The Origin and Evolution of The Pace and Space Era
On the Seven Seconds or Less Suns and how they’ve influenced the modern game.
Mike D‘Antoni is often considered the godfather of the pace and space offense, being known for his teams three-point heavy offense and lack of defense. He started his NBA head coaching career during the 1998–99 lockout shortened season with a Denver Nuggets team that was led by Antonio Mcdyess, Nick Van Exel and Chauncy Billups. The team went 14–36, which doesn’t seem like much but considering they only had won 11 games the previous season (which went 82 games), you can’t blame him too much. He showed enough promise to garner attention from teams around the league. Two years later he came into the head coaching job of the Phoenix Suns after the previous coach was fired mid-season. The team only went 21–40 in the games he coached his first year, but just one year and one Steve Nash later he turned the ship around. And after finishing with a 62–20 record, he proved that with the right talent, his fast-paced offense that relied heavily on three pointers and analytics could be successful.
The trio of Steve Nash, Shawn Marion, and Amare Stoudimire was one of the most entertaining and effective because of how well their skill sets complemented each other. Nash and Stoudimire running the pick and roll was a thing…
