Chicago Is Lesser of Two Evils for D'Antoni

This D'Antoni thing is obviously giving me fits. Latest rumor is that New York is about to make him an offer he can't refuse, and he very well might likely not.

As a proud owner of this tee, I've spent a lot of time going over the Knicks roster in my head. As a basketball writer, I'm also familiar with the Bulls. So, for the sake of argument, let's presume that the pre-Shaq Suns represent some kind of ideal D'Antoni team. Here's the players from each current roster that could, in any way, fit into that program:

Bulls: Luol Deng, Ben Gordon, Kirk Hinrich, Joakim Noah, Thabo Sefolosha, Tyrus Thomas
Knicks: Jamal Crawford, David Lee, Quentin Richardson (in theory, but only because he's been there before), Nate Robinson

So while I know that Paxson has his reservations, I'm increasingly coming round to the idea of D'Antoni in Chicago. There's a lot to work with there, especially if you figure that Skiles warped these guys in the opposite direction.

New York, on the other hand, seems like it could set him and his cause back a hundred years. I've never taken D'Antoni for money-grubbing; he mostly just wants control over his laboratory. If he goes with the Knicks, it will be like digging up the corpse of the Suns and then shooting it through the heart again. Like they did Rasputin, yo.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.