Will D'Antoni make us better than the Spurs, OKC, and Golden State?

Love stotts, but lets face it, he took major advantage the rockets and grizzlies ****** the bed this season.

Great job and nothing but props, but theres no way he beats a fully healthy grizzlies team, or an actually functional rockets team.

I don't like the dantoni hire at all, but unless we supply him with the proper talent, it would be pretty tough to blame him for not succeeding.

 

The $64 question(s) on MDA is/are:

What is his rep amongst current NBA players (and can he attract good players to come play 'for him')?

Interestingly, to me, he has been/is the O-coach for The Men's Nat'l Team. How does that translate to the above?

 

If we do get better than them we must have players like Lebron, and even with that I doubt we can

 

Yes! we're talking about better at getting higher draft picks, right?

 

The problem with Leslie is, this has been his goal for a while now..even before the Warriors rise. He would rather lose in the first round and have an entertaining/fast paced team than be a traditional team and win a championship (or at least be a real contender). He thinks fans will come out just to watch an entertaining non-contending team. He's been a bad owner for a while now.

 

I think a big part of what you said is "an actually functional Rockets team."

Do I think D'Antoni is a great coach? No, not overall. I think he was an offensive visionary who has a big part of the offensive legacy that the Spurs and Warriors have turned into titles, but he's not a Popovich/Kerr/Carlisle type of coach.

But do I think he's a legitimate NBA coach who can make the Rockets "functional" again? Yes, I do think he meets that standard. And that's a pretty big deal after the disaster of this season. You don't go from this season's dysfunctional mess to championship-caliber. First you have to get all the infrastructure and culture back to stable NBA level. D'Antoni can do that, IMO.

 

I think Les cares quite a bit. But he has been lead astray by his passion and desperation.

 

we're only an entire starting lineup and bench away from competing with the likes of the Spurs, Thunder and Warriors.

 

Yup. This poll is silly, because no coach's name in place of D'Antoni's would lead to a rational Yes vote. Coaching matters, but talent matters more.

 

No one can guarantee us being better than any of those teams, so it's irrelevant really.

Can MDA coach the Thunder to be as good a team as they are? They would be a different type of team, but yes it's possible. With the right personnel, he has already coached a team to be that good.

 

Of curse

 

We hired the Jeff Fisher of the NBA

 

This.

Le$ loves those goal tendings of Howard.

 

Not to mention LAC's injuries are the only reason Portland made it to the 2nd round.

 

mda will definitely make us better than SA, OKC, and GS d-league teams

 

Maybe Mike D'antoni is our cure

mediocre coach to keep a mediocre team more mediocre

 

Since you've asked the question many times; "What happened?" I'll just say that at least to me, we were not really contenders last year. We were a 2nd round team that was lucky enough to beat the Clips in one of the greatest comeback playoff series I've ever seen, but we weren't the better team (nor had we been all year).

Fast forward to the offseason. We didn't retain Smoove (who was key to our playoff success), but you are right, pretty much the same roster plus Lawson (who I was hoping would make us a real contender).

So what happened? Lawson was a disaster. Injuries again at the 4 and no Smoove hurt us early. Dwight a year slower. Players stopped buying in and quit on their coach. Lack of team leadership finally showed itself. Les hits the panic button way too early and things only got worse.

No doubt we played worse than our talent, but we were not contenders to begin with. No leadership. No roster upgrade. Poor coaching. Poor management in the front office = what we saw last year.

So basically things caught up with us: we weren't contenders to begin with, we didn't get better in the offseason (though I thought the Lawson move would have helped) and our team is built around someone with no leadership kills. There was also a serious lack of defensive intensity (which is mostly about effort) and Les' decision-making made things worse.

At least, that's what I think.

 

Who do you think will D' Antoni go after? Who will be Howard's replacement?

 

Again I have to pose the question that if D'Antoni is such a great coaching hire, then why wasn't his name even mentioned for any of the other coaching vacancies that were filled before the Rockets? The only time I heard his name mentioned was here (which does nothing to fill me with confidence). As for the OP's question, he's 65 and has crashed and burned at his last two NBA gigs. Nothing about his "system" leads me to believe that he'll elevate this team into contender status. I hope I'm wrong but after watching the WC playoffs I do see much of a reason to be optimistic about the direction this team is headed.

 

Troll thread. Rockets dont even have a full time right now lol.

Starters under contract
Capella
harrell
ariza
harden
beverly

GARBAGE