Chron Rocket Update: Aftermath, Scarred & Francis Update

Good post!

 

Orlando used single coverage on Yao, he beat them, the other three teams used a technique that has taken Yao out of several games and it worked again. The only thing that makes me wonder is why Orlando didn't try it

 

I thought I was on your ignore list. You seem very educated as well with your post.

 

Van Gundy needs to pull his motivational strings during the game first, in private second and in public as a last resort. When things went bizzaro in the second half against the Nets Van Gundy should have forced a technical or thrown a chair, something to recapture his teams focus and intensity. Or he should have benched 5 of the top six players (somebody has to play C). The bench couldn't have played worse and being benched during a national game could have proved sobering.

But critcizing a team in press conference rather than a team meeting is a very dangerous tact. First it allows team members to deny to themselves that they are part of the problem. They can in their own minds blame others on the team and that just reinforces selfish play. Call it the 'Leon Syndrome' after the beer commercial. And two, publicly embarassing people guarantees a defensive rather than reflective response especially in the huge ego world of professional sports. Didn't the same tact with the Knicks result in the team quitting on him and in turn him quitting on the team?

Van G needs a more inclusive startegy. He need to assume the ultimate responsibility for the the teams failures, develop a sense that the team is family and it's us against the world, use timely benchings to send his message about team play (like he did with Yao a week or so ago).

Although we did suck in the last three gamesand drastic measures need to be taken, I think his public display may blow
up in his face.

 

I think some eduation may help your spelling.

 

Well, sounds like we were all correct in our assessment...look who reacted negatively and I can tell you this hand to be a forced hand situation by JVG IMHO...

 

Our rotation doesn't have good chemistry because there is no rotation. MoT is the only player coming off the bench playing serious minutes, and he should since Cato is playing like crap.

MJ comes off the bench for 3-5 minutes and that's our rotation.

JVG insists on throwing away leads and having to play people he normally wouldn't to catch up. I'm not saying it's all his fault, but JVG seems too damn stubborn to make a change. Padgett has been a great pick up for the Rockets, doing everything we need him to do, and yet he doesn't play.

JVG blamed everything on the players and didn't except any of the resposibility. He saw 2 leads blown, and didn't change anything. He saw a blowout and didn't change anything.

I would be pretty pissed if my coach dissed the team publicly, and never said anything about himself.

JVG start coaching....NOW.

 

Perhaps he has a check list:

1. Assess players as they behave in your system.
2. Wait to see how they respond to success/failure under your guidance.
3. Privately tell them what they're doing wrong, but offer support publicly.
4. Make public your problems with them if they have not responded.

Regardless of who's fault it is that player's aren't responding privately, at least the public rebuke gives you one more avenue to effect change. If someone cares most about their image, it might even work.

TBH, I don't really like it either. But it does seem to work fo some coaches... but it should be a last resort, which means either:

1. Things are going badly, and JVG is really issuing an ultimatum.

or

2. He's a whiner. In which case, he's going to become irrelevant, soon, because people will ignore him after they realize his yelling doesn't matter.

 

Dumb statement just plain dumb. I have conceded that JVG is a better x's and o's coach that I first thought. Perhaps now you can now acknowledge that he sucks at motivating his players. You can't expect a coach to make a player a better athlete he can't make the baskets for them either but the one thing that he should be able to do is instill heart in them and to make them want to go to war for them. Van Gundy won't make it till the end of his contract. I just hope he doesn't destroy the team before that happens.

 

Jeez, you do believe selfish players go to war for coach? No, they go to war for MONEY. Wake up!!!

 

The players are at fault for their lazy ways but why wasn't our preparation properly done for the Miami game.JVG has some explaining to do. If Ewing was out partying with the boys than that is even worse.

 

Taylor should be offended by his putrid career rebounding numbers.

He should be offended everytime he cashes a Rockets' paycheck.

 

that's one big problem i have with jvg's statements, where is the blame for himself? i'm perfect, y'all suck isn't usually a great motivator.

i'll admit it goes somewhat with the territory:

football coaches will say they got beat and outcoached b/c that's the manly, tough way to go about it so they have to.

baseball coaches just say they were playing the percentages or a hunch

basketball coaches call out lack of effort or heart or intensity at most all disappointing losses. rarely a "i could've tried something different" statement.


as was mentioned, maybe we could try playing some people off the bench instead of having steve, mobley, and jj play 40+ minutes and yao/cato/taylor fill all other minutes. maybe they get tired in the 2nd half from all the minutes, they do matter ya know. or maybe he could try new things on offense (i actually like letting steve come off the pick at the top with cato handing him the ball). new wrinkles are nice. or maybe jvg could just say he didn't get it done. the players lost heart may not be the best thing to take public.

sometimes it can work, maybe it will. sometimes you become george karl on the bucks and all your players don't like you after a while.

 

What's the common denominator here? Players or coach? What hasn't changed in 5 years? What's been relatively the same with the team under two different coaches?

Where's the problem?

JVG job is hard. Why? Because he inherited the most ISO based, selfish (because that's the only way they know how to play), me-me, team in the league.

It's not like he joined a team that already had a good understanding of team-ball (Utah, Memphis, Sac, Dallas).