I am glad he is gone, Clutch. Rockets were NEVER EVER going to win a championship with McHale. In fact no team will win anything with McHale as head coach. Next I want Morey to step up and hire a real coach and stay out of the coaching side of things. Let the coach run the system he wants instead of forcing some philosophy which doesn't even match the roster of players he has put together. To be honest we need a coach who Harden respects because right now it seems he can do whatever he wants without any repercussions like giving zero effort on defense. Example of Morey Philosphy failing us: Shoot the most number of 3's in the league but have some of the worst brickers around.
No need to turn it around. Just slowly get it over to the side of the road and try to get it all the way out of traffic. Lock it up, take the keys, and walk away.
Ah, you were so quiet about McHale until we lost a few games without him. A lot of our problems were McHale-related. At least we don't have to watch him sweat through his suit with the finger-to-mouth what-should-I-do expression. McHale's fortunes rose and fell on Harden's motivation level. Plan A: Harden wins it for us. Plan B: Harden saves my ass. To be fair, I don't think anyone could have saved this unholy brew of Harden showing up with puffed-up ego and no motivation (and no Khloe), Lawson playing with no direction or confidence (or, let's face it, self-medication to get him through the day), the rest of the no-IQ team following Harden's "lead".... And Morey, my God, man, what hath thou wrought. Don't even know if there will be a team left to save by the time he can trade certain players. Et tu, Brute? Let's not all of a sudden vindicate McHale completely. Dude never really coached. As Bill Simmons (RIP) once wrote, "I honestly don't know what McHale is doing in Houston. Sometimes I think they just roll the ball out..."
Thank god Houston has JJ Watt, a true superstar we can be proud of. James Harden, I have grown to hate over the year. His sense of entitlement, lazy work ethic and refusal to play any type of defense is just despicable. As talented as James Harden is, his biggest downfall is his arrogance. Because he won MVP by players votes, he didn't feel the need to work on his game at all during the summer and came into the year believing that he can just walk in and dominate. I will never respect a player who thinks he's great enough and doesn't need to work on his game over the summer. He been in this league for 7 years and still doesn't get it. He had one good year and thinks he's the best player in the NBA. What amazes me is his refusal to play defense. Does he not know that being a superstar you need to play both ends of the court? In my opinion, James Harden is who he is. His best days are behind him now. Even though he's still young, he will never reach the pinnacle of greatness because of his arrogance. He will continue to decline because of his lack of effort and unwillingness to work on his game. He never worked on his condition and improve other aspects of his game. For him, he's a celebrity now and he's rich so that's all it matters. If I was morey, I will have to trade him. You will never win a championship with Harden as the best player anymore. As a leader, you need to lead by example. With Harden, giving no effort on defense and have no work ethic to improve, its hard for others to follow his leads.
No, the critical threads are fully justified. Just seems like a weird time to start a "less excuses, moar criticism!" thread when almost NOBODY is excusing this mess anymore.
Harden likes to play with himself. Dribble, dribble, dribble.... Arghhh !! Frustration is mounting...
Simmons and Lowe are also guys who believe there are only about 5 coaches in the league that move the needle. I think our season as a contender is over, we maybe able to shuffle at the deadline and off season to get right back in it. I'm not too worried about morey being able to move Brewer or Bev or Ariza or Howard if need be. I don't blame morey, but I do think this is ultimately on him if that makes sense.
Could you please expand on this post? Not clear if you're implying that with McHale still here the team would be fairing better right now, ie. giving more effort, less turnovers, smoother offense, tighter defense, better record?
I don't think you can blame people for thinking the team is gonna cruise to the WCF, it's the logical progression considering this team has been going up the last couple of years, let's not pretend that the Rox have been horrible every single year, Morey has been talking a big game because his system WORKED, he was able to field a WCF team without tanking and without and significant assets when he started, compare it to teams like Sacramento, Detroit, Toronto etc. and you see a huge difference between him and the "average" GM. I'm honestly not sure what to make of this team, they just added Lawson and went from contender to lottery team. I know a lot of posters here have lost hope but the thing is if the team went south quickly it means it can also be tweaked again, the problem right now I think is mental for some reason Harden lost the fire and leadership he showed in Team USA and it really hurtign the team because the Rox system is Harden-centric, if he's not playing D and bricking his shots and going ISO all the time the team is screwed. If Morey and co. can't figure it out by the deadline I'm not opposed to just tanking the 2nd half of the season for a pick.
I'm struggling to remember the last time a poster started a thread to excuse the Rockets' terrible play. Maybe if you started this thread at the beginning of November, it'd be prescient. But, in the beginning of December, it's old news.
In My own opinion MOREY BALL is dead. The Warriors not only stole the blueprint but have taken it to another level. Time for the Rockets to add a new twist if you ask me...maybe that'll come with finding their identity because they are having a mid life crisis of sorts at the moment. Send them to the Texans practices and have O'Brian kick their ass for the month of December when they make dumb mistakes in practice that they make in real games...maybe JB will pick up some pointers all at the same time
Did people really think that we were going to see immediate improvement once McHale was fired? It's going to take the entire year + another training camp to rid this team of the habits McHale as embedded into their brains.
So McHale gets no credit for getting us the farthest in the playoffs in 20 years yet he gets all the blame for us playing awful this year? Ok, now I get it! Same thing with Harden or Howard-People whine about how much they "suck" this year yet they are the reason we won so many games and made it to the WCF last year. Are they good or bad? Or maybe JSmoove was the sole reason we were good last year? Most people seem to ignore the fact that most of our players were injured this summer and we still don't have a fully healthy team.
