Obviously, Popovich would easily make us champions. Or we could hire Mark Jackson for a year to let him mold the team and players, then fire him then let some other guy get the credit for making the team a champion next year
Dwight and Asik would not fit together, regardless of who the HC was. They would not magically work because Pop was their coach. Same for Lin and Harden. Jeremy Lin was terrible defender and Harden wasn't good himself. Both players were scoring guards. It did not work and that had nothing to do with coaching. McHale did not expect the Rockets to come out of the gate in great shape. He said as much when the pre season ended. He stated the players were not ready. He was without his two best post players and bringing a new starter to the most difficult position to change (point guard). The Rockets were not "lucky" to beat the Mavericks. They beat the Mavericks because they were clearly the better team. Also the Rockets were not lucky with injuries. They were without two of their starters in the playoffs and were without there second best player for a long stretch of the season. Luck plays a part in every single playoff series. Were the Warriors lucky to be healthy? Were they lucky to avoid the Spurs? Were they lucky they played the Rockets down 2 starters? Were they they lucky to play the Cavs without two all stars? So 18 steals and 12 TO's are not likely to be repeated, but it is likely they Harden keeps shooting sub 20% and Lawson to shoot 35%? Come on......... and I don't know where this idea about pieces fitting comes from. If you want to be critical of the Rockets execution and blame that on coaching, okay I can understand that.
The Rockets were one of the very first teams to install a read and react offense, and most read and react offenses are extremely simple. The read and react offense was a response to the Thibodeau defense (Ron Adams deserves a lot of credit as well). The offenses have been made far simpler with the idea that a defense has a hard time reacting to an offense that is not complicated and scripted. Also, the stretch 4 is already evolving, simply a three point shot at the 4 is not enough, that can be defended. The Warriors last year added the best offensive assistant coach and the best defensive coach to their staff. They also had a cohesive group that was improving and had incredible health. Kerr did not run their offense, he also did not make major changes to what they were already doing. He relied heavily on Adams and Gentry. They also had lost a very close series on the road to the Clippers. They were on the cusp. McHale cannot control how healthy his players are, how their personalities are.
I personally think this article is a bunch of bullcrap. Lots of other NBA coaches can connect to "Millenials". The only one who seemed to have serious problems with that was Shaw who had to read a book on that . Maybe Hollins couldn't too.
Last season we clearly overachieved. Usually when team overachieves, the credit goes to the coach. So why do Rockets fans still not like McHale? I think it has something to do with Harden. Giving the credit to Harden instead of McHale seems reasonable. After all, it was his real break out season. But was Harden, not McHale, the overachiever? It is really hard to say. Harden is such an enigma. He can be exhilarating one night and maddening the next. Sometimes I can't decide which is his norm, his off nights or his brilliant nights--and I am not just talking about his shooting. Remember that fateful 4th quarter when McHale benched Harden while the team achieved a huge comeback to save the playoffs series? To me that was the epitome of the McHale-Harden enigma.
Mchale has some positives, but overall I think his flaws will hold this team back. His subs and rotations are at times dreadful. He gets attached to certain guys and will play them come hell or high water even though there may be a guy on the bench which can bring something the team needs at the moment or any given night. This also translates to playing style. The team doesn't make hardcore adjustments when things aren't going right. They just keep bumping their head against the wall. Capela should have played earlier last year. He was not miraculously ready when all our bigs were hurt. He was always better than Dorsey and may have progressed faster had he played earlier. Mchale didn't play Dmo much and when he did we didn't post him a lot which is his biggest strength. He always had tj over him even though Dmo clearly had the higher NBA ceiling. Even when Dmo wasn't as good at other things, he could have used him to stabilize the second unit with post ups. Thornton not playing at all until tj got injured is another thing. Good coaches would have at least thought "hmmmn...we aren't shooting well...Brewer is struggling big time...lets see if Thornton can give us a spark with a few minutes."l It took Deight getting injured for the team to adjust and say, maybe we shouldn't run as much offense through him because he's not very efficient. Everyone could see that. He doesn't make many changes until he is absolutely forced to via Morey forcing his hand with trades or injuries. If mchale had his way Patterson and Morris would still be here and we'd have shipped either or both of tj and Dmo off. Now as I said he does do some good things and even with lineups and strategy he makes SOME good changes, but overall he's a net negative.
Regarding the article... in one paragraph the author says the Rockets are hard to love and then a couple of paragraphs down says they are fun to watch. It seems if you find a team fun to watch you'd have at least a little bit of love for them. As to McHale not being able to fit difficult "pieces" together, I have to wonder how a championship coach like Rick Carlisle couldn't seem to get Rondo to fit in Dallas. A player can be misused, but that is usually asking him to do something he really isn't suited for. That is up to the coach to have accurate observations and assessment of what a player is capable of doing or not. We hear coaches often say they want to put "X" player in the best possible position to succeed. In truth, players develop chemistry among themselves. Whether a player can develop chemistry with new teammates depends on his skill set, his BB IQ, and his willingness to adapt his skill set to mesh with his new teammates. Josh Smith just didn't seem to fit in Detroit but "improved" in Houston. Was that the coach's limitation? I don't know for sure, but if it was, it was probably asking him to do something that he couldn't do or adapt to. A coach can either aid or limit the players being able to develop chemistry by the atmosphere created by him/her. The players seem to really like McHale and he likes them. One note is that often enough McHale will say the guys didn't do what they went over in practice in the next game. Is that just younger people not paying enough respect to an older generation player? I don't know, but I think of Mark Twain's quote, When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much he had learned in seven years. Kyle Lowry admitted a similar observation about McHale in hindsight. There are no perfect coaches or players. And the Rockets still don't have D-Mo available. His "fitting in" will take a little time if/when it happens. The change that has improved the team's performance in the last 2 games was Lawson realizing that he was "trying" to fit in and not play his normal game. That was by his admission. See? It's usually the players and not the coach so much. Overall, I think McHale is doing a good job. Inserting Thornton in the lineup seems to have helped, too. Talent level across the roster can certainly be a limitation. Sometimes there's only so much that can be got out of a group of players. I do think McHale provided the right atmosphere for the Rockets to overachieve last season given all their injuries and lineup changes.
There are just flat out some teams that a Player's coach can coach better than Pops. For instance, Pops could not have won as many games with Steve Francis as Rudy did. There's a very good chance Pops never wins the first title with Hakeem and MadMax. Rudy was the only coach of several who could get the most out of Hakeem, because Rudy has no ego, and didn't need to inject his system philosophy onto Hakeem. Same here. You say Pops would bring in his own role players to suit a system he wants. Yeah maybe that would work. But, still you have the stars. It is not clear if a Pops dictatorship would get the most out of Harden and Howard. Hell, a Van Gundy even had problems with Howard. Pops is the best coach in the league at system. But his dictatorial style of coaching only works at SA because Duncan is there and Duncan sets the example and has Pops back. So, when Pops yells and Parker and gets infuriated with Ginobody's free-styling, Duncan has his back. So, Pops has isn't a Player's Coach, but he has an asst Player's Coach in Duncan. So, Pops legacy benefits from the best of both worlds. btw: the OP article did make the point that Harden and Howard are not in the same league of team leaders as Duncan.
On phone and don't have time to reply fully. But just think about the triangle and whether it is a read and react offense? How long has it been around, and how easy it is? You think read and react is a simple offense because you watch the Rockets only. And shake my head at underplaying Kerr's role and overplaying McHale's role. McHale is just very limited in terms of X&Is. Even if he had better assistants, he wouldn't know how to use them. We had Jeremy Lin draw up plays for McHale on numerous occasions and let's face it, Lin has a Harvard brain but it doesn't always translate to the game of basketball.
I still think I'm on track. McHale just isn't good at making difficult but talented pieces fit. Lawson and Harrell are the examples this year.
