Would The Rockets have won the title with Pops as their coach this year?

Pop is only able to be Pop because of his relationship with Timmy/TP/Manu

Had Pop walked into the Heat locker room in 2012 and demoralized Lebron and Wade the team probably would have imploded & he would have been fired.... Pop being Pop with the 08 Lakers with Kobe.... HAHA... sure.

The Spurs are a perfect blend of -

-Great coaching, Great coaching relationship, Selfless veteran stars, Great General Management, buy-in to get effort defensively, a solid bench, and team chemistry on the court.

The Rockets have-

-More talented stars, Great General Management, and what sounds like great coaching relationship

The Rockets are missing quite a few other things before you can look at just simply swapping coaches & thinking the world is all better now, and the Rockets will now be the greatest team that ever lived.

However if you change the coach, whatever incremental change you think you are getting might be undermined if the new coach has a bad relationship with the players & front office/ownership.

I'm not trying to sell anyone on McHale, but I am trying to point out that the idea of a coaching changing being the Silver Bullet to a title is overblown. The team has more and bigger concerns.

 

True.

So, will the current core of the Rockets pay off with a string of title contentions if given similar time and support received by the current Spurs squad? Not sure.

I mean, it was incredible the way Morey was able to get two star players without tanking. But this past season has not convinced me this group (both players and coaches) truly has the potential and the chemistry to be more than a bridesmaid.

 

Maybe. Who knows, I'm sure LMA would of not gone off for two 40+ games.

 

i would say no - what spurs has had took a decade to build, centered around a very competent coach and owner who believed in him. in addition, he had a consistent core who believed in his system to the teeth. i feel like rockets are the exact opposite of what spurs strive their system to be.

hell, if manu/td were to retire, spurs should look into hiring them to be part of their coaching staff. this would ensure the spurs system stays in place long after they retire.

 

Depends who we would have gotten for Harden when he gets traded in this scenario. Pop would watch him play matador defense for about 3 games, yell at him relentlessly, bench him indefinitely, and ultimately have to trade him.

 

It took years for Popovich

 

To do what? Win a title? Actually, he pulled it off within 3 seasons and that first one almost doesn't count since he took over for Bob Hill about 1/5 of the way into the year and they were tanking for a high draft pick.

If you just look at what Pop did his first full year as coach with the Spurs, he led them to the second round. The Jazz did beat them in I believe 5 games, but Duncan gave Utah a scare in that series. A year later they won the championship.

Compare that to McFail. His first year with Dwight on the roster? Another first round defeat in 6 games. No progress made at all.

 

We lost in the first round.

 

Yes. Our roster also would have been completely different and we would have players who buy into the Popovich way. I believe that there's a chance that he is the best coach in history. With Phil Jackson, he always had dominant players, but with Popovich, the offense is beautiful to watch and deadly effective. The man is a Texas and NBA living legend.

 

I think they would have had a very good chance.

 

See Manu. For me, Harden is close to a prime time Manu minus the defense.

 

What are u talking about? We would've gotten swept by the Spurs

 

Are most people here of the mindset that anything except a title is a failure and that all failures are equal?

Who cares if we would have won a title with or without Pop. The question should be - are there better coaching candidates out there than McHale? I think the answer is yes.

 

Can't agree more. Harden either on the bench or traded.

 

Very possible.

The Spurs held the Heat to less than 92 points a game in the finals. You don't always have to score 110 points in order to win.

In fact, the Rockets wasn't able to win the first round with eye-popping 112 points a game.

Scoring 30 points a game is USELESS if you allow 31 a game.

 

Rome wasn't built in a day. Nor were the Spurs.

 

Maybe, the ball was sticky for the Rockets this season.

 

It's simple... Either you get rid of the coach... or you get rid of the players... or you get rid of the GM, or you change all three...

Adding Melo, keeping McHale (better suited for the Miami Heat where star players can do their own thing, than a young up and coming "potential contender), and having our roster in a constant cycle of change and youth with this "assets for future assets" approach isn't going to net us a title...

We point to the coach, because we're not quite ready to give up on Harden, and we certainly don't have enough cause yet to quit on our GM (just enough to start questioning his tunnel-visioned approach)... It's feasible for a coaching change to be of significant benefit to this team if it contributes balance to the GM's analytics heavy approach (pending the GM allows it)... and strong direction and guidance to this young immature roster...

McHale provides neither of these...

 

To the original question, yes obviously. Not just that, but people all around the league would be talking about how good our bench was and how deep our team was because they'd have been used properly.

 

Well .. I don't think they would win for this reason:

Lin will commit a stupid turn over after another...

Couch Pop chock him in the throat...

NBA banned Pop for life