Fertitta deserves this, Morey deserves this, MDA deserves this and Harden, especially Harden, deserves this. The leaders are those who make their teammates better players, Harden is still in love with himself, only worried about his statistics, while the team falls apart. The time has come for Fertitta and Morey to have a strong talk with Harden. This team is not going anywhere with Harden. As for MDA, if a defensive coach (Tom Thibodeau for example) is not already hired to help him ... his time at the Rockets command is coming to an end.
That's just panic Mike, he always does this...when in danger, go smaller and put out there shooters, no matter if they're not playing well, no matter if their defense sucks...
Tilman ain't gonna pay two coaches this season, if Mike gets fired (and i don't think he will, although i guess there's a limit to everything) i can see Brase or Gunning finish the season.
I always thought he was a good coach, but it is clearly not working anymore. Seems very much to me like he has lost the team. That, and/or Chris Paul was actually doing a lot of the defensive coaching. Paul and Bzdelik. Whatever is happening right now is not working at all. Also, it seems like he just doesn't do anything to adjust in-game? If it's just "let them figure it out", why even have a coach?
Hes simply his own worst enemy as a coach and his strengths are also his weakness. He must have a Bzdelick who has the ability to coach defense and make decisions that sometimes conflict with DAntonis intuition. The going small thing just isn’t a winnable formula for an entire season. Every coaching answer cannot be go smaller and shoot more contested threes earlier in the shot clock. Also every season since his Phoenix years his teams have come out to start the season with atrocious defensive principles. I’ve come to the conclusion that he simply does not coach defense in training camp which is ridiculous. We went through this last year. He simply cannot coach a competent defensive team. I don’t want to hear anything about how it’s actually Moreys fault too even though he fielded another horrible defensive roster without 3/4 athletic swing players. Yes it’s a problem that Morey is stubborn about. But still this team is still not that bad at defensive potential. They’ll never be a top ten D but it’s no excuse that they are the leagues worst by far. It’s on DAntoni and he should lose his job ala McHale if he doesn’t fix the defense by the 15 game mark.
Paul was definitely helping with the defense and with keeping guys accountable on the floor, also because he leads by playing great defense himself first, and with him gone that's not out there anymore.
Instead of Harden being invisible, I prefer Harden keep aggressive on offense. The problem is other players’s bricking and we have a bad coach on adjustments. Gordon is trash Capela butter fingers Thabo’s defense vastly overrated Rivers can’t make a shot
Mmm... not sure I agree with this. Yes CP3 is much better than Westbrook at D and he would yell more at the other guys but the defense struggled last year too coming out of training camp with CP3 on the team. It’s coaching. Preparedness, game planning, and basic coaching principles which DAntoni simply does not coach. He never has and he never will unless he has a Bzdelick to do it for him. Players like CP3 being on the roster make very little difference if the coach isn’t willing to actually coach on that end of the floor.
In the end i think you just have to build a culture to have a solid defensive team, and that obviously starts with players and coaches because defense is about trying first, and those who are supposed to do that are the players, pushed by the coach if necessary. But for as good as they are overall, James and Mike are just not those guys, you can't build that culture around them for obvious reasons, you need someone else to bring that in, that's why i think Paul was very important. People often wonder why other teams or scrubs in general set career highs or records against us, well, that's likely not a coincidence, when other players face our defense they just don't feel the pressure in my opinion, that's why they usually shoot better.
I don't know, i mean, i'm not saying it's all on CP3 obviously, also cause due to his injuries and age he wasn't as great as the first year here in the first place, and i think we can sort of agree on Mike not giving a single **** about D, but i do think that having a veteran like Chris out there was still helping a bit in keeping guys engaged and accountable, i don't think you can take that for granted.
CP3 also had some continuity with the team too ( last year was his second year) I would personally place a lot of it on Mike. We had units with Gary Clark and Isaiah ****ing hartenstein last year that had decent defensive performances. Its prioritizing shooting above all else .
I would prefer a young creative coach such as Jay Wright (Villanova) or Tony Bennett (Virginia). Probably after college season ends.
Bzdelik upset the front office and ownership with his sudden decision to retire right before the season. That caused a lot of issues. The owner then did not like that he had to pay more to get Bzdelik back. The final straw was the baffling lack of adjustments. Ownership was ready to move on and the front office wanted to keep some of what Bzdelik had taught but to also bring someone else in that could diversify the defense. The issue was that the GM didn’t expect his head coach to be a lame duck and he also expected the owner to pay the going rate for elite assistants. Instead ownership balked at the cost and Morey was left with Elston Turner who simply isn’t as good as Bzdelik or the other top options. Make no mistake, Bzdelik is a better coach than Turner and is one of the 5-10 best defensive coaches in the league.
The Warriors had an offensive and defensive coach. Ron Adams handled the defense for the Warriors. There are a number of other teams that do the same. FWIW I never heard any issues with Bzdelik unhappy with the players or line ups used by MDA. The complaints were centered on the Rockets not addressing the loss of Ariza and Moute. MDA has flaws. He can get too locked in one certain match ups for example. However it isn’t like there were a bunch of elite defenders on the bench that MDA hasn’t played.
Even if we got another coach, what on earth could they do for this team? Trading for Westbrook reminds of the time Phoenix went for Shaq to play with Stoudamire. It just did not make any sense to the system and everyone blamed D'Antoni for it. Get us a new owner first that doesn't put selling tickets over winning we might have a chance. Tillman is the New James Dolan. He will ruin this franchise.
I don't think so, Mike loves to coach, but i think there's a good chance he won't get another chance if/once he leaves the Rockets, and i think he knows this.