The Rockets fired their coach once the season started which means there are not many choices available. The Rockets have mediocre or not ready to be head coach assistants, which means they end up promoting an assistant that isn't ready. The Rockets promoted an assistant that has been primarily mentored by the head coach they fired. All the assistants are the same McHale had. McHale didn't design the offense (Finch) or defense (Bickerstaff), so the system is the same. VanGundy hasn't coached in years, and defenses have evolved, so he isn't an option. Tom Thibs is perfect at first blush. He is probably the most innovative/best defensive coach in the history of basketball (not exaggerating) and he has the personality and cache to get Harden, Lawson, Howard and Jones to buy into his system. However Morey is going to fight like hell to keep Thibs away, because Thibs will only take a job where he has more power/control than most coaches. Thibs learned about struggles with the front office in Chicago. Also Alexander would not personally like Thibs. So who is there? No one and that is why JB has the job. The Rockets will probably struggle, when DMO gets healthy go on a run... Win 46-47 games and lose in round 1 or two of the playoffs.... Look and see who is fired (Clifford, Casey, Hornacek) and decide if they are an upgrade. What I find unforgivable isn't the hiring of McHale. It is the Rockets failure to surround their coach with strong assistant coaches. There hasn't been a strong, veteran assistant coach worth a damn other than Sampson. Guys like Gentry, Malone, Clifford, Adams, Boylan, Carlisimo and others were not pursued.
Not sure what the point of firing McHale. How is his assistant gonna be any different? Fire them all at the end of the year if it's not working.
No, that is only a small part of the story. The "fans" of this team clamored for McHale to be fired all the way to the WCF last season. Les listens to them...far too much in my opinion, but its his team. Firing McHale and keeping the assistants early in the season is just asking for a disaster. Insanity by the definition of the word. The rest of the story is still unfolding...and those "fans" are quickly turning on JB predictably. We aren't out of the woods...not by a long shot.
There is no way this team is making the playoffs or wins 47 games. We are in the middle of the easy part of the schedule and most here expected us to start 20-2 and look at us. It would be a huge feat to end up winning half our games.
I've been thinking about our debacle for a while now, and just like many others I'm not sure if there is an answer or solution with the situation we have now. You could argue that once (if ever D-mo) comes back that we have a legit post option to go to and that could open up our inside-out game. Then again, if our players can't hit open 3s then what's the point? Patrick Beverley should start once he returns and I believe he will help kickstart our defensive effort. So hopefully a starting lineup soon should look like: Bev Harden Ariza D-mo Howard Then coming off the bench: Lawson Thornton Brewer/Mcdaniels Tjones Capella On paper that looks SOLID. But as seen so far through the season, Brewer has looked horrible except for that miracle shot. Lawson still doesn't know what he's doing, or should do out there. Part of that I put on the coaching IMO. Thornton was hot but now he's cooled off and is missing easy shots. Tjones started off trash but since he's picked it up a bit. He still pisses me off regularly. Honestly I think a turn around can come with A STRONG DEFENSIVE EFFORT. That, and hopefully Bickerstaff can come up with something or some schemes to get the most out of the players and the team. That's a coaches job and so far this season the coaching hasn't done that. I firmly believe this team is better than they have been playing. Yes, their confidence is shot but I don't think all hope is lost. I'm hoping Morey has another rabbit in his hat but I just don't know....
I'm just curious how u can make that assumption about harden not being a winning player? When we had good guy players like lowery scola and dragic how many playoff appearnces did we have? Since harden got here I belive, correct me if I'm worng the rockets have increased their win total every year while also making the playoffs every year and gaining a higher seed every year. Harden sucks right now no doubt about that but to say he's not a winning player and is going to be put in your tmac book? Wow!!!! Guys already been in more playoff games as a rocket in 3 years than tmac did in 5 he's already won more games In a single season and has 2 playoff series victories to none for Mac. It's your opinion and your more than entitled to it but sheesh some of you guys are going a little overblown. Our Stars have played bad and we're still 5-8 you guys realize the clips are 6-6 okc 7-6 and that's whith there teams stars playing well. Now imagine when harden gets it together? And he will. We will start winning a lot again. Last time I checked we beat okc and the clippers already this year also.
Bickerstaff is not the answer for this team. If we start winning it will be because we start hitting our 3's not anything Bickerstaff does. We need a whole new offense with a strategy to get the most out of our players. I think we need to give up our 3 point strategy, it did not work last year and definitely not working this year. A good offensive minded coach would make a big difference this year because what we are doing is not working. Had it not been for a miracle 3 point shot from Brewer he would be winless still. I don't even expect to win against Philly anymore.
A better offense would require Harden to play more off the ball. He swore he would do hat more with Lawson but he hasn't done that.
Isn't the offense pretty much designed by Finch, though? Seems to me that if you are looking for changes in the offense, then you would start with Finch before JB. I don't know if JB is the answer, but he at least deserves a shot - more than 2 games with limited practice.
Why doesn't Lawson ever run the pick and roll? Maybe even a Lawson/Harden pick and roll. I'd bet that it would net positive results.
I rep'd him for you. He deserves it. Good, knowledgeable fan and poster. I'm going to change my signature today to: It's the wrong mix of players. Here's what has happened to this team. 1. Harden did not do his job this summer. He partied, clubbed, built his brand...and practiced on the side. He put in work but not the right kind or amount of work. 2. Morey mistakenly re-signed Brewer/Bev/McDaniels with the reasoning that we needed continuity. But....he let Josh Smith walk somehow and did not get a replacement for him all the while knowing that DMo was going to be out to start the season, Dwight was going to be suspended the first game, and had physical ailments that were going to prevent him from being a full-time player for us. So Morey essentially gambled on Clint Capela having this ridiculous improvement and being able to be the defensive anchor for us when Clint was (and still is) unproven. 90 regular season minutes and a post season run playing alongside Josh Smith does not make you a defensive anchor. Sorry. It sure appears Morey has severely overrated Terrence Jones and Tererence's ability to step into the rotation and be a positive difference-maker. Because Morey left this club in a position with no real option behind Capela to anchor this defense if Dwight went down knowing that DMo was already down. Now if it is not true that Morey let Smith walk but that he really wanted Smith back and Smith walked of his own volition, then you have to consider why would Smith do that when his best friend (Dwight) is here? THE NON-RE-SIGNING OF JOSH SMITH DOESN'T ADD UP. Any way you look at it, it simply doesn't add up. Why would Smith want to jump to the Clippers when he clearly had a role here? Does anybody realize that if Smith were here right now he would've basically started every game and be averaging about 38 minutes a game for us?? He's riding the Clips bench and averaging around 15 minutes a game for them. On the same contract we would have given him. So......either Morey didn't want him back or Smith didn't want to come back. And either scenario is a problem. If Smith didn't want to come back here...what happened??? (I don't think we know the whole story behind what happened with Josh Smith yet. So, I'm continuing to dig on that front. I've got some feelers out with my contact that knows Dwight to see if he can find out anything.) Beyond that....the contracts to Brewer (and Bev to a certain extent) have backfired. Brewer has not and is not going to improve. He is what he is. He's an extremely long perimeter player that overplays to try to force turnovers so he can run out and get a finish. But he can't shoot the ball effectively and he's taking all sorts of shots that aren't in his range...and he's failing...like he would have failed last year and the year before if he had taken the same volume of shots from the wrong spots on the floor. And because we don't have that shut down D like we had last season, especially with the bench unit being able to run and gun off the Smith/Capela D, that's putting Harden and Brewer in these situations where they are trying to force transition and trying to complete stupid drives where they're going 1 on 3 at the rim. Bottom line: THIS IS THE WRONG MIX OF PLAYERS 1. We do not have the perimeter shooters to run a floor-spacing spread pick-and-roll offense effectively. We cannot catch-and-shoot effectively. The only way we can get our points even halfway efficiently is to get out on the break. Which leads me to point 2. 2. We do not have the perimeter defenders to force bad shots, turnovers, and get steals. We have one plus defender on the perimeter. Trevor. That's it. Bev, who has been injured and not even there for the greater part of the season, isn't going to help. Bev has lost something defensively. And we've replaced Pablo's crafty, sneaky overplay with Lawson. Lawson is a worse defender than Pablo, folks. So the perimeter defense is not there, neither is it going to get there with this group. McDaniels is way too raw and he's the only other perimeter player with any kind of defensive potential. 3. We do not have enough rim protection/rebounding down low. We've got Dwight and that's it. Capela, although a nice young player, is not ready to carry that burden night in and night out. His body is not big enough nor mature enough and his mind isn't mature enough and experienced enough to be the defensive stopper we need in the paint when Dwight sits. He is talented and athletic and as such if you paired him with a great defender at the 4 (like Josh Smith) then he can shine a whole lot better defensively and on the glass when he doesn't have the added responsibility of all the paint/rim protection. This is a direct result of Smoove leaving us and not being replaced. 4. We do not have enough rebounding. We're currently 26th in DRB%. This is a direct result of Smoove leaving us and not being replaced. Morey was gambling on continuity and he lost. Because Brewer mainly doesn't have the character to make it work. And because Harden got tied up all summer doing everything but getting his body and mind in peak condition and ramping up his game. Harden is a significantly worse player than last year. He not only didn't get better. His game has actually gone down a notch. He's went backwards. Solutions: 1. Harden has to fully acknowledge his lack of conditioning and focus by ramping his game down on offense, removing 90% of the pull up jumpers he's taking, and moving off the ball in half-court sets, becoming a floor spreader, and letting Lawson operate the PnR with Dwight/Clint. Our most effective lineup with this group of players is going to involve Harden probably defending 4's or 3's since we don't have any other real plus defenders at either spot. He's got to be willing to move down low. He for sure SHOULD NOT BE OUT TOP DEFENDING POINT GUARDS FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!!!!! You can't run Harden out there and expect him to check Lillard and/or McCollum. That's a recipe for failure. Gotta move him to the 3 or 4 defensively. Which means you essentially have to determine what the best backcourt combination is without Harden. Is it Lawson/Terry?? Is it Lawson/Brewer? Is it Terry/Brewer?? Is it possibly Lawson/Bev when Bev returns?? There aren't any great options out there right now (which is why I say we have to get another true 3&D player). But one thing we should know for sure is for this season at least, Harden needs to be defending 3's and 4's. And I think most likely that is a career thing for Harden. He's most likely not ever going to be even a good defender defending SG's. Harden should be the guy that's running with the second unit against the opponent's second unit...until he gets into better shape and gets his jump shot working properly. You start Lawson and let Lawson do his thing. Set up the pick-and-roll. Let Lawson handle the basketball to keep our turnovers down early. Put Harden off the ball, let Lawson run PnR and then circle out of that to Harden in the post if necessary. Then when you rest Lawson, you bring Harden up top and let him run the show against the opponent's backup unit. He can penetrate better, finish better, and get to the FT line, while conserving his energy early and letting us keep our turnover count down by having the ball in Lawson's hands early. Harden/Terry can spread the floor with the second unit. Then you rotate Harden out of the game to start the second quarter, bring back Lawson to run the show, and get our best defensive unit out there to generate turnovers and run before finishing out the half with Harden up top. Rinse and repeat for the 2nd half. 2. This team has to trade away some of the wings and forwards we have for a true 3&D player....that is a guy that can catch-and-shoot at close to 40% or greater and can actually come down the other end and defend effectively on the perimeter. 3. We've got to get DMo back to playing like he was last season. I think right now we are seeing what DMo's value to this team was last season. DMo kept this team afloat while Dwight was out. Now with Dwight in there for half the games and Harden out there we're sinking in mud. DMo has huge value to this team. We need his floor-spacing, his passing, his post play. We need his offensive veratility combined with his good defensive decision making. He'll make a big difference if he can come back and play at last year's level. If he doesn't then we're in danger of missing the playoffs. 4. We've got to acquire another 5 that can lock down the paint and rim for us when Dwight sits. (Larry Sanders??) We need DMo and that newly acquired 5 to be the 2nd and 3rd big men in our big men rotation with Capela pushed down to 4th and Terrence/Harrell moved to the bench altogether and only given spot minutes. Without these things we're just going to piddle around .500 for the season and may miss the playoffs.
the way this team is right now, losing to any team isnt really a "debacle". but good post by op nonetheless.
All these questions and the Rockets hitch their wagon to a coach who is making more head scratching decisions than McHale if that's even possible!? Fire McHale to give a basketball brat a shot they said. Fire McHale to salvage the season they said. Jesus Christ the team implodes and still no activity with personnel, still not a single person who can make a shot. Maybe the championship contender status was too much for the tender sensibilities on the team. It's ****ing embarrassing.
Turnovers after turnovers. No communication on the defensive end. These guys just went through the motions. We need a leader. Sad to say that.
