Already beats out Rick for radio interviews. Spoiler Congrats on the getting the gig first of all. Tell us why you want to get back into coaching after only having a few interm stints in Minnesota? I really enjoy coaching. Have fun doing it. Last time, really had a ball. Had a younger team, was able to get the ship righted, played well, though a few injuries derailed us. Doing TV, the NBATV/TNT people are fantastic but I miss that competitevness and being in the fight. SOmething about that that is fun. This opportunity came up. I met with Mr. Alexander and Daryl a few times, talked at length with my wife, knew I wanted to get back in and seemed like the right time to get back in with a good young team. How much of an opportunity to study the personnel on this roster? I've watched them from afar. Now the studying starts and looking at things at more closely. I liked how they got up and down. Very impressed how they played last 25-30 games. I thought they really jelled, Lowry came out and was able to put so much pressure on the D off the dribble, he played so well, made threes, Martin a guy who can flat out score the ball in this league, Patterson had a nice end of the year, a big fan of Scola, Dragic comes in, another high energy guy. I like a lot of the pieces here. When you watch them play, there is no question they can get up and down the floor and score. One thing we have to get better at is defense. Im convinced we will. You get better with what you work at. Thats the way it is in life and we'll work at it and get better at it. When you say you have to get better, is that something you can teach or something you just have to have? No. D is effort, repetition, guys being tied together. You could probably get the guy who does the plumbing in your house to be a pretty good defender if you wanted to. You couldnt get that guy to score the ball. Scoring inate. You can either score or not score. If you ask a guy, they'll tell you they spent 10,000 hours shooting the ball and probably....I tried one time doing a bunch of drills in the summer to work on my D, I got bored after 5 minutes and said I'll go shoot some more. D is effort, concentration, commitment, guys working together. D in the NBA right now is about shrinking the court and loading up. The new rules allow you to be aggressive. But the more aggressive you are, the more work it takes. Its a mindset but repetition. Its pushing the players to doing it and demanding it and I dont think there will be any problems. I still want this team to play fast and uptempo. If you arent playing fast with this team, you're not taking advantage of their offensive skill level. You could make the case they overachieved to a certain extent given their deficencies on D. I know you cant comment on anyone but names come up on our show like Chandler, Gasol, Jordan, Dalembert, etc. My thought is if you drop one into this lineup, this team might automatically be 10 wins better. Is that a crazy statement? No, I think Rick did a tremendous job, first of all let me say that. And the way they played at the end of the season, I think that was one of the most alluring things about this job. I know Mr. Alexander and Daryl and his staff want to add players and pieces to this team that can help, different type players, so its not a finished product but as I said in the PC, you can win without having a perfect team. That has been proven many teams. What you do is take this team and make this team the best it can be. When you talked to Daryl and Mr. Alexander, what did they say the immediate goal is this upcoming year coming off 43 wins last year? Playoffs? Yeah playoffs. We want to make the playoffs. Dont think there isnt a player or coach who will be here that doesnt want to make the playoffs and have that be our goal. A very realistic goal. Once the playoffs start, anything can happen. See Memphis. I think playoffs are a reality and will be a goal. I think players feel strongly that they can achieve that goal. Appears they would like to have you assist them in grooming Chris Finch to eventually become a coach on the NBA level. Has that been discussed? I know you said you will wait and see on coaching staff but has that conversation taken place about Chris? I met with Chris. Daryl speaks highly of him. I havent worked with him. Until you can work people, hard to evaluate them. Same with all the players. I'm going on with what I've seen out of them. When you get a chance to work with them and be with them all the time, thats when you make your evaluations. HOpefully over a period of time we'll be able to work together and see where it goes. Franchise has been hamstrung by Yao and McGrady. Will this be a season where you go in and expect Yao to still be a factor or do you think you guys will search for a replacement for Yao? In a perfect world, Yao comes back healthy and is able to help. He wants to play in Houston from what I understand. Hes been great not only for HOuston but the NBA in general. I think everyone would love to have Yao come back and play, I know I would. A big center like that. Hard to find. His health will dictate that and how he is able to come back, if hes able to come back. Whats McHale and MOrey a good fit from basketball philosphy standpoint? Ive had his job. Understand how hard it is. Understand what he is doing. I understand he is out there humping every day trying to get the best possible players for this team. One of those things, everyone I work with, a lot of communication. Talk about what the needs are, what can be done, how we can improve, what more we can do together. I think it will be a very easy relationship. I've known Daryl for awhile now. Ive always enjoyed him. Pretty easy going relationship that will get better. Can you handle one silly 80s Celtics related question? Sure, no problem. Was Dirk channeling Larry Bird last night? (laughing)Did his best, especially on that three. That was his best Larry Bird impersonation. People always wants to compare him to Larry Bird and I said he's having a Larry Bird type playoff, no question, but Dirk a great player under his own. Appreciate it. Best of luck. Appreciate it guys. http://houston.cbslocal.com/?podcast_url=http%3A%2F%2Fcbshouston.files.wordpress.com%2F2011%2F06%2Fjr-with-mchale-06-03-11.mp3&podcast_name=Kevin+McHale&podcast_artist=Ben+Nance&station_id=&audio_link=true&config_file=config.xml&dcid=CBS.HOUSTON http://houston.cbslocal.com/2011/06/03/mchale-on-keys-to-rockets-success/
Funny how McHale says he wants to keep the up tempo high scoring style that Adelman implemented and wants to improve the D, because that was similar to what Adelman said when he became coach; that the Rockets were a great defensive team under JVG and he didn't want to change that while getting the offense more uptempo, but eventually the Rockets transitioned to a more offensive minded team and lost their defensive identity.
Thanks for the write up. He does give a good interview, hopefully he can inspire a commitment on D that was lacking through the season last year but saw glimpses of at the end.
Commitment to Defense . . . . .. so . . in a practice of 4 hours JVG spent 3 .5 hours on D and .5 hours on O Adelman Spent 3.5 hours on O and .5 hours on D KMac will spend 2 hours on both So our defense should be worse than JVG but better than Adelman our Offense should be worse than Adelman but better than JVG So The end result will be . .. . what? I am trying to get on board. . . but I think I have more drinking to do . . .before I am there Rocket River
McHale is talking a lot of trash and this thread would be still active in the end of the season because of what type of horrible coach he really is and how he's trying to fool Rockets fans and community First of all, if Morey really wants to be in playoffs, he wouldn't trade Battier for nothing, Brooks for Dragic and nothing and he would sign an elite coach with greatest winning percentage in team history to a new contract. Rick wanted the job, he proved that he is giving as max as this team can (four injury-plagued seasons - four great results), every player not named Terrence and African Child showed support for him, and etc He just need a pocket coach, that would play every guy he brought, despite their work-ethic and production on consistent level, but not the result It's all about influence. Rick is a better and much respected coach, than Morey ever'll be a GM and Daryl just can't live alongside him He needs this:
Defensive identity is limited to personnel>coaching. In order for us to be a good defensive team, we have to have 3 strong defenders and 2 at the least average ones. That is why I believe that if we want to keep Scola, we MUST have an elite shot blocking/altering C and a stellar SF defender to cover his weaknesses. If we want to keep Martin, we already have a plus PG defender in Lowry but Chase must go. In either scenario, our biggest hole in D is the SF position. After that, between Scola and Martin, posterior defense is more important so that is why if there is a trade involved, Scola will be moved for an offensive C and maybe slide Hayes to the PF spot because while he is a good defender at the 5, he is an elite defender at the 4. My solution? Trade Scola + #14 + NY pick for B. Lopez then draft a defensive SF replacement and move Chase or T Will. Lopez/Thabeet Hayes/Pat T Will/Chase Martin/Lee Lowry/Dragic
Can you explain why you think he's a horrible coach? Please use better examples than W-L record, as we all know a coach is only as good as the players he has.
He has no system. Offensive minded, defensive minded, any. He has no respect because of it. Every well-respected coach is looking to add assistants because of his vision. It should be his decision, he should share responsibilities between them: You would work with our bigs You would try to adjust our plays to any different opponent and select the best of them (so we could play our game and we could show the initiative) You would work with perimeter players and you would try to develop them You would be our defensive coordinator You would be our athletic trainer and I want you to build some stamina in my guys because they would move actively on the defensive end of the court throughout the game and they should be able to run, move without the ball and etc for 82 regular games on consistent level and so on All this crappy words about defense are just BS You can play hard but you must have some skills. Scola plays hard every game but he's unable to defend a pick'n'roll situation and if he'll play even harder - it won't change anything. Same with Martin, Bud.. His basketball phylosophy looks like an idiocy. When you are trying to impress somebody and show them that you'll bring the result in H-Town you should say about key factors. Not about Adelman's offence or playing with heart When Thibs came to Chicago he said smth like this: I have my own philosophy, I want to adjust it to players I have. I would use Deng's ability to freeing up, I would try to build our defence from PG position to Noah in the middle, I would do this and that. He did it. Deng had the best season in his career, Rose won MVP because of his offense and defense and so on. Bulls are in great position What did McHale said? I like some guys, we would run like Rick's team did, we would try to play hard. Oh, come on. I'll imagine he would say: we'll tank from the start of the season, we don't care about any result, Morey just wants to play T-Will, Hill and Thabeet more I watched his T-Wolves team when Jefferson was beasting. It reminds me a lot of Kuester's Pistons: not very smart, not really tactically flexible, but Big Al was a monster and they won some games because of his ability to destroy the glass and bump his opponents. It's just a couple of reasons actually Dude was in a league for a while but he didn't have any secure job as a coach, nobody was really interested in him when the worst franchise in the league thrown him away (Minny is the only team that didn't make a playoffs in last five year. 29 else did). There are just a couple of idiots in the NBA, such as Dolan or Chris Wallace, other guys do know that he's useless. And I realize that so many gms and exexutives can't be wrong
When your executive or gm's is trying to hire an assistants for you and said: this man Chris Finch would be there, this man Hunt there and this man Jorger there or anybody else there, he has show you no respect at all
that's why 3000+ of clutchfans members are not happy with him If you hired him after John Kuester or Jay Triano - it maybe be ok move, but replacing Rick Adelman with this piece of crap is hell no a ok move
To be fair to McHale: a) He's never been given the opportunity to be a head coach. He's been forced to take over two underachieving teams mid-season; he's never had a training camp with a team and been able to establish a true identity. b) Both times he took over for fired coaches, he improved the team's record. He coached the Timberwolves to a better record than Flip Saunders had them playing and then again to a better record than Randy Wittman had them playing at. That should count for something. c) I don't see the problem in realizing another coaches superior offensive sets and wanting to utilize them. I don't have a problem with him admiring Adelman's offense and wanting to continue to run it. When you're taking over a team that had one of the most efficient offenses in the league, the stupid move would be to change that offense and install your own. d) Defense is more than playing hard. JVG would have made Scola a better defender than Adelman did, but that isn't because Scola would play harder for Jeff than Rick. It's because Jeff would spend more time in practice drilling defensive concepts into the team and constantly going over defensive drills. I have never attended a Rick Adelman practice, but from quotes about the man and his practices, I think he valued scrimmaging over perfecting defensive rotations/drills. Just my speculation. I'm not saying McHale is a great coach, but I don't think you can look at his body of work and conclude he's a bad coach either.
It was a pretty candid interview, and I think he'll be a pretty decent coach. He sounds like a good communicator who is aware of his strengths and weaknesses and looking forward to the job. Only time will tell, but I'm looking forward to seeing what he can do with the team.