It's just shocking to me that people who watched this team play last year actually think losing Dwight is going to hurt.
McHale and JB being gone is a great thing considering that they had no clue on how to coach Harden and the Rockets. Dwight being gone is only great because of his attitude. He would never accept the role needed in MDA"s system, so he would hurt us like he did last year. But his talent could be great in this system if he had Clint's attitude towards playing that role. But I do love Nene in this system and finally having a center that can hit a midrange, free throws, catch the ball consistently and pass very good. I hope Nene starts, but MDA still keeps his minutes down around 25 to 28 a game just to hopefully protect against injury.
Jb and howard were huge problems. JB was like your uncle coaching ur aau team and dwight was the nephew
Am I the only one who thought this was going to be a thread about Jon Barry and Juwan Howard? Man, I'm old.
There's no (Dw~I~ght) in the world team! Seriously, 2 preseason games in that's flagrantly obvious. I was a fan of the guy, I thought that team/combo with James had potential to win big. It's just....it's crazy how obvious it is now that Dwight was a 7 ft. tall pouting, whining anchor. He thinks he's some even better combo of Shaq and Hakeem and he's not half of either. They look like they're back to playing ball instead of playing head games. McHale deserved to go, wcf and 11 games later. He was not the real coach, he was the ego-manager and that team fell flat on it's face. JB was the real coach and when it was up to him to fix it he just wasn't the guy. He knew it. We knew it. I still have respect for JB, I wish him the best (unless it's against us) but that was never going to work. He had no real chance.
Yeah, I never understood the fans who wanted Dwight to stay. I mean maybe if he was still an elite defensive anchor & rim protector but he hasn't played at anywhere near that level since he left Orlando.
Yep. On the surface, it makes no sense that one guy could cause most of the problems that derailed an entire season. But Howard's season-long pouting over not being a central part of the offense (despite a limited offensive skillset) dragged down both our offense and defense. I really, REALLY hate to say that Lakers fans are ever right about something, but...
Dwight won't be missed offensively. His defense and rebounding when he actually cared were nice. Offensively though he's mess. Rockets willneed to collectively pick up the slack on the defensive end.
I was a Dwight backer for his first 2 years here. He lost me last year. I didn't know it until the year was over, but he was clearly the source of major chemistry issues. Just keeping last year's roster without Bickerstaff, Howard, Terry and Jones, we probably would net 10 more wins (teams like the Nuggets, etc). Engaged players with an IQ for the game playing under an actual system will out-perform the directionless, emotionless, sulking mess we watched last year.
No kidding - Dwight was a clubhouse cancer, and we had a rookie APPEASER coach who could not handle the locker room. Addition by subtraction, the team is already better without those 2. DD
i like the optimism, but why do i get the feeling that this thread will be bumped for all the bad reasons a couple of times this season? "we are finally fixed" will become the new "turned the corner". of course there will be a couple of bad spots during the season, but i'm optimistic for a unexpectedly better than average record. edited for punctuation.