He's one of our assistant coaches and he's supposed to be the successor to McHale. I decided to look him up on wikipedia and this guys has an amazing track record IMO. -Started off coaching the Sheffield Sharks in England. Winning several titles and a coach of the year in 1998. -Moved to coach in Germany. This team went 4-13 and he got fired. (Which seems to be his lone bad stint) -Moved to Belgium and led them to championship in 2005. -2007 - Moved to coach the Dexia Mons-Hainaut where they lost by one point in the finals. -2009 - coached the Rio Grade Vipers and won a championship and coach of the year. This guys seems to be a winner everywhere he goes. He coached the British national team from 2009-2012 but recently resigned because he has "things in the States to concentrate on." (Which I'm assuming is the Rockets) What do you guys think about him? Anyone have any idea on how he's been doing as an assistant?
I think he's supposedly the "offensive coordinator" and runs an offense similar to adelman's. He should be the new coach in a year or two or even sooner but who knows...les might want a big name later to attach to our squad like d'antoni, if he doesnt go to la.
I've heard nothing but good things about him, especially sports reporters. Supposedly a good Xs and Os guy.
This is what's surprising to me. I remember when McHale came on to coach the team. He was saying that his staff is basically going to have "offensive coordinators" and "defensive coordinators." They will basically get credit for the offense or defense, respectively, while McHale is the voice of reason and motivation. Which makes me wonder if this current offense is Chris Finch's (who suppose to be the offensive genius) or if it's McHale's. It might even be Finch's in practice but McHale makes the game time decision on X's and O's during timeouts. Anyone been to the practices and see how much Finch inputs in offense? Clutch?
Does anyone know if the plays we are running are his plays or Mchale's? Would be very interesting to find out, with all this 'Mcfail' hate goin on up in hurrr
If you've been following the Rockets for longer than this season, Chris Finch is a name that you should be familiar with. Finch's philosophy is on offense players should all the freedom in the world, and on defense they should none. One thing I can tell you about Finch's coaching style is that he is very much a believer in studying efficiencies in an offensive system & his players and exploiting those aspects of his roster with the players he has. Very smart guy and very flexible with the system he runs. So yes, he's very much in tune with the analytical approach to the game that the front office is innovative at. Another thing to note- he loves to go small when his team is outmatched. Something that has probably bled into the Rockets coaching preparation in the past couple seasons. McHale and Sampson haven't necessarily been small ball advocates with any of the teams they coached before coming to Houston. I take it that this is Finch's influence to the coaching gameplay. So in short- If you don't like someone with an analytical approach to the game, and you don't like small ball... Finch is not your guy. If Finch was promoted to head coach for some reason, I don't think this team would be coached that much differently IMO. Its possible that certain players might not get the large amount of minutes that other get, but I don't think he would be playing the rookies any more than McHale given the fact that none of them would be consistently efficient players at this junction, and he certainly wouldn't be taking the ball out of Harden's hands much more than McHale is right now. The one major difference I could see is Finch being a little bit more exploratory in making changes either to the rotation or the play calling. I still don't think he would make extreme changes to a new team after 5 games, but I could see him exploring more than McHale would. I would love to see what Finch could do with a young rebuilding NBA team like the Rockets, but for the fans who think the grass might be greener on the other side of the bench, I don't think it would be that much different then what you already see.
I think you're confusing euro league and d league for the NBA. WHY WAIT for an unproven coach at the NBA level? This doesn't add up. At all. Also why fire one of the best, proven coached in the sport today? There is something not being told to the public.
Let's be honest - nobody on this board knows how good a coach Chris Finch is. Nobody. How would you know that Finch is an offensive genius/mastermind or great with X's and O's? Did you watch extensive tape of the Vipers or Team GB? No, you didn't. No sane person does. All this "Finch is a great coach, great offensive mind" came/is coming from the Rockets, who obviously are very much biased. They'd tell you just as much and more great things about coach McHale, who many on this board obviously think is a bad coach. In the few games I've watched Finch as head coach (a few Vipers quarters and a couple of GB games), I never got the expression that he was some kind of offensive genius. His offense didn't look anything like Adelman's either, which is fine because he may not had the right personal for it -- or he just likes to do other things. We just don't know.
Yeah all I know is he's been a winner everywhere he's gone. Seems like he's got a lot of passion for the game; a guy who will get his opportunity somewhere eventually.
You are correct that nobody knows how good or bad he is on an NBA level. And Offensive mastermind/Adelman type coach.... no way. He might know how to run the Princeton offense, but Ive never seen it from a team he's coached. I'll admit i didn't watch a ton of RGV games two years ago, but most of what I have seen is from watching GB play this past Summer. I really tried hard to watch the play calling, and style as it compares to the Rockets. You know what I saw... Alot of small ball sets similar to what the Rockets use(didn't have much of a choice due to lack of size). Spread the floor, move the ball side to side, high P&R, penetrate to the basket, lots of 3's. Nothing real groundbreaking. Pretty simple basketball. Go to the 30 second mark of this video. Look at the offensive set they are running. Does that set look familiar?- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UzflJ6bu76k&feature=relmfu Your right that nobody should be able to claim that he is any sort of mastermind right now because he's never done it at this level of play with NBA players none the less. However, from what Ive seen in small doses tells me that the Rockets would probably be a very similar looking team if Finch was the head coach now of the Rockets. Similar play calling, sets, and rotations.
Who would have guessed that Morey would find a diamond in the rough guy from the d-league? Jk...but I like both Sampson and finch but I think Sampson has more respect from the players. Both will be an Integral part of the team's future
The guy is a nobody, coached in some of the weakest leagues in Europe and never even coached a Euroleague team. His results with the Great Britain team are poor too as they never won against a good team. Why is Morey so high on Finch?