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Rockets’ Mike D’Antoni downplays 600th coaching win: ‘I’m older than dirt’

Mike D'Antoni, Rockets

With the Houston Rockets’ win over the Memphis Grizzlies on Monday night, head coach Mike D’Antoni picked up the 600th win of his career, becoming the 25th coach in NBA history to achieve that feat.

However, D’Antoni does not think much of the milestone, saying it merely means he’s old:

“It just means I’m older than dirt,” said D’Antoni after the game, according to Salman Ali of Red Nation Hoops. “It’s an honor to be able to coach the guys I’ve coached and these guys are some of the best. This is my third year, but [the Rockets] have given me most of my wins, just by walking in that locker room.”

The 67-year-old D’Antoni has been coaching the Rockets for the last three years, currently owning a record of 145-62 at the helm. He won 55 games during his first season, and last year, he racked up 65 victories en route to a Western Conference Finals appearance against the Golden State Warriors in which Houston actually held a 3-2 lead.

D’Antoni landed his first head-coaching job all the way back during the 1998-99 campaign, when he coached the then-lowly Denver Nuggets to a 14-36 mark in a lockout-shortened season.

He was then out of a job until becoming an assistant coach on the Phoenix Suns in 2002-03 before taking over as head coach the following year. D’Antoni’s run with the Suns is currently the most successful stretch of his career, as he went 253-136 over a five-year span and notched a pair of 60-win campaigns.

He then spent six disastrous years between the New York Knicks and Los Angeles Lakers before taking a job as associate head coach of the Philadelphia 76ers for one season in 2015-16.

Mike D’Antoni finally became coach of the Rockets for the 2016-17 campaign.

The post Rockets’ Mike D’Antoni downplays 600th coaching win: ‘I’m older than dirt’ appeared first on ClutchPoints.

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