15 games in do we still luv WB?

Still love Russ, MDA needs to coach better

 

We'll be fine. R-E-L-A-X

 

His net rating dropped back to negative after today’s game. Meaning when he’s on the floor we are getting beat.

His advanced numbers are all at either career worst or 2nd worst across the board. And this is a guy who has never really had great advanced numbers.

He has regressed so badly from his “MVP” year it’s crazy.

Looking bleak.

 

Harden don’t want to trade Brick and Tucker. What is your solution?

Nene, green,Thabo and Tyson have negative trade value,
Gary, Ben and Hart have value, even knicks and GS don’t want them.
They are not going to help Blazers and Spurs either,

 

No

 

i'm very happy with WB. i believe we will win a championship with him this year. he's gonna be a beast in the playoffs

 

I never really loved Westbrook. I was, and I am still hoping for the best.

BUT, I AM REALLY MISSING GERALD GREEN. 36% FROM THREE IS LOOKING PRETTY AWESOME RIGHT NOW!

 

originally thought he was a bad fit. still think so. he could help things significantly by making better decisions but that's not who he is

 

I really refuse to believe that Westbrook is the reason we are losing games.

People go on about his shooting, it is bad, but what is worse is that 4 guys are shooting abover 35% from distance this year...and one of these guys (Clemons) doesn't see the floor for whatever reason and another of these guys has been in and out of the lineup in House. The other two are Harden and Tucker.

Rivers has to come around from 3 and Mclemore either has to turn it around or sit his ass on the bench and try someone else while Green and Gordon get healthy (althought Ego was trash from three too starting this season)

Westbrook has done better playing off the double, driving the ball, getting an open shot that gets bricked off of it. We are getting open shots, as usual, no one makes them. And I mean open shots besides Westbrook's shots.

You can live with his poor shooting if others are not shooting poorly. I never expecting him to be a good shooter. I think though that he is still a more valuable player to the Rockets than CP3 is just because he is still more valuable. CP3s contract was really really really bad, we all lamented that fact, let's not ignore that he was rapidly aging and wasn't going to get better. I still think Westbrook can be flipped because he's still a superstar player. I guarantee a young and upcoming team like the Twolves or Suns or some other team looking to make a splash would trade for him if the Rockets wanted to trade him.

That said, I think it'll work out. I think we ran into 3 good teams, lost all of them, it happens sometimes. We've had a tough schedule and I think things will turn around. If we had lost to bad teams I'd be flipping out now but the Mavs, Clippers, and Nuggets? Yeah, two of those could have gone either way too.

The less we play Mclemore the better, not sure why he plays at all, bad defensively, bad on the boards, bad shooting, gives us nothing at all. Stop playing him.

 

He is close to what I expected. He has actually gelled better than I expected.

Westbrook is who he is. He has some supreme strengths (transition) and some terrible weaknesses (shooting).

Bringing in a player like Westbrook requires ownership willing to put the pieces around him to accentuate his strengths and limit his weaknesses.

Westbrook’s inabilities to shoot in the half court is going to hurt Harden’s ability to penetrate or get off clean looks from 3.

Westbrook’s ability in the full court requires players that can get out in transition for easy scoring opportunities and back defensively quick.

Westbrook also gambles at times defensively so the Rockets need long athletes to switch.

The shopping list would be a center that can hit 3’s to improve spacing so Westbrook’s lack of shooting in the half court is less of an issue. Second would be adding long wings that shoot “okay” from 3 to stay on the court.

Ownership didn’t allow for any of that. The Rockets were able to add players like ancient Thabo and Chandler for the minimum. The Rockets front office was not allowed to add salary in the Westbrook trade.

Essentially ownership told the Rockets front office to spend no money but figure it out.

So here the Rockets are, a very flawed team counting on James Harden to make up for all the shortcomings of the team. So Westbrook and the Rockets have been basically what I expected.

The players play hard, MDA coaches them fine but with their roster flaws they are easy to exploit and the half court failures will only get worse. The only way this improves is roster changes... and by far the easiest way to have done that was destroyed by ownership.

 

Agreed with everything except MDA coaching fine.

Look at the last play vs LAC. A simple inbounds to Harden 40' from the basket (with three defenders surrounding him) is so beyond vanilla MDA should donate his paycheck.

He hasn't done more in his 3 seasons than McHale did in 4 -- one CF each, and that's despite having far better talent than Kevs.

Rockets have flawed players but the coaching doesn't help much.

Is Clemons on load-management?

Meanwhile, let's play 30 year-olds 40+ minutes.

Those type of decisions are O'Brien TO stupid.

 

MDA is a better coach than mchale

But I agree with most of what you’ve said

I don’t know why I have to keep making the case that we have playable guys that just aren’t playing . Harden dragged a roster playing Tarick black and Joey Dorsey significant minutes to 56 wins and the 2 seed (under mchale)

I know some people like MDA , and I do admit he has his strengths . But I don’t think he’s a top 10 coach . He’s not better than pop , Carlisle , spo , bud , nurse, doc, or Snyder. And then there’s a laundry list of others he’s probably in the same tier with like stotts and Malone and Vogel , maybe even Gentry.

He’s so inflexible . I’m glad we are allowing pj to take those little 5 footers , because that’s not a bad shot . But until Russ was here and we somewhat abandoned our all threes and layups approach he was not .

Don’t get me started on the rotation. If **** goes sideways MDA has 2 strategies . 1)play smaller 2) play a shorter rotation.

Frankly , statistically , those aren’t bad options. It’s the fact that he NEVER does anything else that’s infuriating, and we see it hasn’t led to playoff success or to players being able to step up after they don’t play the whole year.

Why Clemons or Clark didn’t see the floor despite Macklemore’s horrible game is mystifying . Why Hartenstein didn’t get a shot after Tyson was only capable of 3 good minutes in the first half I don’t know

If we win a chip this year it won’t be because of mike

You can’t do well in this league without talent , but mike craters as a coach when he doesn’t have a HOF pg to run his system.

 

We flat out suck in transition and so does Westbrook.

Westbrook is bad at every facet of scoring right now transition included. Honestly the best thing Westbrook does is give Capela really good drop offs and wrap around. No lob passes at all but the other passes are enough.

 

When you let Tim Hardaway Jr score 31 and Harden goes 2-15 from 3, you get results like this.

Westbrook is who he is. He’s not gonna shoot 6-10 from 3 and be efficient. He needs the pieces around him to hit open shots. The Rockets didn’t do that today.

I know it’s cliche but... you live by the 3 you die by the 3.

 

Bold sums up the delusions of clutch fans. The Rockets have actually been winning games, literally, when Westbrook has been off the floor, and badly losing them with him on.

That’s the definition of losing them games. Also I love the bluntness of the WB > CP3 logic there. Or lack thereof. Westbrook is better than cp3 because he’s better. Even though he’s way worse by any stat you wanna use.

 

I love Westbrook on our team. He brings plenty of rebounds and assists, energy, and pure flat out hustle. It's the surrounding cast of bench players that I am much more concerned about, with MDA and his stubborn ways. What is so much better in his eyes about McLemore and Sefalosha than Hartenstein and Clemons?

I mean, Mr. Noadjustmentsneeded just kills us at times leaving certain players in when it just isn't working.

 

Agreed... You can tell who has good basketball sense and who are the "geek squad" CF posters... Condemning WB for our troubles is clearly dumb.. We have the same problems as we've always had since the Dantoni/Harden combo, way before WB got here.. Which is transition defense, rebounding, chucking 3s, and watching Harden be Harden... Great results everywhere but the trophy case!

 

Isn't that the truth.