The truth comes out when you don’t have time to think or analyze things. Mike D’Antoni speaking against Los Angeles Lakers fans was what he really felt. However, a franchise with such a huge following can’t have their head coach belittling the support of opinion of fans that way, so they forced him to issue an apology.
Well, maybe it did actually come from him, but when it’s something that shows up after so much backlash and exposure in the media, you have to think that it’s really not that sincere. To be honest, D’Antoni was baited into making that remark, and fell right into the trap. Life as a Lakers head coach hasn’t been going as planned, and two double digit losses to the Warriors and the Suns brought out the worst in him.
I was an idiot last night. I was out of my mind. I was ticked off. We didn’t play well and I said some stuff I shouldn’t have. It was stupid. That’s me, I just made a mistake. To me, the meaning is this: We got a team that needs to overachieve and we have a lot of injuries and we’re in a tough state right now. So, we need everybody to be pulling with us and it’s going to take the whole village to get this done. That was the meaning. I just said it wrong and it came out wrong because I was agitated. But I apologize, and we’ll move on. But we need everybody to be behind these guys. They’re going to play as hard as they can play.
Coaching a team that stands for success but doesn’t really have the players to get there is hard for D’Antoni, just like trying to fix an unbalanced squad filled with egos and animosity last season proved to be too much of a challenge for him. The Lakers did make the playoffs, but were swept away by the Spurs. His attempts to turn the Lakers into a different version of his Phoenix Suns haven’t been working out – he keeps getting point guards injured, and Kobe Bryant running the show (when he’s been healthy hasn’t really helped).
D’Antoni knows he was never a first choice for this gig, and that the Lakers are always on the lookout for someone better. Lashing out against the fanbase didn’t win D’Antoni any popularity points, and it’s quite realistic to think that if this season continues heading into nothingness, we’ll get to see a few more moments of D’Antoni being an “idiot”, and then pulling off an apology and hopes it goes away.