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Phoenix Suns head coach Mike D'Antoni won the 2004-05 NBA Coach of the Year award, guiding the Phoenix Suns to an NBA-best 62-20 regular season record. Here's the Coach of the Year press conference:

SUNS HEAD COACH: MIKE D’ANTONI: “Just like any vote, you could make a case of other coaches doing it. I was just honored to be mentioned with them and to really win it is just beyond my wildest expectations. Trying to get this right, I want to thank some people and underline how many things go into place for me to be here and take this award. This is not just something I did. There are so many people involved that did stuff. (Suns Chairman and CEO Jerry (Colangelo) and (Suns President and General Manager) Bryan (Colangelo) had faith in me. It is funny we talk about the meeting in Venice and I don’t think you know this Jerry, but on the way with Laurel (wife), we almost got side swiped by a bus and that was the closest I have ever been in an accident. I was thinking if this is the way it is going to be with a relationship, we are going to be in big trouble. We avoided that and we had a nice dinner. It went pretty well and I want to thank them for that.”

“I want to thank (Vice Chairman and Manager Partner) Robert Sarver and the new investors for having faith and really plunging in with us without knowing the end results and having faith in us and stepping up with about $100 million in about 15 minutes. That took some guts and that had to go in price, and to Bryan who had the vision, the blueprint. He was the one who was going to take all the grief for it if things didn’t go well and he stuck to his guns and battled it out and did an unbelievable job of putting us where we are today in just six months when the plan came round. Those had to go in place and then you get down to my staff, they are unbelievable. They work harder than anybody I have ever worked with. We are always prepared. We may not always have the right answers, but we talked about them and we threw them against the wall 100 times. They just do an unbelievable job and that is Marc Iavaroni, Alvin Gentry, Phil Weber and Todd Quinter, who now is scouting in San Antonio and then Noel Gillespie in the video room. The work they put in is remarkable and 62 wins is a lot of wins and without the training staff, we had probably the least injuries of any team this year and the work they are doing under Aaron Nelson is remarkable. I was just lucky to have all these people in place, it wasn’t like I went out and got them, they were here and they do an unbelievable job.”

“Getting down to the players, I’ve talked to them before and I’ve talked to them today about how they have won me this award and what they have done and being able to just roll with the punches. I had a little different approach and I had Amaré (Stoudemire) go over and Shawn (Marion) doing what he is doing. It took a lot of courage for them to do that because they are putting themselves on the line, they believed what they are doing and it worked out. Going all the way down to someone like Bo Outlaw. I talked to him personally about coming here from Memphis and thinking of a bigger role for him than it turned out to be. He accepted not really playing a lot and he can play. The guy will play later on, somewhere here or wherever, but we need to put our resumes in place, this is the third coach of the year coach he has played for. It says something about attitude and what he brings everyday whether he is in a major role, minor role and it is not only Bo Outlaw, it is Jake Voskuhl, Paul Shirley and Walter McCarty and guys that don’t really get to play a lot and how they supported guys who did. I can talk about the starting five all night long and we should, but these other guys played a major role with the team and they did a great job. Definitely not last, but I have to thank my wife Laurel and my son Michael.”

SUNS SR. VICE PRESIDENT OF BROADCASTING: AL MCCOY: “Mike I have to say this, having spent a lot of time with you this year, this was the happiest group of coaches I have ever been around in my 33 years here and when you win 62 there is a lot to be happy about. The Suns have only had one other coach of the year in the history of the franchise and that was in 1989 and that coach was Cotton Fitzsimmons. He was a great supporter of yours Mike. He loved you; he loved your style of basketball. He loved the way you played and I know if he were today, he would be jumping up and down congratulating you.”

MIKE D’ANTONI: “The only thing I wish with Cotton being here, I would have to win him over with the three-point shot, he told me 100 times if you shoot more than 15, it is not a good sign. I thought he said we had to make 15.”

Question: Talk about your philosophy and style

MIKE D'ANTONI: “It is something that I grew up playing with my dad being a coach, he kind of played that way and it is just a combination of experiences you have and like, and really I can just remember lying on the coach in Italy at four in the morning and watching the Phoenix Suns play basketball. I was excited to watch them. And I know it is easy to say because I’m here in Phoenix, but it’s true. They had the small-ball strategy back when (Danny) Ainge was coaching and (Paul) Westphal. It was a little unconventional, but it was fun to watch. You can use your experiences and again, Bryan just got that talent that was able to do it and we were successful with.”

Question: Talk about the courage it took to turn the control of the team over to the players

MIKE D'ANTONI: “I’ve kind of always done that and I think the best way to get things out of players is trusting them and their instincts and I just don’t believe in taking men and thinking that you are going to change them much. So you are going to take what you have and what you can get the most out of them and with Steve Nash they have the best. Now I would have done the same things with Leandro Barbosa if he was the starting point guard. I don’t think he would have had the same success because the level of the players he did know. Leandro is great and hopefully he will be a great player one day. I still think the players respond better this way and it has always worked me. It works for some people, some people doesn’t. You have to coach a certain personality and it is a joy to coach this way. It is an unbelievable experience. With Steve leading it and with Amaré, Shawn, Joe (Johnson) and Q (Richardson) it has just been unbelievable.”

Question: What have you learned since last season when you took over?

I thought I knew it all last year (laughs). You always learn. You coach what you have and you try to do the best with them and all I’m worried about everyday is if I have Amaré in the right frame of mind of being able to be Amaré Stoudemire or Steve Nash or Paul Shirley. It doesn’t matter what role they have, it only matters if they are comfortable with that role and they are doing the best they can do. As a coach that is probably where it starts. We like to fool around the office with X’s and O’s and we laugh and talk, it means something, but X’s and O’s are like reading a book. You talk to other coaches or anybody you want to and you can get that. It is how you get your players to respond and enjoy their roles they have. And that goes from the last guy who doesn’t play and trying to get him to be a productive person on the team and that is where I try to base all of my energies and hopefully works out.

Question: Going back to training camp, could you envision all of this?

MIKE D'ANTONI: “We talked about it and I think Robert said it best, he would have been happy with 42 wins. He expected 40, he would have been happy with 45 and he would have been ecstatic with 50. So we gave him 62. We knew we could have been pretty good, when you go after Steve Nash and Quentin Richardson and we ended up the year 7-6 in the last 13 games. Joe was coming on like gangbusters and Amaré and Shawn, there was a chance. We didn’t really want to speak of it and we didn’t want to be crazy, there was a chance that we were going to be good, getting to the playoffs, maybe sneaking in fifth or sixth place, leading the league with 62. I don’t know how many times this year after 82 games, I don’t know if our team was flat maybe one time and that is these guys. They have came out every night and played hard and that is rare and it is hard to have a group like that. The chemistry is just perfect and that is something you manufacture.”

Question: Did you ever have any doubts that this approach might not work, like when you were 4-2?

MIKE D'ANTONI: “No, not at 4-2. Because we should have been 5-1 and I blew that game. I knew I would get smarter after that one. The only time, I had a conversation with Jerry one time during the year and San Antonio just killed us and we didn’t look good for a couple of games and I was thinking we might have gone as far as we can with this, but we just turned the corner with it and they guys got rejuvenated and got some energy and just took off again. I don’t think any of the coaches came in and said this is not going to work and they just kept getting better.”

Question: Going back to your last coaching stint in Italy, can you talk about did you think the NBA would come calling again?

MIKE D'ANTONI: “A lot of things were on my mind. I went back because I wanted to be a head coach and Italy was the only place I could do that. I left a great place and I did my thing in Denver and in Portland, thinking that the quality in life over there was better for a lot of reasons. After six months in Portland we sold our house again and packed up and we went. And I’m really glad we’re here to share this because they get fired to and they’ve been fired and packed some boxes. I had been in Italy for three years and I thought that was it, I thought I would be there forever and that would have been fine. I was cool with it and happy to be there and we enjoyed every minute of it, but you just keep watching the NBA and it keeps being there. It’s the best sport around. We won all the time in Italy and the team was going great and I got antsy and Michael wanted to be back here and we just did it.” Question: Will you talk about how those 21 years in Italy molded you as a person and as a coach?

MIKE D'ANTONI: “I think some of the things it did. Definitely, the first few years, I didn’t have a telephone, or a car or a TV and I read about a book a day and I’m not lying. In two years I read about 600 books and that more than anything probably opened up a new world to me. It was the greatest time. It was a tough time because it was kind of lonely, learning a new language, a new culture, friends, totally different way of life. I expanded as a person and learned how to do different things and there culture is a lot different, but some of it is similar, but the friends and people I met all had a tremendous influence on my life. Then as a coach, you coach as how you learned life.”

MCCOY: Mike, I can’t tell you how many times this year where fans have said to me, this Suns team actually act like they like each other and it all starts from the top.

MIKE D’ANTONI: Well, I like me too (laughs).

MCCOY: Well so does everyone else because you got the votes and it is nice to pass out the award and it is great to see that award go to somebody that deserves it. Congratulations coach, Mike D’Antoni, NBA Coach of the Year!