Yes, but as I just asked in another thread: is there an actual philosophy on defense? You could just as well have a whole defensive philosophy, the way you do any offensive one.
les & tad seem to have been less than thorough in 'reaching out' to all the local media. or maybe they feel that most people only pay attention to the chronicle anyways
I've said it before and say it again : Morey sucks at roster building. The guy desperately needs assistance from others when acquiring and evaluating players.
That was Chris Baldwin of Houston Culture Map... he believed that JLin is the savior of Rockets basketball... and that JJ Watt is a boy scout football player that represents everything wrong with the Texans.
Sure there is. We have long, athletic, versatile players so we have swarming and switching type of defense.
jesus f**k spell his name correctly you douchebag. you are easily one of the least enjoyable posters on this board.
Look up the 3pa/3pm ratio compared to other teams and then answer again. To act like their aren't glaring issues with our offense, just because we had a high ppg, is flat-out wrong.
That's been looked at. We aren't some outliers and we actually shot better this year than last year from beyond the arc.
John is a good guy, but he's not really an NBA writer. His first love is baseball, and he also covers UH/Rice sports, including hoops, for the Houston Press. He doesn't have an ax to grind with Daryl or anything, but he is generally a pessimist (on the flip side, I'm sure he thinks of me as too much of an optimist). It's nothing personal, so I don't have a huge problem with this. However, I do disagree with it, and it strikes me as outsider painting with far too broad of a brush. Not saying you have to be a credentialed media member at Toyota Center to have a take, but to insinuate that "continued mediocrity" defines the era of a team that won 54 and 56 games the last two years, including a division crown and a WCF berth... that's a bit extreme. Too much forcing a narrative with this.
There really isn't anything in this article that hasn't been discussed on this board ad-nauseam. So why all the hate? The Van Gundy thing was a bit over the top, but I think it hits too close to home and most of us don't see how this can be fixed in the short term. Morey has flipped and re-flipped this roster so many times we've had players come and go more then once. Now we sit back and see some of those players advance further with different teams and it angers some. So be it. Year nine. Let's see what the Teflon Man comes up with next year....
It's not just PPG. It's points per shot and points per possession, which are both high. Which means even though they are an average 3-point shooting team, they are still scoring more efficiently than about 25 of 30 teams. If the Rockets had great 3-point shooters, their offense would be Golden State Warriors level good.
Does the writer of that article honestly think a different coach would not have made a difference with this team? Really? So a coach who could get the team to play together and play defense would not have proved this team? Morey must coach defense and get our players to get along better. Makes a lot of sense.
That's exactly the point, Morey hasn't assembled a roster that fits the philosophy. You want a 3pt heavy system like GSW, so you bring in sharpshooters to convert the shots, it's not that hard to understand. We would be on a whole different level if Morey did his job.
Here is a solution. Dont tell the coach how to coach basketball. If you tell the coach that you as the GM only want the team shooting lay ups and 3 pointers, then build a roster that can shoot and get to the rim. Because of Morey's philosophy we got DMo Jones and Smoove spotting up for 3's. Hell Morey might as well coach the team if he's going to limit the coach. We don't have the personnel GSW and SAS have so that's why it is an epic fail when we try to play like them. Solution: let the coach build a game plan around the strengths and weaknesses of the roster you built. Don't go to the grocery store and buy pork chops then tell me to make spaghetti.
This narrative that morey did nothing wrong because he stuck with players that had one good year is the epitome of only fixating on the result over process. 56 regular season wins & WCF appearance seem impressive until you dig a little bit deeper, and then you realize there were many signs that we overachieved relative to how we actually performed. Were barely top 10 in offense & defense, never excelled at anything except taking inordinate amount of 3s, margins of victory were quite small, relied too much on 1 player offensively, and our defensive anchors were physically worn-down and somewhat overrated. If we were to be really honest about our achievement last year, we would've had to admit to ourselves that a lot tweaking was needed despite superficial success. Instead, morey took easy route and deluded himself into thinking that he has finally found the golden goose, when in reality it was just a good single-year run that was unsustainable in the long term.
