McHale and the Millennials (Friday morning read)

Pretty much what we know. He has good rapport with players. He wants players to play hard. The Rockets made a great run last year with him as coach despite injuries. But not much else.

At the end of the day, because the Rockets don't run great plays, McHale doesn't do much X&Os, it's hard to credit or discredit what McHale does or did.

Personally, I've come to grudgingly accept that we'll do ok with McHale as long as Maury if finding pieces to fit around Harden/Dwight for him. But I have my doubt if McHale can ever be a championship coach. And we aren't playing just to get into the playoffs and have a run.

 

"But not much else"?

Way to minimize last year, brah

 

And who do you suggest should replace him, to take us to that championship?

 

To think for one second that those great coaches would not be successful here is just foolish, for the lack of a better word. We have created a certain style, mentality and approach - partly by Morey - which some coaches would have problems adjusting to, sure. Also if they would take over now, they would probably be very frustrated and butt heads with both Harden and Howard, but in the long run they would do a better job since the weak would be exposed.

 

Last year was all Harden. McHale has little to do with it.

But all Harden isn't good enough. We need more than all Harden. That's where McHale hold back this team, now than ever with the addition of a pretty good player maker PG.

 

Yes, according to many here: all our losses are McHale's fault, and all our wins have nothing to do with McHale.

 

Can't argue with the results of last year.

But this year, our roster is even more loaded. Ultimately playoff success will be the barometer for this team's performance. Theoretically the job shouldn't be too hard when you have this much talent, but that's no solace for the man in the hot seat. To be sure we will call for heads to roll if we fail to at least replicate last season's success. The Sword of Damocles edges ever closer to our desire to get an actual X's and O's coach.

By the way, why do coaches have to be X's and O's guys or "players' coaches"? Why can't they be both mediators of egos AND sharp enough to win the coaching chess game? A rookie head coach was able to do this last year. With all the advanced data at their disposal, not to mention the army of statisticians available for backup, coaches should be better equipped to utilize effective strategies on offense and defense. You don't have to be a film nerd, social recluse, Belichek-type anymore, just to be good at X's and O's. Steve Kerr didn't revolutionize basketball last year. He just got out of the way of his advanced stats people implementing a more efficient way to play, based on his players' strengths and weaknesses.

 

I agree that McHale's style suits our team as it currently stands. However, I disagree that Pop couldn't coach this team as well or better. He would probably demand some changes in our role players, to bring in more guys he could control and trust to play within the system, but he could definitely lead this team.

McHale has serious coaching flaws. He reminds me a lot of Mack Brown in a way. Terrible in game decisions (timeouts especially), but he has a way of recruiting guys, encouraging and developing guys, and he's likeable as a person.

 

A few questions for me, so I'll try to clarify my thoughts here.

I think one of McHale's biggest shortcomings is that he isn't very good at making difficult pieces fit.

What do I mean by that?

When Morey pairs Harden with Beverley because their games are complementary, it doesn't take much work on McHale's behalf. When Morey puts Jones or DMo next to Dwight, they fit ok and it's not a big problem. When Morey got Parsons who is a very good complementary player on the wing, or Ariza who complemented Harden well, it was not very hard for McHale. And when the Rockets ran the type of offense that went through Harden, as long as he was on the court, it wasn't that hard to get through injuries, especially because the DMo / Dwight injuries didn't overlap too much.

But whenever Morey got players that didn't fit too well on paper but had their niches or strength (but with flaws), McHale couldn't work them together too well. Dwight/Asik was one pair. Harden Lin another. But overall, last year Morey got really good complementary pieces to Harden/Dwight that didn't need a lot of tweaking.

This year, of course McHale's job will be to make Harden/Lawson work together. That won't be easy. But that what is good coach is for. I'm not sure he's up to it. We'll see. That's part of the reason for the slump so far. McHale probably expected things to come together easily like last season, but the pieces don't fit as easily this season. It's not easy to put Harrell up next to Dwight or Capela because Harrell doesn't have a reliable outside shot yet. So we go small instead with DMo and Jones out. But going small at the 4 exposes our lack of rebounding without Dwight (and we've been outrebounded a fair bit so far this year). And playing Lawson 35+ minutes a game means we can't hide either him or Harden on perimeter D this year, so McHale has to work his defensive schemes better. But McHale isn't too good at that. And teams are exploiting it. Last year it was easier because it was Beverley and Harden. But Morey didn't pay Lawson $12m/yr, and Lawson didn't give up a guaranteed year on his contract to sit on the bench, so it's not going to be easy. Then there's the problem of the two sharing the ball. That's probably also throwing Harden's rhythm off a little as well.

Now last year, without being a debbie downer, was a bit of a special case.

Harden played 81 games in the regular season. Injuries to Dwight/DMo didn't overlap too much, and they are the cornerstones of both the post offense/defense. Beverley was pretty much a net zero last year, and Morey shored up the perimeter defense with Ariza (and Harden played fairly good D). So the injuries actually didn't hurt as much, especially after adding Josh Smith during the year.

In the playoffs, the Rockets were actually lucky to beat the Mavericks without too much trouble. Don't get me wrong. We were the better team, but the Mavericks did a stupid mid-season trade for Rondo that gutted their depth, and after playing Rondo for two games in which the Mavs lost, Rick Carlisle finally had enough and benched him for the rest of the playoffs. The games got quite close after that. And imagine if the Mavs had not lost their depth in this series and never had to play Rondo to start with (0-2). It would've been a lot closer.

And against the Clippers, well we were pretty much down and out at 1-3, and some heroics by Josh Smith and individually brilliant plays turned the series around. It could very well have been over, but all credit to the Rockets. McHale was a big part of it, but there was also no doubt that the Clippers took the Rockets a bit easy up 3-1 and paid for it in the end. That series could have gone either way.

And the Rockets were blown away in the conference finals.

So with these things, there's a certain element of luck involved in each series. It wasn't like the Rockets waltzed through the first two rounds. One was against a gutted team that got better when Rondo was benched, and another was a series that was very close to being lost and could have gone either way.

So here's my conclusion.

If Morey gets McHale the right players that complement each other, as was the case last year, then a big part of the job has been done for him. What makes me doubt McHale as a real head coach, is that he really hasn't been able to do the difficult stuff that a top notch head coach should be able to do. That is, fit talented players (that may have flaws and that may not complement each other too well) together. We had Asik/Dwight, Lin/Harden under these categories before. Now it's Lawson/Harden both preferring to play on the ball and both not good defenders. So how will McHale set up the offense to cater for this, and hide two bad perimeter defenders playing together?

So far we lost 3 games by 20 pts each. We won against OKC by getting 18 steals and only 12 TOs, stats that aren't likely to repeat often. And we beat the Magic at home in OT, which as Morey correctly stated, was pretty much a loss. At least the play level is that of a loss quality.

So we're off to a very shaky start because the pieces don't fit well, the chemistry isn't there, and I'm not sure if McHale's got enough X&Os and strategy to help fit them together. He may still be just waiting for players to play harder.

 

He's fine.

It could be worse, we could have a college coach like okc or the bulls.

A defensive assistant would be nice though

 

We could have had Steve Kerr right after that Portland embarrassment and we'd have been the ones 3 peating.

**** McHale

 

So having Dmo, TJ, Dwight intermittently coming in and out of the lineup has nothing to do with this? Then you have Ty and Marcus to insert. Preseason is where teams want to start developing that chemistry again and we really did not get that chance due to injuries. Even if you can't consider that, why does he get ALL the blame for that? Should we also blame him for Harden's bad start or should we credit Walton for Curry's incredible start?

 

There is a lot to coaching, and while X's and O's are important, they are far from the only important part of coaching. Many great coaches were not known for their X's and O's. Not every great X's and O's coach is a good head coach either. Tex Winters, Alvin Gentry and Ron Adams come to mind.

Phil Jackson did not run the offense or defense in Chicago/LA for most of his tenure. Yet he has unbelievable success. KC Jones was another that won and did not draw up plays.

The ability to keep egos in check, motivate, and keep the team from giving up all are very important; and there are very few that would argue that he hasn't handled all of those roles perfectly.

The major problem I have with the Rockets coaching staff is the assistants. The Rockets had an opportunity to add the best defensive assistant coach in the NBA (Ron Adams) and failed to do so. They had opportunities to add Jeff Bsdelik, Bob Weiss, Brendan Malone, Monty Williams and Alvin Gentry over the last handful of years and did not do so. That doesn't even include PJ Carlisimo and others.

 

Steve Kerr had a team that had been together a long time, had almost no injuries and had the best group of assistant coaches in the NBA. He had Gentry to run his offense and Adams to run his defense. He deserves credit because they won the title, but he was also in an ideal situation.

 

I don't know which is more of reason I want Rockets to win. To shove it in my Spurs and Mavs friends or to have the unbearable ****ty fans that don't do anything but complain about everything on the team they supposedly support shut the Hell up.

 

I'm saying he has not shown he can fit players that are not complementary players together well. I didn't say he should get all the blame.

Harden/Lawson weren't injured during preseason. But they aren't playing well together.

I never said McHale should get all the blame for Harden's bad start. Harden is the biggest to blame. But obviously Harden/Lawson sharing a backcourt has thrown Harden's rhythm off a bit.

What I said was that Morey did a lot of McHale's job for him last year by getting him very complementary players to Dwight/Harden. But this year we upgraded talent, but the players aren't so complementary (plus injuries). So based on my previous observation that McHale hasn't been good at fitting players that don't complement each other well together, I think we'll actually struggle a bit this year and we may not do as well as we did last year despite the upgrade in talent.

And you can say not every coach is good at what I've just outlined. Agreed. But the top coaches are. If you look at Poppovich, you can thrown any type of player on that team (as long as they aren't selfish players), and Pop will make it work. It doesn't mean championships every year, but they're in contention every year.

I don't think McHale's on that level.

If you look at Luke Walton, of course he's not the engine that drives the Warriors. Curry, and the system Steve Kerr has put together over the past year is. And because of little roster turnover and injuries, they are dominating.

The Rockets obviously have a more difficult circumstances. But that in part due to a lack of strong systems in place and more depending on the individual brilliance of Harden and Dwight to carry the team, especially Harden. And when Harden is off miserably, not just shooting, but throwing bad passes etc, there is no counter. That will take time, but I'm not too optimistic.

 

Absolutely agree with you. McHale is good in certain respects, as I said in the first post.

I think what modern X&Os are getting to is read and react based on a certain system. The triangle is just an extreme version of this because it is read and react based on a very difficult to learn system that requires the right players, and that requires a few years learning together.

I think the Rockets are trying to take that direction. But the system underlying their read and react offense is rather elementary compared to many other teams.

The NBA game is constantly evolving. For example the stretch 4. Corner 3s. Thidobeau's defensive schemes.

What Steve Kerr has done with the Warriors is an example how with roughly the same talent (just one year more mature), a coaching change made drastic improvements to a team. That was the #1 offense and #1 defense last year, and the most notable roster change was the coach.

Byron Scott, is the other extreme of a dinosaur coach that wants to take mid range shots, and isn't keen on spacing the floor with shooters. He's been forced to adapt his year by wanting his team to take more 3s.

I think McHale has evolved. He has captured the essence of the modern offense, without employing much sophistication to it. That will get you wins with star players, but is it enough to go all the way when the talent level at the top is pretty crazy stacked for a few teams.