First of all forgive my english... There are a lot of threads now in which many claims they miss JVG or they were wrong about him. So let's make some things clear. 1) Was JVG's system the best for Houston? Yes it was because his system is the best fit for Rockets' players. Face it, when you have a guy like Yao in your roster, you can only play one kind of bball, with your center getting the ball almost every possession and, if double teamed, looking for an open player to shot an easy basket. 2) Was JVG the best coach for Houston? No, he wasn't. He had 2 superstars in the team (roster) he wanted and HE failed 2 times to advance after the 1st round of playoffs. Yes, HE failed, not only T-Mac or Yao. And failed because he was unable to make good plays beside giving the ball to Yao or T-Mac, failed when he thought Bonzi was an useless player, failed when he thought trading Gay and Swift for "Mr. acquired to win now" Battier was a good idea, failed when he thought using Hayes in crucial plays was a genial move. And OMG, HE failed remaining without a single time out in a game 7 of playoffs and on many times more. So, what's the point? It is not comparing RA to JVG nor even saying one is better than the other. The point is not to forget why JVG had his ass kicked and the numerous times you feeled frustrated about his plays or choices. Then find out if you really miss JVG or not, even if with RA Rockets are way worse. Again, forgive my english.
He may have failed to advance past the first round but he managed to deal with injury after injury.. 50+ wins when both your superstars are injured during the season... that deserves more credit then people are giving
wrong. his system best fit the players? those players were braught in to best fit his system. the same will happen for adelman. right now adelman, an offensive coach, is coaching a team put to gether for JVG. think about the issues that's causing. when the players and the coach don't fit, you don't change the coach (unless your isaiah thomas firing larry brown!). yes and no. yao should get the ball often, of course. but if the criticism is focused on where he gets the ball instead of how often he gets the ball then i have to argue here. yao should be getting 20 shots per game. period. averaging 12 shots when tmac plays is ridiculous. however, i like that adelman is bringing him to the high post. notice how many minutes he's able to play this year? notice his energy level at the end of games? moving yao to the high post, even just sometimes, will add years to his career and made him that much of a better player.
^if you think Adelman and "more phoenix-like" is the best system for houston then the simple fact is that Yao should be traded. Not later, now. Immediately. If you have that much faith in Adelman's offense and you want a high post passer that badly - then there are better players to fill that role than Yao, and they also will not be wasting their low post potential. I know you're going to come back with some retort like "give more time blah blah blah", Yao is not that young, and the wear and tear is not going away. I'm not going to go back and dig up your old posts about JVG but I bet there's some real winners in there compared to the song you're singing now.
i wonder how i could've offended you so much? lol dig up old posts of you wish. maybe i did a 180. who cares. opinions change. i used to argue that wrestling was real, too. i'm not going to say give anything more time. yao is in his peak and he needs to start winning now. that was a major reason for bringing in adelman. van gundy just didn't get it done. although i'm sure at one point i thought he would, but of course opinions change over time. if you want yao on the low block 100% of the time, that's cool. if you hate adelman for bringing him to the high post, sometimes, then more power to you. we each have our own opinions and that's why we're here.
Adelman doesn't run a pure Phoenix Suns type system, from whats been described of his philosophy. There is more pace factor to his system though, and fast pace and "Yao Ming" don't go together too well. If Yao is the immovable center piece of the franchise it'd make sense to hire a coach that'd maximize his effectiveness, which usually is from the low post. Adelman needs to run his total pure offense to be effective. Relying on him to implement a scaled down version of his offense and him compensating with focus on defense and passionate motivation mighta been asking a bit much. I thought even with all his drama and flakiness that Larry Brown was THE IDEAL WIN-NOW coach to hire for this team. The point wasn't to build a team and form a nucleus that'll stay together for 6 six. It was to ADVANCE NOW, make some kinda noise in the postseason. What a better way than to hire an uber-JVG type. Can only dream of the possibilties now...
I think Adelman has already said it is more of the player's will to run rather than the pace of the player himself. We have seen Yao making many runs down the full court to finish with a dunk: see Memphis and Suns. Secondly, the best run and gun team of the last century, the Showtime Lakers, had one of the slowest, most plodding centers in the game. However, I do not think Kareem Abdul Jabbar's slowness ever prevented Magic and the lads from doing their run and gun thing. To the thread starter: About your second point, the only assessment you had correct there was that JVG had 2 superstars. 1) This is a 5 man team game. Every player must contribute something. Why are the Spurs, the Suns and the Mavericks always the favourites day in, day out? They have AT LEAST 3 players capable of scoring 15 points or more in every single game. At least 2 of their players are 'superstars' and the third is a borderline 'superstar'. You can even look at the Jazz: Deron, Boozer, okur, Kirilenko - all these guys are capable scorers at almost any time. JVG had only 2 'superstars'. Can't do much if 2 of your starters and your bench are offensively challenged. 2) Unable to make good plays other than giving the ball to Tmac or Yao - you want to give the ball to scrubs? 3) Bonzi - 25 pounds overweight and wanting to put in only 10% of his effort compared to today's Bonzi? Dude, you are not the coach, your opinion on JVG's treatment of Bonzi is merely just that - your opinion. 4) Hayes is used in crucial plays for his defensive abilities. Unless you wanted Juwan Howard to do it of course. While JVG had his 'ass kicked' (according to you).... at least his ass got kicked in the playoffs. The Rockets are getting their ass kicked now before even reaching the playoffs under Rick Adelman.
To set the record straight- 1. JVG wanted Bonzi on the team. Bonzi came in with a bad attitude out of shape and didn't motivate himself to get it right, didn't perform when given the chance and finally ended up at the end of the bench and JVG plays no favorites- so Bonzi sulked and JVG didn't budge. 2. JVG never asked for Battier. JVG asked for a tough 2 guard to allow Tracy to stay at the SF position. JVG told me he wanted Brandon Roy in the draft. He told me that if Roy couldn't be drafted that he would rather trade the pick for a veteran if the right guy was available. He told me the type player he was looking for and named a player as an example. I am pretty sure that CD and Co. went out looking for the right trade after they failed to get Roy. The best they thought they could do was the Battier deal and JVG signed off on it. I truly believe CD or Morey had to convince JVG of Battier's value and later JVG admitted that Battier brought more to the team than he expected, so I don't think he was overly trying to get Battier himself. (remember the whole scenario basically played out pretty quickly on draft day) Also JVG was pushing for a #2 guard/ backup for Tracy and that is how they went after Bonzi. Too much is blamed on JVG for that trade and Bonzi's wasted season.
he failed to get past the first round? laughable. once again, people are not recognizing that those teams overachieved during the regular season. Rockets lost to better teams, every year, in the playoffs. Put aside our rockets homerish and it is clear. In fact, it is amazing that the rockets even took those teams to 7 games and actually had the lead in the last 4 minutes of game 7....and those final minutes are where players play and players win. also, don't forget, JVG made an effort to get him involved down the home stretch and then Bonzi called in (over the phone, not even man enough to meet face to face) and quit. well i dont' know what JVG said or didnt say. But people assume that by getting battier we gave up Roy. Wrong! You cant force a team to trade with you! Looking back, it seems rockets made a strong push for Roy but minny decided to deal with portland instead. Tough luck, but they tried. yup. and v-gina's suckness. and playoff losses. and boki's almost mediocrity, etc etc
The only criticisms I ever had of JVG were that he brought in too many old guys and he seemed to have a trouble adjusting during games. I'll stick by the "too many old guys" criticism but after watching this team with a new coach it is clear that he didn't adjust well in games because his players were not capable of making any adjustments he tried to implement. I don't understand the criticism he gets for the first round exits. The Mavs series was lost because of some very bad calls against the Rockets and the fact that Dallas was just a better team. To take Dallas to 7 games under those circumstances was amazing. The Jazz loss was on the players. No doubt there. Yao looked like he was wearing cement shoes and McGrady looked 38 years old in the series. Even through all that the series would have gone to the Rockets if just one role player was consistently decent or if Tmac would have gone to the rim in the last minutes of the series or if someone in red would have pulled down a rebound in those same final minutes. Simply put, the Rockets players gave that one away. The worst thing anyone outside of Houston could say about JVG last season was that me made that team overachieve so much in the regular season that playoff expectations were too high. So now we criticize a coach who made a group of guys play beyond the level anyone thought they were capable of? Isn't that good? Isn't that what all these feel good sports movies are about? LOL If JVG had been brought back we can assume that Bonzi would be gone and Steve probably would not have come back. So we would have last year's squad minus Juwan plus Scola, Brooks and Mike James all playing JVG style. Let us not forget a Tmac who (remember the beginning of the year) looked better than he had in 3-4 years. There is no doubt this team would be much better than last season and certainly better than it is now.
You must have been at the season ticket breakfast. I believe JVG wanted Mike James, Matt Harpring, and Bonzi Wells that offseason. Instead we got Snyder, VSpan, Battier, JL3, and the fat Bonzi.
It just bugs me that this team could be light years ahead of where it is. I'm not sure a team with Yao and Tmac can ever truly contend (no matter who is coaching) but winning on most nights and being in the playoff race beats the hell out of what is going on this season.
That was me, he said he wanted Mike James and Bonzi Wells, He said he wanted a 2 guard and liked Tracy at the 3, I asked him about the draft and he said the best player he thought was Brandon Roy (as far as being ready to contribute- and as far as where they drafted) and then he said he would rather trade the pick for a tough veteran like Matt Harpring if Roy wasn't available. He said Luther was a 2 guard in a point guard body, but liked him and needed to work hard to get minutes and he pointed out some negatives I won't mention because it got my thread locked down by the Rockets management. He said he loved Houston, took his daughter to Galveston had a blast and gave away Mutombo's Sneakers to a kid there at the breakfast. He answered honestly and showed me a very good sense of what the team needed to compliment Yao and Tracy.
i'd take battier over Gay, huston already have bonzi wells, if gay was in huston, one of them will be execcery(spelling?), plus shane battier was one of the best defensive player in the league, he is important to the team even under RA's system...and Swift~ he's a superstar when he gets open dunks, other than that, he's nothing...
One of the biggest mistake the Rockets management has ever made is getting rid of him and hired Adelman as his replacement. JVG was a good coach for this team while Adelman single-handedly turned Yao back to Mr. Softie. Yet, time to move on. JVG won't come back to the Rockets. I believe he will coach the Bulls next because the team has talents.
