Mike D'Antoni helped carve out two NBA Player of the Year Awards for Steve Nash by forming an offense around Nash's talents when the two were with the Phoenix Suns in the mid-2000s.
So for Nash to offer a less than rousing defense of D'Antoni's situation with the Los Angeles Lakers suggests that a parting of the ways could be inevitable, even if John Calipari is not coming from Kentucky to save the franchise.
In an ESPN Los Angeles story on D'Antoni's reaction to the rumor that Calipari was to become the Lakers' next head coach, Nash also chimed in on D'Antoni's future in Los Angeles.
"It's all relative," Nash told ESPN Los Angeles on Tuesday. "With the amount of injuries and the rebuilding and evaluating different players, I don't know that any coach is going to have a successful run over this season.
"And last year, I know we had some difficulties as well, but we played some winning basketball for long stretches, which he deserves some credit for ... (Even) John Wooden is not going to be dealt a great hand with all the change and injuries we've had. I mean, you look at it, every week someone else goes down. So, it's a tough situation. I think people have to realize. Although I understand he's not Phil [Jackson], someone who is beloved and been extremely successful here, it's not been kind of a fair fight in some respects."
The support, watered down by the phrases "kind of" and "in some respects," lends to the possibility that Nash isn't sold on D'Antoni being the right coach for the Lakers. Nash could've been a staunch, but respected, supporter of D'Antoni, but stopped short of that support.
Which could have led to the reason D'Antoni didn't exactly get worked up over the tweet from former Kentucky Wildcats basketball player Rex Chapman that Calipari will become the new coach of the Lakers in 2014-15.
D'Antoni told ESPN Los Angeles that he appreciated the Lakers stepping in Monday night quickly to shoot down the rumor concerning Calipari but appeared resigned in the fact that unsubstantiated rumors are just a part of today's media culture, thanks to social media.
"That's kind of the world we live in," D'Antoni told ESPN Los Angeles. "Where before, what, three years ago, it would just be a little rumor that one person heard. Now, a million hear it. That's just the way the world is. It's social media and people run with it and whether it means anything or not, it's not really up to me anyway. So, you just go on. It's not a big deal."
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