Nobody's proven until they are, but I say yes. He's won championships at the player level, and he's one of the greatest players all time. That translates to him having tons of know-how and experience. He made plenty of good adjustments in the series against OKC, and really showed his worth as a coach. The biggest part, though, is that he is a great man-manager. The players love him, and he is great for team chemistry. Players like Dwight Howard can never respect guys like D'Antoni and Van Gundy that don't really understand what it's like to be a top player, but you can see just from some of the early interviews that Howard looks up to McHale, and he will listen to and respect what McHale has to say.
OK. Taking the kids gloves off now. How many of you wanted JVG and his defense oriented philosophy here? How many of you wanted D'a and his one sided offensive oriented philosophy here? How many of you wanted Sir Phil and his triangle offense here last season? How many misguided souls howled for Aldeman and his offense oriented game plan here? Well I am going to break some **** on you newbies. McHale is Morey's hand picked head coach. Why you might ask. Because McHale is flexible enough to take major roster changes in stride. He is also flexible enough to implement Morey's decisions into the game plan and rotations for the Rockets. Do you think that Jackson or D'A or JVG have egos that would allow that? I do not think so. Be thankful that you have about the best coach imaginable for this team. Can McHale and Morey get a ring or two? The better question is can Morey get a ring or two. If you doubt that he can you must have been living without BB news for the last 9 months. It will happen. And McHale will be the coach.
This is nonsense and speaks to Dwight's immaturity. I remember Pop screaming at him at the allstar game. If Dwight can't respect the best coach in the game just bacause he wasnt a superstar player when ll the superstars can then Dwight needs to check himself.
McHale needs to coach this team to a Finals appearance. Then we can talk about whether he's a championship caliber coach. McHale has nothing to prove as a player, and a lot still to prove as a coach, in my humble opinion, and that's not intended as criticism.
This ^ I was about to post "we are about to find out." But, seriously, I don't expect a Championship this season. I do expect a deep playoffs run and, hopefully, a Western Conf. Finals appearance. I think failure would be to finish out of the top five in the West and not advance past the first round. Barring major injuries, that would be a huge flop.
Nah. Stop with all the Dwight BS. Whatever you're referencing with Pop was during an all-star game. Who cares? I certainly don't, and I doubt he does either about a fun but meaningless game. Dwight will NOT be a problem in Houston. Guarantee it.
I think McHale is overall a great coach, when you consider that one of a coach's primary job is to maintain locker room culture. And, as others have pointed out, he seems to be very open-minded and flexible with regards to what strategies the team can employ. However, some of that may have been because he recognized that the team had no time to learn something intricate last season, and also because he knew there would be significant turnover until the team was able to land its second star (Howard). There's no reason to be a stickler for that kind of detail if you don't have the time to teach it and your core players are subject to change even over a single season. That being said, for such a spectacular post player he hasn't fallen into the trap that a lot of great players who try to become coaches do - assuming that every other player who shows up can do what they do just as well, if they just tried hard enough. He also hasn't shown a fetish for post play in terms of general strategy - the team had pretty much no post offense to speak of last season, and he didn't try to force them to do so because he recognized that no one had the skills to pull it off. For a guy who made buckets almost at will and had a bit of a reputation as a ball hog, these are actually extremely positive signs. There are three things that bothered me the most from last year's play, though (beyond a general issue with his haphazard player rotations): 1) McHale had a ridiculous love affair with Carlos Delfino and gave him way, way too many minutes. The team would have been better off giving those minutes to any one of the PF/C prospects on the bench to develop their game instead of letting Delfino play essentially starter minutes. Delfino was used as a 3&D player when his defense has clearly regressed over the past couple of seasons. On a similar note, it took way too long for McHale to recognize that Francisco Garcia was a much more defensively-consistent player with the same 3-point shot. That being said, neither of these players should have gotten starter minutes on what was clearly a young, learning team. 2) For some reason, McHale seems to underrate team defense and overrate individual aggressive defense. Beverley is probably the best example of this, but it's actually a pretty systemic issue. For example, part of the reason Garcia is a better defender than Delfino is because he isn't as prone to ball-watching and over-helping. He rotates properly and tries not to leave the open man (the deadliest sin in NBA defense). It was weird for me to see a situation such as Parsons correctly funneling his man to Asik only to apparently get chewed out for not getting between his guy and the drive to the basket. That's not good defense, that's asking to give away a free foul and a potential bucket to boot. Until we see an actual team defense implemented it's going to be hard to know whether McHale can properly read and respond to how the players work within a scheme. If he continues to expect his guys to do something like the Miami Heat without the personnel to actually pull it off, it's going to be a long season of watching opposing teams score through a porous defense. 3) Harden at the end of the game. I know this is a dead horse, but I struggle to understand why it becomes Harden iso ball at the end of close games. Either that's the play being called, which is just bad play-calling, or it's not the play being called and Harden is just doing his own thing. If McHale really is implementing a play and Harden simply can't or won't execute them in favor of iso ball, then he should be benching the guy or clearly calling him out. He does neither. If you are coaching someone and he doesn't stick to the plan, then you make it clear the plan will go on without him. If you have two time-outs left and the guy wastes 15 seconds on the clock dribbling by himself, then you call another time-out and get in his ear or you get someone else to do it. If he says that he can't run the play for whatever reason (no one is getting into position, etc. etc. etc.) then you call something else that will work or you give the ball to someone else to get the play going properly. Don't get me wrong - what I am not saying is that the ball shouldn't be in Harden's hands at the end of the game. What I am saying is that there is a huge difference between spreading out the floor and letting him dribble for 20 seconds before taking a step-back three and actually running a play so to get him a wide-open shot that's easier to make. I'm really curious to see what will happen next season. If Harden reverts to iso ball then it's going to be a very, very long season when it comes to close games, and the team will never have the proper experience to make it deep into the playoffs because they won't know how to do anything except spread the floor and let Harden shoot.
Absolutely! Of course that's because the only way he'd agree to coach the Magic is if they happened to have the most talent in the NBA so that he can keep up the myth of him being an all time great coach.
Please don't bring up SAS as your source of reference, whether you are right or wrong. He still think Melo is a gift from god.
Adelman is a championship calibre coach but has no championships. spoelstra is not yet he has 2. mchale may have learned smthg from his kg years and hopefully will be able to better utilise his players. question is: Are Dwight and Lin championship players (Dwight with his tmac like approach to the game and Lin with his questionable appearance or disappearance during the playoffs). I hunk our team is smart enough to figure it out. the heat seem to have our number though. both Harden and Lin have choked or been beaten down by the Heat and assuming Indiana gets better and beats the Heat, we have not done well against them either.
Is Erik Spoelstra a championship calibre coach? No, he's a dumbass nerd who just so happens to have LeBron James on his team plus Wade and Bosh. Coaching in the NBA is overrated. Its more about managing the personalities of the players than it is X's and O's.
Sorry, am I late to the latest "McFail" thread? Time for scores of "McFailers" to eat crow after McHale was a factor in landing Dwight.
Erik Spoelstra IS a championship coach. You need great players and great coach win a championship. Coaching has a lot to do with substituting players and making sure his players do not burn themselves out. Just look at the Pop and then you look at Erik, they are doing similar things. They were adjusting the team that gave the team an advantage. Then you look at McHale, who just burn out Harden, 40+ mpg. Failed to pull out keys players EVEN when the games was a blowout. Those who said Erik is not a great coach is same as saying Phil not a great coach. If not Jordan/Pippen and Shaq/Kobe/Gosal, Phil would not have won any win. But there were coaches for Jordan/Pippen and Shaq/Kobe, and they were not winning until Phil took over.
Obviously not, until he improves and learns few things. But that doesn't mean he can't get a ring or two with this Rockets.
I think the general consensus around the league both with those in the league and the talking heads is Spoelstra is now considered one of the top coaches in the league.
