I am absolutely thrilled with this move -- the Rockets and a hungry Adelman will compete for a championship. Adelman is 14 for 14 in getting his teams to the playoffs -- now he needs to win the big one to cement his legacy.
And it was JVG's fault that he wasn't? Bonzi is a fat, lazy, nutjob. And an idiot to boot! Some of you guys have lost your freaking minds. Unless we SERIOUSLY upgrade our bench - something I don't know how we can do given the salary cap constraints - hiring a coach who will have LESS focus on defense is bad news. I hope this works out, but seriously, some of you guys have blinders on. Notice that it's not the "exciting" teams left in the playoffs, it's the "slowball" defense-oriented ones with good shooters. We had good defense, we need good shooters. How will hiring Adelman get us a deep bench with good shooters?
I third that. I don't really like the Adleman hire, and I really hate that we didn't interview anyone else (not that there were a lot of great choices anyway), but I do think we needed a tweak and this better not be it. We need some change in personnel
Don't know much about Adelman do you? Go read up on the "drama" he helped create in Sacramento, and the public feuds he had with players, as well.
I think Adelman sees this as a great chance to end his coaching career with a championship. And so Adelman quest begins ......
Yes, unfortunately, people will try to make this an "apples to apples" comparison and it can't be. There will be personnel/player changes. That was bound to happen no matter who coached next year. It will be impossible to say, "see the difference between Adelman and JVG." Once you tweak the lineup you've changed that part of the equation. You may get better results no matter which coach takes the helm. You will certainly get "different" results. I can almost guarantee that the starting lineup this season will not be the starting lineup next season... and it wouldn't have been the same if JVG was still the coach. VERY few poster here thought the lineup was great this year. Almost everyone recognized the weakness at PF and PG. Those are not minor tweaks. Change those and JVG might also get better results. ... water under the bridge at this point. But I'm not so naiive to think we'll waltz into the Finals next year because we've hired Rick Adelman. D'Antoni did not have a lot of head coaching experience and look how well he's done. I think it was a mistake to make such a fast, knee-jerk reaction in hiring a coach. I would have preferred a more thorough process. Isn't that something Morey could have worked up? We'll see, won't we.
That's what I'm most afraid of. Many people want a faster and more flowing offense (including me), but we just don't have the players right now to do it. And there are many people who think in one offseason we can turn into the 2000s version of the Sacramento Kings.
Hooray for lateral moves! Oh, well. Welcome to H-town, Adelman! It's NBA championship or bust for you. Oh, yeah, and do be sure to play V-Span and Novak... OR ELSE!!!111eleventy-eleven.
The Rockets bench sucked. They were given chances to play "bball" and sucked it up when they did. They didn't play in the playoffs, because, again, they sucked, and the playoffs are no time to give more minutes to a crap bench. So then, how is Adelman going to solve our bench issues? How will Adelman solve the fact that we don't have a PG or a PF worth a damn? Oh, you say Morey will take care of that? Well, why couldn't Morey deliver that PG & PF to a coach that is a defensive mastermind, loved by his players (except for fat nutjobs like Bonzi and spoiled malcontent rookies like Vspan), and got this team to where it was with his two star players out for large spans of games? Ahhhhhh, I see. Nothing to do with that, is it? It's just that Les wants a more "exciting" brand of basketball, even though we don't have the personnel to run that kind of offense, are too constrained by the salary cap to get those players, and our star center is slower than molasses on a February day in Alaska. Oh, and none of the "exciting" offense teams are left standing in the 2007 playoffs. I hope I end up on "classic moments" with this post after we win the championship next year, because honestly, I haven't felt this bad about a Rockets move since Les pulled the same ramjob on Rudy T. You guys are trusting Les' judgment - the guy who brought us the "Big Splash" and "Greatest Rockets Team Ever Assembled" over the judgment of the vast majority of basketball minds in the country (and players) who profess their respect and admiration of JVG. I hope you guys, and Les, are right for all of our sakes.
Phoenix fans want D'antoni gone... much like they wanted Paul Westphal gone. The argument is the same... they have too much talent to lose as much as they have. The question remains... would you rather have a talented team that comes up short, or a coach that specializes in causing talent-less teams to overacheive? (if the end result is the same?) They need more talent... then I'll get excited.
When Adelman had the personnell his teams were ranked in the top 5 in defense. So its not that he can't teach defense. Plus Gundy's defense is always overrated. This is because he gets on his team and requires perfection throughout the season so the team plays every game like a playoff game. Only in the playoffs everyone plays hard.
I think this one is going to come back and bite us... JVG is a great coach. It's just our PG and PF would not be 11th and 12th men on alot of other playoff teams Utah has all star players there, really we should have seen this coming... If we would just upgrade those posistions and I'm not talking about a Mike Bibby pipe dream but maybe a Smush Parker or Moe Williams and draft a PF in the 1st. Thats a squad we just need minor upgrades with JVG. From reading this board I see JVGS biggest faults are 1. Boring Basketball- Who cares. Its about winning. Look at detroit,San Antonio boring basketball but thats more than likely the NBA Finals. JVG got the most from his roster not to many will argue that. I guarantee if the Rockets are still playing the city would be buzzing and tuned into these 80-74 games. Winning is all that matters in this city. 2. Didnt give V-Span a chance- He got his chance and he was terrible. And the guy is a 2nd rounder!! Do all NBA fans have such high hopes for 2nd round picks for crying out loud many here were calling Malike Baldiene or whomever the next Deam! Theres a reason most teams passed on him and than passed on him again... 3. Bonzi- I thought the feeling prior to the season it was a low risk/high reward move. I mean you cant count on Bonzi Wells esp. after he screwed himself out of 40 million dollars. I was hoping would be our 3rd scored but he didnt want to play JVG cant force him. 4. Novak-same as #2 5. Yao's effectiveness/style- I throughly enjoyed watching Yao his rookie year he was as electricfing as a 7-5 man can be. Those were good times with Stevie and cat but lets not forget that we didnt even make the playoffs that year. Yao is 7-5 he needs to be close to the basket he can get any shot he wants to. And Yao was amazing prior to his injury playing down low on the post. I really do believe if that Yao plays like that against Utah that the Rockets are still playing and have a great chance to make the nba finals. Basically I think its a huge mistake to fire JVG when in my opinion all we needed was a few minor upgrades and good health to Yao and T-Mac. Les panicked if the rockets are scoring 100plus points a game next year and they're not winning he's still going be #3 in this town. We fired a winner... But Go Rockets I hope Im wrong
