[Feigen] D'Antoni emerges as front-runner for Rockets job

It's hard to think of a trade worse than this one.

 

Adelman's first season with Rox and MDA's first season have absolutely NOTHING in common. Inane comparison.

 

Well. To be fair, Yao got injured as usual. Then Rafer got injured too. McGrady put up an insane stat-line that series.

Too bad all he had to rely on was Battier, as well as rookie versions of Scola, Brooks, and Landry.

If Yao wasn't perpetually injured in the playoffs, we likely would have gone far that season.

 

lol, mcgrady's playoff stats are meaningless. it's the result of him going into me-mac mode, and why he never advanced past the first round.

 

Very bad take.

Revisionist history is bad.

 

Well I wouldn't call WINNING nothing. Would you?

 

One was winning tight games the other is simply dominant in wins. Name of team is same, but personnel, coaching and philosophy are very different. Heck even unis are different. And even if MDA does not match Adelman's 22 game win streak, he has the more elite better balanced team.

Not trying to rain on your analogy but as good as Adelman's teams were, MDA has built a historically special team. Harden has gone from a top 5 player to the best player in league on best team. And he has no true second superstar. Crazy.

 

If I recall correctly, we won the first 6 games of the 07-08 season (when the 22 game win streak occurred), and then proceeded to lose the next 6 and hover around .500 until things started clicking in February.

The fact that this is all occurring at the beginning of the season with D'Antoni is a great sign--especially considering the brutal schedule we had these past two months.

 

Adelman had a special first two seasons with the Rockets. This is especially true due to the various injuries and drama around the team with Yao, McGrady, and Artest.

I don't think it's fair to point to Adelman's teams failing in the playoffs as criticism. Those teams had A LOT of injuries.

It sucked.

So far we've been blessed with good health. If that keeps up, and that's a big if, the Rockets are poised to be even better than those two teams.

 

I don't want to rain on the MDA party too. I just wanted to point out sometimes coaches catch a great stretch.

Like DudeWah said, Adelman's team was injury ravaged. I also pointed out some time ago in antoher MDA thread that McHale's 14-15 team achieved a great deal with lots of injuries too.

Oh, I wouldn't call the current Rockets the best team yet. They are the hottest team no doubt. "The best" will have to take a longer look.

 

87.7% of you jokers voted against the D'Antoni hiring.

 

I didn't mind it because any coach would be better than bickerstaff lol

 

i saw this thread again right after waking up...and read feigen emerges as front runner for rockets job...

alexander a savage in these streets.

 

87% OF ROCKETS FANS ORIGINALLY SAID THEY DIDN'T LIKE THE MDA HIRING
But, so far, MDA could run for Mayor of Houston and win in a landslide

 

I searched this thread for a post from me and found I didn't comment. So I'll go ahead and say now that hiring D'Antoni is absolutely the right move and I am 100% behind it. MAN I LOOK SMART!

(never mind you might find me elsewhere saying we should have hired JVG)

 

I voted against MDA's hiring because I thought our defense would be one of the worst in the league and his track record in NY and LA was not good at all.

The Defense has been surprisingly ok. Not a thing of beauty mind you - but the effort is there and the team does seem to care about it - at least when they need to.

So I do give him some credit - he's put Harden in a better position to do what he does best, and it was smart to bring Gordon off the bench - but none of those things aren't topics that haven't been discussed here before. I didn't think Harden could manage opposing point guards on defense - and well he can't. He's really still a point SG with the realization that he doesn't have to defend the opposing point guard (that's what Patrick Beverly is for who is really the shooting PG).

A lot of credit has to go to Eric Gordon and Ryan Anderson - without those two guys this team would not be anywhere near 27-9.

So before everyone laughs at the 87%, I just say remember a lot more than the coach has changed. Significant personal moves, significant change in attitude by Harden (I never saw him credit his teammates on how he performed before), and much much better chemistry compared to last year.

MDA is definitely part of the success though. Would I still prefer JVG? It's a tough call. I do think the defense would be better, but maybe the offense wouldn't be. But I think the result would be very similar.

 

Because a simple apology or bow will not work...

Full prostration

 

Me-Mac was our only chance of winning that series. You must have forgot how poor that roster was without Yao

 

I was not mad at all at the hiring, I was cautious because I thought maybe there is something true about the 80% of people who don't like him.

However, I had other preferences and I still would have gone for Walton over MDA just thinking about it long term. But given we are a roster of veterans, MDA was probably the better choice and he is certainly currently a better tactician than Walton.

Having said that, we have a top 3 coaching staff in the league. MDA has outperformed every other coach this season. Bzdelik has maybe accomplished the most difficult task of any assistant or head coach, getting this roster to play good and sometimes great defense. Super proud of these guys.

I was vehemently against Thibs and JVG and I'm super happy we didn't go with those guys. Thibs right now is struggling to communicate his old ideas to young players, struggling to motivate any of them to play defense and the media has the gaul to blame the players. If you can't motivate 13 out of 15 players to play a defense that has been acknowledged as succesful, then the problem is with the coach. I think Thibs will learn and it will make him better, but we could not afford to have a stubborn guy like that at this time, it would have been a Chicago-like disaster.