Mike D’Antoni Confirmed Knicks Resentment towards Jeremy Lin; Shares His Philosophy to Instill Confidence in PGs

Discussion 1,665

In a must-listen interview of Mike D’Antoni and Adrian “Woj” Wojnarowski, Mike confirmed that there was real resentment by Knicks teammates toward Jeremy Lin that led to his exit from New York.

1. [17:38] How much resentment did Knicks teammates have during Jeremy Lin breakout stretch in 2012?

Credit to @Click’s post:

“D’Antoni said that there was some resentment and it was real, but that all teams in the league have this problem. He said he couldn’t get into the minds of the players, so he doesn’t know for sure, but that he felt the resentment there against Lin during Linsanity.

He wasn’t very clear with his explanation, but I think he said something about Melo not wanting to move to PF position and Amar’e not wanting to move back or take a backup role to Tyson Chandler, which he also didn’t want to do. D’Antoni also said that in order for Lin to be successful, he had to play a certain way (being ball dominant, I’m guessing), which took away from the way Melo and Amar’e were successful, which was to have the ball in their hands all the time.

It was interesting how D’Antoni said that he had to resign because the players no longer listened to him and did what he wanted, so he couldn’t get the best out of them. He had to leave the Knicks so they would make the playoffs that year. D’Antoni also said that he’d rather have the respect of certain players in the league than to keep his job. Maybe he was referring to Lin without saying Lin’s name”

2. Mike D’Antoni’s Philosophy on Instilling Confidence to his Point Guards

Starting at 27:45, MDA also talked about his own experience made him want to inject confidence to his PG, not looking over their shoulder doubting himself.

Confident Lin with 7 TOs was better than team 14TOs, culminating in Toronto 3pt-game winner
“He looked at me for the last shot and I looked at him like ‘Go Do it!’“

Note: the complete story started at 26:56 with MDA wavering confidence as a player before going to Italy that later shaped him as a coach to always instill confidence to his players, especially his Point Guards like Steve Nash and Jeremy Lin.

By psalm234