Earlier reports came out that Pau Gasol didn’t like the way he is featured (or not) in Mike D’Antoni’s offense. Well D’Antoni fired back and didn’t not hold back at all:
“It’s also a nice excuse not to play hard,” D’Antoni said. “That’s a classic, ‘I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.’ Well, you don’t have trouble getting up to the paystub line. You know what you need to do to get your check. You know what to do. They will. They’ll figure it out.”
“That’s one thing. They don’t want to do it that way. I understand that. That’s when you have to accept it or not. But there’s no reason not to play hard.”
Wow you rarely see a haymaker like that from a coach to player that is still on the team. My thought is that while Gasol hasn’t really played well, D’Antoni also seems to have issues always popping up with players in L.A. Neither one of them is leading anyone to a title anymore.
I bet this will make the next meeting between them really interesting.