his practice facility as a chamber of punishment and pain.
"Shaq wanted to play for Mike," LeGarie said. "He's been on the phone talking to Mike, and I can't say he's the happiest Shaqthere is right now. He really counted on being there with Mike."
There's Shawn Marion, and then there's the rest of the NBA populace eager to lace them up in D'Antoni's locker room. The coach showed up forhis introduction Tuesday, and all three Knicks in the house - Stephon Marbury, Quentin Richardson and Nate Robinson - couldn't say enough nice things aboutthe very man who traded them from Phoenix to New York.
But D'Antoni won't succeed or fail on the strengths and weaknesses of the current roster, a roster scheduled to be gutted as soon as Walsh gets afirm grip on it. D'Antoni's era will be defined by his ability - or lack thereof - to close the deal on a blue-chip recruit from the summer of2010.
So what makes LeBron James tick, Coach?
"About 6-9, 260 pounds of unbelievable athleticism," D'Antoni said. "That helps. He wants to be great."
What have you learned about James in your Team USA travels?
"That he wants to learn Mandarin and conquer the world of Chinese business," D'Antoni said, "that's what I've learned."
Soon enough, the New York coach and the Cleveland star will be sharing a long business flight to Beijing. Off-the-record whispers don't amount totampering in international airspace.
So the game is on. Mike D'Antoni has been unofficially charged to convince LeBron James,
Yankees fan, that there's nothing better than going deep in theGarden.
