Would you want mike brown as lead assistant for the rockets?

Mark Jackson would be a terrible hire. He is insecure, he wants all the attention on him, he does not get along with the other coaches on his own staff AND he wants to run the show. Also, he doesn't work long hours... that wont sit well with the culture surrounding the Rockets.

 

He is clueless, just like McHale

 

Is Mike Brown someone James Harden would respect, someone he would listen to? That's the key. We need someone that can get through to Harden. Once Harden decides to play defense, everything else falls into place.

 

This move shows that the management thinks there is nothing majorly wrong with the team (ie the head coach), and just a few tweaks to "fix the defense" will suffice. I hope they are right. But I feel sorry for Dwight who has to gamble away another year of his prime on this bet.

I feel strongly that "Etch-a-Sketch" McHale should have been fired and JVG or another defensive minded coach that knows how to leverage bigs should have been hired. Of course this would have run afoul of Morey's Moneyball theory. I wonder if the exit interview discussion about "agendas" and "being on the same page" extend to Morey as well?

 

I can see mark jackson putting fire into the team as a defensive coach. I have no problem with him.

 

He doesn't need money. So we can't give him an offer he can't reject.
Case close.

 

The game is evolving very quickly and head coaches are relying on assistants more than ever.

Rick Adelman is not "bad" but the game has changed faster than Adelman has adapted. He is a mediocre coach at this point. Morey knew that, and it is supported by the advanced statistics. As far as the Wolves being .500%, I fail to see why that is special.

Mike Woodson was viewed as poor at making adjustments this year in NY, and actually in Atlanta as well. He also relied heavily on his assistants.

It is so odd that no one wanted ANYTHING to do with Lionel Hollins, then he coaches a Grizzlies team that has been together for awhile, and with talented bigs..... and suddenly he is a great coach. Further, that doesn't even consider that his "replacement" did very well this year... it is almost like what matters is the players and not the coach.

George Karl has been head coach involved in 2 of the top 4-5 playoff upsets in NBA history and Stan VanGundy was a "genius" in Orlando with a team that spent sometime together, yet was ran out of Miami because he was viewed as not championship caliber.

Assistants matter a whole lot. Yes, there is a Popvich and Thibs..... but there are only a few of them and they are not available, 0% of the NBA is made of competent coaches that rely on their assistants. It is not possible for a single coach to prepare to the extent needed, especially if you have a young team.

 

I thought Mark Jackson was a good choice though, there have been reports that he was fired not because he didn't do his job but more on disagreements between the organization and him. I even heard it in a game too when the commentators were discussing about his dismissal, and that how coaching positions can still be a tough position in the NBA, regardless of what you accomplish in previous years.

I would rather have him than Mchale, honestly.

They said that about him really? That he's insecure and wants attention to himself and doesn't get along with his own staff? Wow. I haven't heard that before...Is that really true? Clueless about this rumor about him.

 

Didn't he say the same thing this past off season?

 

Mario Elie should be the lead assistant, I love his character.

 

Perhaps I am old fashioned and out of date. But I subscribe more to JVG's idea that defense is more about effort and giving it your all more than strategies. And I don't believe the Spurs have any ultra new strategies on defense that even if Mike Brown doesn't know about, that Morey can't figure out either.

Mike Brown's defense in Cleveland during Lebron era was consistently top notch. And while Lebron himself is a beast, it's not like he was surrounded by all-defensive players either. I believe he has as good a chance as any possible assistant hire of getting players like Harden and Parsons to devote more to defense. Perhaps he's not perfect, but it's not like "perfect" coaches would care to look at the Rockets A. Coaching position as their next career move.

 

Not going to happen, would bud heads with McHale..so would Mark Jackson, Hollins and any other possible head coach.

 

I simply have the overall impression that Morey don't know coaching, although is a fast learner to can pick things up, but we cannot wait until he's age 55 or whatever, and that it makes sense to for him to pick up a nice selection of proven guys from proven organizations.

And it's not even the on-court stuff that needs to be addressed, but maybe off-court training and support systems and whatnot.

Thus, I feel it is helpful for him to get guys from the Spurs, maybe also a guy from the Lakers championship years, etc., to immerse in a winning culture and pick up these little things.

And once having a baseline system of what is empirically proven to work, allow his analytics geeks to fine-tune it.

Because these systems take a long time to figure out on one's own, we're talking many, many years.

To me, $6 million is a modest sum by NBA standards to pay to get a basket of assistant coaches of this sort. A basket of proven assistant coaches is worth far more than a middling player at this point, and of course doesn't count towards the salary cap.

 

This Rockets FO went from brilliant to clueless in just a short time.

I see Morey is still trying to outthink the experts and do it his unconventional way. Analytics can gameplan for the coaches. The head coach is not as important as his assistants. The assistants doing the heavy lifting for the head coach. Except head coaches who win know strategy.

McHale has been exposed since year 1 and has been at his worst in the POR playoff series.

 

I thing I always hear Kenny say in TNT... if there is one thing in his career that he would like change is that, he wish he had always played for a good coach... because good coaches elevate players performance by a lot...

 

If we do hire Mike Brown, we've hit another low. Slowing the pace to an absolute crawl does not mean you are a good defensive coach.

Morey is looking more and more like a guy that has a great background but is someone that's hype over substance. How are you not using your advanced analytics to determine that McHale is a bad coach and that Mike Brown is equally as bad. He's been our GM for 7 years and has made some good personnel moves but the hiring of McHale made no sense and is indefensible. Now we might hire Mike Brown?

 

Odd, his brother says something a fair bit different than that. As for the Spurs, their defense has been explained by RC Buford, they try to contest everything, even if it costs them defensive rebounds (which was based on Boston's 2008 defense), the Spurs is what happens when analytics meets the discipline to see it through, but it's also why they struggle against teams like Houston and OKC who don't see much meaningful difference in their output from that behaviour (their defense is quite mediocre against those two teams).

To look at it with expected values, you run James Harden off the 3 point line, what does he do? he will drive it to the rim, one of the rare people with that ability to just go all the way, he has a higher PPP if they do that, so it hurts them from an expected value point of view. Similar with Parsons, his pump fake is great, but he also will step in generally 5 or 6 feet or lay it up, and has about the same if not more expected value.

Take OKC, well Durant is better at it than Harden and Westbrook is damned good at it, the Spurs aren't going to bump you, push you around, wrestle you or any of those things that can actually disrupt Durant, Harden (or conversely get you eaten alive by the refs) etc. An extension of this is the way they guard Lebron, 4 feet off, but that comes with a caveat, Lebron isn't a good jump shooter, Lebron is an ok shooter, that because of how good at getting to the rim gets to shoot jumpers way more open than any other player in the nba. If he could shoot open jumpers as well as Durant or Harden, they wouldn't even be able to do that (imo he would be the greatest player in nba history hands down if he had that level of open jumper)

Now compare this to Portland, what are they doing? They're taking one step in and shooting a 21 foot 2 pointer, ding ding ding, Spurs win

It has to be negativity bias, because the Spurs defense try to turn your 3's into midrange 2's and that's awesome, but when Houston tries to turn its midrange 2's into 3's, that's evil Moreyball and must be destroyed.

 

How about Jeff Van Gundy for lead assistant?

 

Since the Rockets never formally announced that McHale will be back next year, actually if you are a Rockets fan, you should root for a complete melt down by the Clippers and also the Sterling issue will get messier, that somehow Doc Rivers will choose to leave the Clippers...

 

Cassell and Elie please. Get rid of Milk Hair.