No One Likes Tony Tony Tony

Turns out, I'm not the only one frustrated with Tony DiLeo, the interim coach who looked like anything but an actual coach.

In Marcus Hayes' piece, Andre Iguodala calls for changes, and he doesn't exactly provide a ringing endorsement of his coach:

"Moves. It's going to be a busy summer," Iguodala said. "I'm going to sit down with Ed and discuss what I think will get us over the [hump]."

As for coach Tony DiLeo, the team's assistant GM who replaced Maurice Cheeks in December and led the club to the playoffs, well, Iguodala didn't exactly endorse his soft-spoken boss.

"We'll see about that," he said, when asked whether DiLeo should return. "We'll talk. We'll try to get the best-case scenario."

…

We weren't always there."

"We had mental lapses."

"We had inner turmoil."

"We have a young team. At times, I think we have a tough time understanding the importance of communication as a whole," Iguodala said.



Hopefully part of Andre's moves that need to be made include him improving from a very mediocre shooter and ball-handler into a much, much better one.

In Phil Jasner's article, Theo Ratliff explicitly vents his frustration, all out attacking the Sixers' coaching staff:

"The coaches are responsible for guys [being] prepared and playing," he said. "They have to hold guys accountable. It's been that way all year, so you couldn't expect anything different.

"You have to step up and get into guys. If [as the coach] you don't have that type of personality, to be able to go at guys . . . "

He let his thought trail off, paused and added: "At the same time, it's your position. You've seen the mistakes and all that going on. Was anybody getting talked to about that? To me, this is losing if you have situations like that."

Ratliff never mentioned Sixers coach Tony DiLeo by name, but he made his points clear.

"[The lack of that] has bothered me, and I've told them it's bothered me, that it's something you've got to deal with," he said.

"When you see the lack of effort, the lack of concentration, the lack of being able to get things done, and to stick with the same thing, to me you're just trying to play guys, and I don't feel good about it."

…

"I'm not a coach, I don't make the substitutions. But if you're going to do it like that, then that's the way it's done, then you get that type of game. You're going to get whupped, plain and simple.

"If you see mistakes and you don't address them when it's going on, guys get comfortable . . . That's why you lose seven games while you're trying to move up [in the seedings].



Theo has every right to be upset. With Sammy Dalembert literally killing the team last night, he, along with fellow big men Marreese Speights, Donyell Marshall and Reggie Evans were mostly left to rot on the bench, even though Ratliff, Marshall and Evans had been pretty key components for the Sixers in the series.

Sam Donnellon's story said it all in the headline: "DiLeo made obvious coaching mistake in Sixers' Game 6 loss to Magic."