Last week the New York Knicks' head coach Mike D'Antoni resigned. The Knicks had been struggling to win games and were not meshing as a group on the court. D'Antoni resigned and Mike Woodson took over as head coach. Since the coaching change the Knicks have won 5 straight games and could be on the winning track.
7-S Analysis
Strategy -
Old
- Free-flowing, point guard lead offense
- Outscore our opponents
- Play as little defense as possible
New
- Defense 1st
- Run the offense through two Star Players
Structure
Old
- Head Coach calls plays
- Point Guard directs the offense and decides who gets the ball and when they get it
New
- Head Coach still calls plays
- Star Players run the offense instead of the point guard
Staff
- Head Coach - Mike Woodson replaced D'Antoni
- Assistant Coach
- Team Captains
- Star Players
- Role Players
Most of the players are offense 1st players who don't play much defense mixed with a few defense 1st players
Skills
- Mostly scoring/offensive skills
- Passing, shooting, dunking, etc.
Systems
Old
- Incentives - If you play well you will get more time
New
- Incentives - if you play well you will get more time, if you don't want to play defense you won't play
Style
- Friendly, non confrontational
Shared Values
- Winning
- Playing Defense
The main issue with the Knicks seems to be a personnel and strategy issue. The old coach wanted an offense that was run by the point guard (a non star player) which resulted in the star players not getting the ball as much as they wanted which made them unhappy. This lead to team chemistry issues and poor play on the court. The players did not want to listen to the coach. When D'Antoni resigned and Mike Woodson took over the strategy changed where the star players played a bigger role in the offense. Woodson also emphasized playing defense. These changes to personnel and strategy have helped the Knicks play better and helped them to win more games.
By fixing the personnel issue and aligning the players to the correct strategy to maximize the overall team talents (offense and some defense) the team has been performing better and winning makes all the problems go away (for now at least)
One potential issue is that most of the Knicks players are not very good at defense and the coach wants to focus on Defense which could result in another misalignment in the future. The challenge for the new coach is to get the players to buy into his strategy of playing defense and letting the defense lead to better offense.
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