Losing not option for D’Antoni

By Bob Hertzel
For the Times West Virginian

MORGANTOWN May 11, 2008 10:29 pm

— It’s a long, winding road to get to Mullens but it’s a longer, more winding road to get from Mullens to New York, a road that took Mike D’Antoni around the world and back before he was named head coach of the New York Knicks on Saturday.
There are some who would say landing the job is a reward for D’Antoni.
Others believe taking over Isiah Thomas’ dysfunctional band of ragamuffins is more punishment than even $24 million over four years is worth.
But one thing is certain, Mike D’Antoni will win more games than Thomas did and will suffer more with each loss.
It’s always been that way.
Losing never was acceptable in the D’Antoni family.
His father, Lewis, is a member of the West Virginia Sportswriters Association Hall of Fame, coaching the Mullens basketball power through the years. His older son, Dan, was a successful high school coach in South Carolina for 30 years.
But the fighting spirit of the D’Antoni family came out of his mother, whose roots reach back into the Hatfield and McCoy feud, a cousin being a McCoy. She played to win and taught her sons to do the same, be it gin rummy, bridge or a game of Risk or Monopoly.
The standings were always posted on the refrigerator.
Mike took her lessons maybe too much to heart, his brother once relating that after a loss his mother found him in his bedroom, beating his head against the wall. The only way to stop it was with a full bucket of water.
They better keep the buckets full of ice water and the Advil close at hand in New York with this team he takes over.
The NBA, of course, has long had a stronger West Virginia influence than anyone would imagine. Jerry West, of course, was a legendary player of such high status that he is represented as the NBA logo. He went on to become one of the league’s greatest executives.
Toss in Rod Thorn, a player, coach, league executive and now president of the New Jersey Nets and you have a second strong voice from a state that hasn’t produced an NBA player since 1984.
D’Antoni became another force with the coaching job he did at Phoenix, calling upon his West Virginia roots and two decades as a player and coach in Italy. He became a bigger- than-life figure in Italy after his Marshall playing days, took up Italian citizenship to go with his American citizenship and won five league titles in 13 years.
His biggest fan was a youngster whose family was stationed on a military base in Italy. His name is Kobe Bryant, and it was widely believed that Bryant took the No. 8 jersey that he wears because it was D’Antoni’s number, something he recently has said isn’t completely true.
But it all goes back to that days in Mullens, where basketball always has been king.
“Mike was one of the heroes and legends of this town,” Barry Smith, former principal at Mullens, recalled a couple of years back when D’Antoni was challenging to win the NBA title in Phoenix.
“He’s a success story,” added Smith, who as a child would shoot at the hoop the D’Antonis had in their back yard. “Everything he’s done he’s been successful at. He’s very intelligent, very athletic.”
Willie Akers, a WVU teammate of Jerry West’s after playing for D’Antoni’s father at Mullens, goes back to D’Antoni’s youth.
“I can remember when I played for (his dad), young Mike dribbling up the stairs when he was just 3 or 4 years old,” Akers said.
Mullens was a basketball factory, turning out the D’Antoni’s, Akers, former Marshall coach Greg White, college coach Shawn Finney and Jerome Anderson, a WVU player who went on to play in the NBA.
“Think of it, a town like Mullens, just 3,000 people, and two NBA players came from there,” Akers said.
It didn’t always come easily. When he returned to the U.S. he became coach of the Denver Nuggets and won only 14 of 50 games before general manager Dan Issel took over the reins. At Phoenix the start was tough, too, until Steve Nash came in to run his prolific offense.
Now, though, the challenge is toughest. Mike Lupica, the hard-hitting New York Daily News sports columnist, says his hiring is the most important since the Knicks hired Pat Riley.
“… and even Riley didn’t have to clean up a mess like this, the biggest mess in the history of Madison Square Garden, the one left like some kind of oil spill on 33rd St. by Isiah Thomas.”
Lupica points out that Riley inherited Patrick Ewing. D’Antoni inherits “the most wretched Knicks team of them all.”
D’Antoni could have had the Chicago Bulls job but opted instead to clean up basketball’s version of The Love Canal.
Put it this way: If he can make it there, he can make it anywhere.
E-mail Bob Hertzel at bhertzel@hotmail.com.