Thank You Les: Finally you respect the fans Intelligence

Finally Les is listening to the fans. Jeff Van Gundy was a mistake that should have never happened. Finally Les realizes the error in his decision and is correcting it. Van Gundy is gone and I know there are some Van Gundy lovers that will hat the Rockets but so be it. Les should have done this a year ago but better late than never. I know I don’t speak for everyone but many Rockets fans are happy to see Jeff go and I’ll give you my reasons why. First off I don't think Van Gundy is the genius that everyone claims him to be. I do however think he retains information very well. Which when you consider how much he is constantly studying the game he has retained a load of information.

This explains his highly effective defense. It was based on effective defensive strategies from the past. When he finds something that works he implements it and pounds it into his team heads. That's where his statements like, "if they just do what they are told it would work", come from. Now this is mostly good when you are talking about defense but he tried this on offense and it failed miserably with Francis who finally just did his own thing and won us a game against the Lakers and also with Tmac who after starting off the season so poorly called him into his office and basically gave him a greenlight to take over the offense and run it as he saw fit and then things changed.

This was most apparent in the Francis Era and early TMac days. He continually preached no 1 player is greater than the whole and pass the ball around until you find the open man. Executing the offense as designed is what he demanded and it failed miserably. His philosophy may have worked in college or high school but in the NBA this is a league of stars. And when you have a player like Yao or Tmac you pound the ball into them and wait for the double teams to arrive and then find the open guy. It took 2 years for him to get that about Yao and he still never fully got it.

Now this brings me to problem #1 and that is, Van Gundy is not an innovator. He isn’t a new thinker most of what he coaches is based on watching what others are doing successfully and then super sizing it. Once he decides on something that he believes will work, he marries it. And to his credit he gets the team to buy into it. The problem is he doesn’t have an original thought so when something stops working he has to go back to the bat cave and try to find another method.

Which brings me to problem #2, he can’t think on the fly and because of this he is inflexible. People constantly said Van Gundy is inflexible. But it really is more about problem # 1, he doesn’t have an original thought so when he does come across a system and it is working he insists on sticking with it through thick and thin. He is smart enough to know if something is working you stick with it but the problem when something was not working he didn’t have a clue. He couldn’t think on the fly because he didn’t have an original thought and is afraid to try something or someone else that he is not sure will even work.

Problem #3 is the result of 1 and 2. Because he wasn’t an innovator and couldn’t think on the fly when things weren’t going right he didn’t know what to do which caused him an extreme amount of stress. After losses he would blame it on the team as not working hard enough but reality what he really should have been saying is I don’t what else to do to make us play better. The bigger the game the bigger the stress. In the playoffs the stress was even more apparent to the point where he didn’t look happy even after a win. And with the playoffs being a stressful situation for all and the team needing a calming force to guide them through the rough road JVG was Jeff Van Chaos. He looked miserable almost all the time at the end and could not help the team as guiding force when it counted most. Instead he became a miserable man to be around.

Problem #4 is Jeff Van Gundy truly is Jeff Van Grumpy. Don’t piss him off or you will quickly be in his doghouse and his doghouse has a long memory and only one way doors that don’t lead out. Never in all my years of watching basketball have I seen a coach have so many problems with so many players so quickly over so short a time. This is the guy who preached all season long for the sake of the team, for the sake of the team yet he is so inflexible even when it would help the team and possibly give the team a better chance at winning. While other teams lowered their rotations for the playoffs out of choice, Van Gundy did it out of necessity. Those 8 guys that played in the playoffs were the only players not in the doghouse who didn’t suck.

In spite of what some fishy people on this board might say I tried to accept JVG as the Rockets guy but every time a cut him some slack he would eatit all up. Jeff Van Gundy is a coach whose time has past. If your pg is shooting 0’fer 3 quarters and you think to let someone else shoot it’s passed you, if your center is on the floor diving for loose balls and the rest of the team is standing around watching then it’s past you, if you can’t get along with half your team and you trade away Nachbar, James and dump Bonzi and refuse to play anyone outside of your inner circle it’s passed you. So whatever the reason for Les not seeing the obvious in this case it is most definitely better late than never. No hard feelings to JVG I wish him well but it's a good day for the future of Rockets BBall!!!

 

Please don't confuse me with you and your daddy.