Frank Vogel may be available... (UPDATE: Vogel out in Indiana)

Those arguments seem so clueless to me...the Pacers will never be a great scoring team with the players they have right now, they lack players able to create, Hill is decent, George is decent, Ellis plays for himself, they basically have the same system they had two years ago but with worst denfender (Ellis < Lance, Mahinmi < Hibbert and whoever plays the 4 < West) which led them to the conference finals and close to beat the Heat, why Bird wants to change that? To become the new Rockets? Having a great defense is more important imo, if you want to score more just bring in better/right players, not Ellis...maybe he'll be happy with D'Antoni and Ryan Anderson...

 

IMO Vogel is a 'be careful what you wish for' (prospective) coaching candidate. He's not what we thought he was tho he has had some limiting rosters he hasn't shown the ability to surmount being good and getting great.

How different are his mpg than Thibs? Rotations than JJB?

Messina sounds the best choice to me; perhaps a reconstituted JVG? Does Sammy get an interview? He's my emotional choice.

 

I generally agree.

But style does need to be considered. Also, they weren't a highly rated offensive team when they went to those back to back ECF. Team ranks still in the 20's, so definitely below average. BOTH defense and offense are important to be a championship level team. You can go back and look through all the past champions and even conference champions/finalists, and you will see, with very few exceptions, they excelled on both sides of the ball. This is why Bird is considering moving on...

- the Pacers were 20th in 3 point fg as a % of total. Rockets were 1st (warriors 2nd, spurs 25th).

- Pacers were 22nd in layups as a % of fgs. Rockets were 7th (warriors 20th, spurs 23rd).

- Pacers were 20th in % of two point FGs assisted. Rockets were 15th (Warriors 1st, Spurs 6th)

- Pacers were 23rd in % of 3 point FGs assisted. Rockets were 26th - too many heaves (warriors 27th - heaves but they can do that, spurs 2nd)

- Pacers were 11th in % of FGA from 10-16 feet, but 22nd in FG% at that distance. they were 2nd in % of FGA from 16 feet to the 3 point line, but 23rd in FG% from that distance.

I get at the end of the day you have to have the players. But stylistically, its also not hard to look at some numbers simply and say we've got to change our % of shots. It's not like the Rockets were blessed with a bunch of creators either. They just had the one.

The question is, is this Vogel's doing, or is it the players, and his style maximized them?

And can he change?

And should he change? There's lots of ways to run good offense, as the stylistic differences between the Warriors and Spurs show.

 

Wanting to play faster and score more points.

I ask this not in sarcasm but actually not remembering clearly: isn't that what Les Alexander wanted, more or less, awhile back? Something "more fun to watch" (I don't know if I'm paraphrasing Les or myself)?

In all this mess, I honestly do not know which coach they should pick. JVG? Vogel? Sampson? Ollie? Messina?

Maybe they've already interviewed someone but for appearances' sake need to keep a lid on it. Or maybe the search will be as thorough as they say (can't be too thorough or they could miss out on someone).

Just, please, no JBB.

 

Yes, and what Les still wants, according to Feigen.

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<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Jeff Van Gundy on ESPNU: &quot;I can't believe that Frank Vogel isn't getting, like, a contract extension for the fine work he's done.&quot;</p>&mdash; Nate Taylor (@ByNateTaylor) <a href="https://twitter.com/ByNateTaylor/status/727524619465330688">May 3, 2016</a></blockquote>
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Vogel is NOT a good coach, I want nothing to do with him

 

not a good coach? hes been in the playoff all his year of coaching except 1.

Hes roster has been crap this year and they were close in defeating the Raptors this year:

Pacers always seem to play hard and great defense. not sure why you think hes not a good coach?/

 

Um, the man was quoted as saying he wanted more offense

 

Jvg lost all credibility when he vouched for JBB.

 

And you lose credibility with all your negative posts.

What is JVG supposed to say publicly? "John Bickerstaff Junior sucks big red dog d**** and I want to coach that team instead! My DAUGHTER could out-coach Bickerstaff!"?

 

Offense is one of the Rockets smaller concerns. They were in the top 5-6 teams in offensive efficiency this season, even with Howard taking an enormous step backwards.

The Rockets real issue is defense. They are terrible when it comes to communication, discipline, effort, making smart plays. Dwight Howard went from being able to hold up our defense to being a spectator.

The Rockets could do far worse than Frank Vogel or Jeff Van Gundy or Dave Joerger or Brent Brown.

My concern with Vogel isn't that the Rockets wouldn't score enough, it is his ability to keep a team together. A few years ago the Pacers had serious chemistry issues and Vogel guided the team somewhat through the difficulty.

Also, look at the weapons that Vogel had to work with offensively, not exactly much to work with.

 

San Antonio, was once a team that would grind. In 2008-09, They averaged 97 a game. In 2009-10 they averaged 101.4, a huge jump. The pacers averaged one PPG less than the Spurs this year. Vogel is a top 5 coach in my eyes. Pop, Stevens, Kerr, and Carlisle are the only coaches I would put ahead of him at this time. Vogel can adapt to the times just like Pops did. One thing he will not change is his emphasis on Defense. Vogel or JVG need to be the coach if experience is a must. If not then Ollie and Messina need to get in the mix too. Other names that would interest me are Joerger (don't see him being fired) and Budenholzer (think ATL gets him extended).

 

All good questions. But at the end i always think it starts with the players, if you bring in a player like Ellis you know he's going to have that kind of impact in your offense, pretty big and not necessarily good...what i think is that they just signed him cause he was the only "big name" open to sign there...so, not sure if that's more on Vogel or Bird. Also, the plus for the Rockets is that Harden makes other teams play against him a lot, so, other guys generally have more opportunities to create (even if they suck), against the Pacers i think the same teams work very different, George is a great player, but you don't necessarily need to have a defensive plan for him, you just put your best defender on him cause he can make shots but that's it, you just guard them 5 on 5. Lawson could've been huge for them playing with Hill at the 2 and George at the 3 but eh...

The point which i think it's clear though, is that the way Bird seems to think, doesn't fit this roster...George himself said that he doesn't like the idea of playing the 4...maybe if Turner can develop into a good/great starting center and they sign a couple of good shooters at the 2 and 4 they'll be ok, but i think overall this have a little to do with how Vogel coaches, he was basically forced to play Hill and Mahinmi or Lavoy Allen together for at least half of the season, they tried with Miles/George at the four a lot of times i think, but not sure how that went...

 

He vouched for him because he doesn't bash other coaches. I don't think he was voting him for coach of the year. I think he still feels the sting of being scrutinized as a coach and felt for JBB, who wasn't ready for the moment. It's not the end of the world.

 

Terry Stotts extension has not been guaranteed either. Would LOVE him or frank

 

Either would be great and better than JVG.

 

Lol why would Stotts go anywhere after an amazing, highly overachieving season?

 

JVG vouches for coaches. It's what he does. I can't blame him for sticking up for his own kind.

 

The Blazers are going to give Stotts ALL THE MONEY to get him to return. This team wasn't even expected to make the playoffs after they lost Aldridge in the offseason...and remember they still contractual have an option on him next season - they just haven't exercised that right - YET. I can't imagine any scenario where they don't pick up his option.

 

Exactly. You rarely, if ever, see Jeff come right out and criticize another coach. It's out of respect and also because he's been there, dealing with criticism from the "outside," when there were probably things going on behind the scenes impacting the team that couldn't be discussed in the media.