Confirmed: Kevin McHale was the problem

He did not JBB. Morey did. Remember the Morey wanting to hire the assistant coaches thing that caused RA to leave?

 

Divion title & conference finals is not enough? Why so much hate for Kevin? He was fired at 4-7 record. Doubt we can blame him for anything.

 

I still know enough about the NBA to know that McHale was doing a horrible job to start the season. I'm still glad the Rockets fired him. The problem was they had no Plan B other than JB. I never liked the idea of JB taking over for the entire season. I was resigned to it because I figured A) the Rockets likely weren't prepared to fork over another multiyear contract for $4-5 mil a season to a veteran coach after paying $13 million to McHale to get rid of him and B) no respectable coach out there wanted to take over this mess 11 games into the season.

So I hoped for the best, expected the worst, and the latter is what we got. Like I said though, I'm still glad McHale is gone. We were never gonna be a contender this season even had he been kept on. We might've made the playoffs, but we would've been an easy first round out. Instead now we get to keep our pick, Morey and Les realize the importance of coaching, and they also understand that this roster has been exposed and needs a complete overhaul.

 

If I was an owner that cared, that man is fired

 

FIFY.

 

Little did we know that he'd be replaced by his assistant, who would run the same garbage, lack of movement offense, and play the same role players.

Also, if you knew anything about basketball, you'd realize we need a real coach who knows how to coach PnR defense (vs. the lazy switching, ridiculous high-hedging junk we continually get burned on game after game). Actually implementing an offensive system that can actually run sets in the fourth quarter other than iso-Harden's would help too..

Not absolving Morey from any blame, he hired McHale and gave him that stupid extension. But to say McHale would have saved the season is ridiculous.

 

I'll say it now and again.. We are lucky to have Harden

He has his flaws but also his strengths.

This has been a bad season but Harden has given us a good three years with a nice winning percentage before this one.

 

Morey hired Finch, McHale hired the rest of staff.

DD

 

i wonder what would have happened if les would have let morey tank all those 9th seed years.

 

If we'd kept mchale and finished winning only 30% of our games we'd be in a better spot right now.

 

We don't know if McHale would have saved the season or not, since he was fired after eleven games. The Rockets had improved every season under McHale until this season, so I think he was better equipped to get things turned around than JBB. Les and Morey look like amateurs for firing a coach so early into a season.

Also, McHale was running the offense that Morey demanded him to run. It's called Moreyball.

And please remember that is Morey that acquires players for the coaches to use. Morey acquired players that are a poor fit for Moreyball.

 

I haven't looked at stats or records, but I get the feeling that this team's performance dropped considerably when Kelvin Sampson left the team. Maybe he was the one holding players accountable?

 

Who the hell knows given Morey's mediocre drafting record in the first round? What's funny is I thought we were about to start tanking in the fall of 2012 before Harden suddenly became available. There's no way a team led by Jeremy Lin, Kevin Martin, and Chandler Parsons was gonna win more than 30 games.

The question now is does Les ok tanking next season if this roster is blown up and we're basically left with Harden and a bunch of scrubs and young guys? Or does he try in vain to sign one or two vets in order to remain competitive enough to shoot for a lower seed in the playoffs?

 

Agreed.

After April 2014, when Kelvin Sampson left to join the Cougars, this team has accomplished nothing.

 

I haven't looked at the stats either, but I was under the impression from watching them last season that they were a pretty solid defensive team(at least until the playoffs). Wasn't that Sampson's job here?

It just seems like this season they completely quit on that end of the floor. Maybe that was a carryover effect from last year's playoffs where they declined badly in that area(in part due to Bev and D-Mo being out). Or maybe it was the horrible training camp and lack of preparation. Or it could be Dwight's physical decline means he can no longer cover up for the defensive shortcomings of his teammates. Or all of the above.

 

mchale was the key to a championship formula -- and now we've lost him forever