Yeah and we're trying to catch teams like the Suns and Spurs who have living rooms like Gallery Furniture. This team has made bad personnel decisions for years now. I hope Adelman does have a say in who we get because his talent evaluation process has to be better than what we have in place now. We need to acquire some diamonds in the rough and let them play together and develop together. This win now thing is not going to work unless Les wants to go broke and then have a fire sell after we win one title.
We need to clean house and add furniture too. Nobody is willing to take our furniture so we are left with adding some.
They moved a lot of pieces, man... Steve, Cat, Cato, Mo, Moochie, Swift, Jim Jackson, Nachbar, Wesley, Barry, Mike James, Lue... and basically had TMac and Battier as the two really good pieces to show for. Rafer, we can debate about him, but to me he's an average PG asked to play way too many minutes because the backups suck so much. Right now, the Rockets resemble the bachelor pad of a young professional who just got a well paying job, they spent all their money on the big screen LCD (Yao) and the Bose sound system (Tracy), they also added a Ninento Wii (Battier) (not as powerful or as expensive as other systems like PS3, but fun in a quirky way and very popular... but you probably overpaid to get it on ebay). But the rest of the furniture consist of a futon from Ikea and stuff you picked up from garage sale. Sure, you the big screen, the Bose, and the Wii are nice, but it ain't much of a home...
I didn't mean moving Yao and T-Mac. Battier should probably stay because we aren't likely to get anyone better than him in a trade. The rest need to go but nobody wants them.
Speaking of Stro........................................I'd be willing to bet he would look good under Adelman. When the trade for Battier went down, I was so hoping it was Juwan. I know Stro is a knucklehead but how much brains do you gotta to run down the floor on the break and cram the ball down the basket? You do have to have athleticism though, Juwan has none of that.
But you can't run a Princeton offense with a student from LSU special ed. Adelman had smart, smart bball IQ guys like Brad Miller, Vlade, and Webber playing in his offense in SAC... they did more than just running down the floor and cram the ball down.
Well considering he couldn't crack the court on a Memphis team that was tanking and literally ran the style of offense your describing (which is not the offense adelman runs, in fact adelman's offense requires damn good basketball IQ), I'd say Stro may be the stupidest player in the NBA.
There is one big guy who might fit... 1. He is 6'10'' 2. He had numbers close to that of Chuck Hayes' first season in limited action (he broke his ankle and had to sit out). 13.8 minutes, 4.5 points, 4.2 rebounds, 0.8 blocks. 3. He's long and active Active, big body. 3. He went to the same school as Shane Battier, so he has to be pretty smart: Yes, I am talking about this guy (the taller one in the pic):
"Shavlik Randolph in regard to gay former NBA player John Amaechi — "As long as you don’t bring your gayness on me, I’m fine""
Actually his home wasn't as bad as you describe. The problem is he just wanted to stand in front of his TV admiring his bose system and rarely ever leaving the room to see the rest of the house accept occasionally to sit on an antique chair with broken legs and to try an cook a bake potato in a beautiful microwave oven that wasn't plugged in. In the end they foreclosed on him cause he missed four payments in a row. And now he is homeless, standing on a street corner with a sign that says, "Will Work For ESPN For Food".
But now he has been evicted by the landlord who has brought in a guy from the booming California housing market who knows a thing or two about renovating hyped up real estate property. And while he will be able to spruce up the place with a couple of unused things in the closet, more moves will be necessary. Acquiring a couple of luxury tems would be nice, but considering the limited budget due to the bose and flat screen, some bargain shopping will be in order. Perhaps the new tenant can get some of his old stuff back (bibby) or maybe he can get a cheap hometown discount (rashard).
You know- I think you are right- Van Gundy would have wanted the veteran who can play. Passing on Browne was probably not Van Gundy
I never wanted Van Gundy- but grew to appreciate - he can coach. He is a very fine coach IMHO. I really respect Larry Brown-but I never wanted him here. He will always improve a team and after a time they mutiny on him- thus he moves on.... I will not debate Van gundy input on personnel-I will never know.....I hated our predictable offensive scheme. My favorite Van Gundy period: the beauty of that '05 team was the interesting combo of players- who for 1/2 season all over achieved. Sura played like the fighting dog that he is. Barry played his last consistent basketball, David Wesley played the last really good ball of his career. IMHO- Van Gundy had little to do with that success- those players coalesced for a brief period and played some damn good basketball. Van Gundy was smart enough to turn them loose. At the end I expected Van Gundy to sign an extension. I am happy with Adelman though. Very Happy.
1. Les and JVG we now know were at odds, and getting through the first round was the chip hanging in the balance. JVG didn't say everyone knew he wanted to return or that he made that public, he said it was clear to Les. When JVG was told that until a decision was made they would look at options, Adelman said after the Rockets contacted him he called JVG to check it out and JVG was OK with it. JVG might have also 'signed off' on the Adelman hire, but that doesn't mean he was indecisive with Les about his own intentions. I get the impression that the bridge was on fire for a while between Les and Van Gundy. 2. Right, he turned down upgrading the roster because he was enamored with Chuck Hayes, VSpan, J Howard, JLucasIII, and Snyder. Yep, I can see him rejecting a really good player coming on to the roster who would be a big upgrade.. that's how stupid he was I guess. 3. He didn't distance himself from Battier, he sang praises to him all season long. He only stated that he didn't have the final control over personnel. It appears to me that Morey and Lindsey were the personnel powers and CD was there to facilitate and support. JVG had the power to tell them what they needed, give his input and support or reject a decision but I don't think he really was in the decision spot that made him the final authority. The reason I believe that is because of comments he made to me about Luther Head, Chuck Hayes, Stromile Swift, a back up point guard, a starting shooting guard and Brandon Roy. Those comments left me thinking he was pretty spot on about how to improve the Roster. The facts are we didn't draft Roy, we didn't come up with a back up point guard who could shoot well from the outside (Mike James), we didn't acquire a larger PF who could rebound (although we did move Swift off the roster) we did not get a starting 2 guard who could shoot and instead we came up with Bonzi, Snyder, VSpan, and Lucas III... Bonzi is the only player out of the group that could have helped, he didn't- I know JVG has to take responsibility for personnel decisions since he is part of the process, but I don't think he was driving the decisions that were made, he was asking and receiving... trying to win games. So we win 52 games without Yao for alot of the season and all the scrubs on the roster. Good riddance to Grumpy also And welcome to the team, Rick May your personnel people treat you better.
I believe this is the audio of the segments with JVG yesterday. Warning - it's not all Rockets talk... http://sportsradio610.com/episode_download.php?contentType=36&contentId=775630
here's a recap of what i missed yesterday [on how his term ended] - 5:30 takes responsibility for not advancing no miscommunication with front office wished things were handled differently, there was no uncertainty as perceived [on defense only criticiscm] - 8:00 listens to sportstalk averaged 97 ppg, not slow, not fast, midtempo team spurs averaged about 1ppg more than rockets [on eastern conference] - 12:00 believes rockets would have won the east in convincing fasion also utah or denver probably would have won the east [on success as coach] - 16:30 good fortune having the right players from my recap yesterday, here are the times. btw, i missed a bit on the recap, so it's worth a listen. [on personnel decisions] - 18:30 [on rotation, playing time] - 21:00 [on bonzi] - 25:00
well said. so we are back to square one...rockets need better players or at the very least need yaoand or mac to become true dominant superstars in crunch time...not media superstars
The Battier trade was right all along. We gave up highlight material and fan enthusiasm for versatility, hole-filling, and winning basketball. Knowing it was Morey's idea gives me hope for the future of this team.
