Mike D'Antoni reaches 600 coaching wins, 25th in NBA history to achieve the feat
With the Houston Rockets' impressive win over the Memphis Grizzlies at the Toyota Center, coach Mike D'Antoni registered 600th win of his coaching career. D'Antoni in his 15th year as an NBA head coach became the 25th coach in the NBA history to achieve this feat.
This is his third year in Houston owning a record of 145-62 at the helm. When he joined the Rockets in 2016, he took them to 55 wins and 3rd position in the West and last year he helped the Rockets to a franchise record of 65 victories and 1st seed in the Conference.
James Harden, the superstar-MVP of Rockets is probably in the best form he can be. The team is short-handed with three of its starters- Chris Paul, Clint Capela and Eric Gordon out due to injury. Danuel House Jr. and Austin Rivers are contributing as much as they can. It is indeed because of D'Antoni, his experience, and guidance that the Rockets are the 4th seed in the West after a frustrating 11-14 beginning.
D'Antoni got to start his first head-coaching job in 1998 with the Denver Nuggets. The Nuggets completed the already lockout-shortened season with a 14-36 mark. It was until 2002-03 season that D'Antoni was out of a coaching job, he then became an assistant coach of the Phoenix Suns and went on to become their head coach in the following year. D’Antoni’s run with the Suns (2002-2008) is currently the most successful stretch of his career, as he went 253-136 over a five-year span and notched a pair of 60-win campaigns.
The following years with New York Knicks (2008-12) and Los Angeles Lakers (2012-2014) were pretty disastrous before taking up an associate head coach job at Philadelphia for the 2015-16 season. Then the Rockets fell to his service and rest is history.
D’Antoni does not think much of the milestone. In the post-match interview of this historic game of his career he said:
“It just means I’m older than dirt. It’s an honor to be able to coach the guys I’ve coached and these guys are some of the best. This is my third year, but [the Rockets] have given me most of my wins, just by walking in that locker room.”
James Harden had all the praise for his coach and said,
"He’s the catalyst. He gets us going. He motivates us. Even when things aren’t going great, he tells us that we’re going to turn it around, and he kind of gives us that motivation that we all need, especially myself. We have plenty of talks on the plane and every single day before practice. And he just tells me to keep going. … That, right there, drives me to be who I am every single night on the court.”
James Harden,the reigning MVP, on this historic night scored a season-high 57 points in the win. He surpassed Kobe Bryant's streak with 17 consecutive 30-point games.
As the Rockets proceed in the season and head towards the playoffs they have to recover from the injury disasters. Mike D'Antoni and his star-player James Harden are going to have to put a lot of hard work to cruise to greater heights and fight their way through the crazy-crazy West.