- Rick Adelman was supposedly fired over disagreements with management over which players to play (T-Will?) and not 'developing' rookies despite the fact young players such as Brooks, Landry, Lowry, Hill, and Budinger all got meaningful PT under him. Add Patterson to that list too. - The fact is, RA showed he was willing to develop rookies as long as they were willing to learn his system and play effectively under it - Under McHale, look at which young players have been getting meaningful PT recently, after the dust has settled: Hill, Budinger, Patterson, and surprisingly Parsons. NOT T-Will, and NOT Thabeet. It seems like both coaches are in agreement with which players can play, and which can't... - I'm not gonna say McHale is a terrible coach, but I know RA is bounds better, has a lot more experience, and is worth at LEAST an extra 5 wins. - If Morey is not tanking this year, why didnt he just keep RA? Players were already used to his system, and keeping the coaching and player roster intact has an underrated but HUGE effect on the performance of a team. And now, with a legit 7'0 shotblocker roaming the paint, I think RA could've easily taken this team to the playoffs, if that were the goal. - Instead, with a new system, and a less experienced coach in McHale, and some players not buying into the system/not motivated to adapt quickly (Budinger and Martin comes to mind), it looks like the team is heading to the worst possible destination AGAIN - 14th lottery pick. Now, can someone convince me why firing RA was the right move?
He wasn't fired, his contract was up. Most likely he asked for too much money. Rick probably thought he'd get the Lakers job, then had to settle for Minny later on.
Semantics. We didn't rehire/we didnt want him back/we fired him. Maybe RA didnt want to come back? But if he did, give me one good reason why he wasn't rehired.
Too much money? :grin: Les and/or Morey also wanted to put a hand-picked successor on his staff so he could mentor or train them IIRC.
No not semantics. If we fired him we'd still be paying his salary + the salary of the new coach. There is no way that would have happened.
Adelman is less flexible with his lineups. McHale is not afraid to yank a player who's sucked over a large sample size, or cut the minutes of a player who has struggled mightily, whereas Adelman kept playing Brooks heavy minutes despite it killing our team.
I believe the true reason he didn't re-sign was.... RA was trying to put the best players on the floor that could play his system. At the same time, Morey was having to make roster moves that worked better for the future of the team (such as trading off Battier and Brooks). ... And I believe that the two were not in agreement with each other on how to accomplish both those tasks. RA seemed unhappy that he was unable to generate wins with the players that Morey was making available to him, and Morey seemed unhappy that the plans he needed to make for the future betterment of the team could not help his coach win at present time. And, rather than work together, I think they battled. when RA's contract was up, he realized that the Rockets had missed their window (roster-wise) and his disagreements with Morey were the icing on the cake.
That's true...the biggest mistake RA made last season was sticking with Brooks. (Brooks-KMart backcourt... possibly worst defense in history) Morey traded Brooks though and basically forced RA to play Lowry, and the team was significantly better from that point. Now, with this current squad, would you prefer RA or McHale? I would pick RA any day of the week.
Rockets were willing to rehire RA but RA refused to resign with the team due to phylisophical differences. One of which DM decided that Chris Finch was going to be apart of the coaching staff, and RA was not willing to come back if DM did that.
From the link it seemed like disputes between les/Morey and Rick. A "successor disagreement". Adelman didn't want to be a mentor to someone who would eventually take over his job in a few years. Maybe they hired Mchale until finch gets some experience for a promotion?
Source: http://www.sorrybrosports.com/2011/05/reason-rick-adelman-became-unemployed.html Link didn't show up on my original post.
Rick Adelman leaving Houston is a business decision that made sense for everyone at the time. Rick looked around, saw the Lakers job, assumed that he could get that job, and probably asked for like 5mm a year, maybe a little less for a hometown discount. The Rockets said, why should we pay 5mm a year to be a late lotto or first round exit team? We can pay 1mm to bring someone in and play the kids so we can suck and get better through the draft. So the Rockets said best of luck RA and we'll come up with some BS reasons so the fans believe that there were philosophical differences because some people are too short sighted to see that we need to make a quick trip to the bottom before climbing back to the top.
I thought a huge part of the issue was disagreement about assistant coaches. Morey wanted to bring in more defensive minded assistants onto the staff, RA wasn't having any of that.
But would you want a guy who could make the same mistake should a similar situation arise? Once a mule, always a mule. I prefer McHale because he seems to have more of a winning attitude (rings don't lie), whereas Adelman has never won anything at any level, if my memory serves me correctly. Does Adelman even know how to win (the big picture) or is he just good at scoring efficiently (small picture)? I'm one of those people who think coaches are given too much credit and blame anyways, but I don't think that Adelman is necessarily better than McHale. McHale has less experience, but sometimes an unproven turns out to be better than a veteran.
Morey wanted to Finch (the successor) to be part of Adelman's staff so that meant that Adelman had to get rid of one of his assistants. It was more of loyalty than anything else. Adelman wanted to stay. Morey wanted Adelman to stay. Adelman didn't want to get rid of one of his staff. No agreement was met.
-McHales salary is the same amount that Adelman was making as reported by Jonathan Feigan. IT WAS NOT ABOUT MONEY.
