Yao expressed his dissapointment with the Rockets' outside shooting

"Our guys are prepared; they shoot a lot," Van Gundy said. "I have no complaints with the amount of time our guys put in the gym. They come early, they shoot, they shoot hard, but, again, everybody's going to focus on our shooting. Our defense right now is substandard."

That's the actual quote before the sina transalation.

I understand what he's saying. The Clippers scored 53 points in the second half, shot close to 50% percent for the game. JVG knows our guys can't shoot and are not going to outscore anybody, so what he's saying is right.

About Yao Ming comments. I don't see that as him complaining. I know Yao Ming is smart enough to understand that this is not the team the Rockets were suppose to be coming into this season. I know Yao Ming knows, or has not forgotten that there is no more Mcgrady, no more Wesley, and even no more Barry, and because of that he is left with Brunson, Bogans, Bowen and Head. If Yao Ming is complaining, which I don't think he is, he has become as shortsighted as the strangely infatuated yof's are. But again, Yao is smarter than his particular fans who hang on his every word, move, expression, eye lash movment, toe wiggle, passing of gas, etc....

 

Thanks for posting that bud, different verbage and better thought out than what was being posted as "quote" earlier in the thread

 

Dude, I love how you pull out that yof crap out of thin air.

 

Defense and offense are inseperable. When you knock down shots, you take away their fastbreak oppertunities. When you scores every trip down the court, you put pressure on them to answer on the trip back. Most of the time, good offense and good defense go together, poor offense and poor defense go together. Rarely we see good offense go with poor defense (except Suns and Mavs a couple of years ago when they purposed decide not to care about defense).

What JVG is trying to hide is that he has NO CLUE how to coach offense. So every time the team struggles, he insists it is the defense. I am gonna say this: if our offense gets better, than our defense will follow. But you will never hear JVG say that, because he is incompetent to work from that direction.

I am glad Yao said our perimeter shooting sux, because it is fact. You want your superstar to be vocal, straightforward. This way, the management and coaching staff are under pressure to improve the team. We don't have that in Tmac, he is too quiet. I hope Yao becomes more vocal from now on. A team leader who speaks out is almost as important as a good coach or GM. As long as Yao does not change into Kobe, which I know will never happen, being vocal is good for Yao.

 

Well, when the team is 21-10 with Yao and T-Mac... a lot.

 

21-10, 21-10, 21-10!!!!

21-10 for a team with arguably 2 of the top 15 players in the league, against mostly sub .5 teams. I don't know how much this particular piece of evidence can support (or go against) JVG fans.

 

why don't you list them? actually their 3p% are pretty solid.

bogans was about 34 %. sura shot 35.5 % for us last year. alston's 3p% is usually just a little lower than his fg%. and david wesley is one of the better 3p shooters with a career average of 37%.

i do get your point, but not listing their 3p% is just a little bit unfair. we need players who can hit the open 3p. those players can do that. but only as role players and not as a 2nd or 3rd scoring option. we need a healthy t-mac and yao to make jvg's system work. we need another solid scorer to make us a really good team. when we have that, people like wesley, alston, etc. will hit their open shots.

well, it just didn't go our way.

derek anderson was a solid shooter and he was supposed to hit a couple of open shots for us. the same with jon barry. bobby sura could hit at least the open ones. he hasn't played this season. t-mac usually is a good shooter considering his huge amount of shots and the degree of difficulty.

basically we lost padgett and james and added luther, skip and anderson. that shouldn't have cost us any shooting. but it did because players were inujred or didn't play well.

the mike james trade was the right trade. people just have to understand, that he's now playing for the raptors. he would have never been able to get this kind of stats here. forget about it. that are two different situations. the raptors have worse players than the rockets. they play no defense and a different type of offense. james is allowed to play to his strengths and jack up as many shots as he wants. he still IS NOT a true pg, which we desperately needed. and he still is on the last year of his contract and will most likely go to the highest bidder (which the rockets were not).

basically, we just need two good players. a backup point guard, who can hit the 3p consistently. and a athletic sg, who can be a solid 3rd option with the ability to hit open shots.

i think jvg is smart enough so that he doesn't want to substitude one for another. his goal is to surround yao and t-mac with good defenders who can hit open shots consistently. there is nothing wrong with that... when this plan plays out. we had this players for 1/2 season and we played great. but unfortunately those players where injury prone, old, ball hoggers, free agents or any combination of the above.

i agree with you that we have to work on the shooting issue though. we need to replace the old and injury prone players. i'm optimistic. we started it with trading anderson and moochie. releasing barry. we didn't count on bob sura. and so on, and so on. that work has to continue.

 

21-10 is a 67.8% win percentage.

There are only 5 teams in the league with a better %:

Detroit (80.3%)
San Antonio (78.8%)
Dallas (77.6%)
Phoenix (69.2%)
Miami (68.2%)

Is it fair to extrapoloate 21-10 out over a full season? Probably not. Were we playing mediocre teams? Maybe. And is it a bulletproof argument for JVG? No.

But. It's ample evidence that the struggles this year WERE primarily a function of injuries. (And let's remember, in fairness, that the 21-10 came in spite of the team not having any time to gel.)

If the Rockets won 67.8% of games for the season, they would have won 56 games, and they'd be slugging it out with Phoenix for home court in the first round.

I'm just keeping things in perspective. If the team was healthy, we'd be competitive. If we were competitive, we wouldn't be calling for Van Gundy's head. (Well some people would be, I suppose.)

Next year, we need to reload. We don't need to rebuild. And we don't need a new coach.

 

Out of fairness, I feel compelled to state that, if our team had been more healthy this year, our numbers wouldn't be so low.

Players like Bogans and Head weren't meant to be starters. Weren't meant to be players who create their own shots. They were meant to be role players as T-Mac and Yao created their shots.

And, honestly, that offense scheme works pretty well... ...as long as T-Mac and Yao are on the floor, creating. But by putting our eggs in that basket, we set ourselves up to be dependent on them, and if they're not available, we fall. And fall hard.

Again, I like JVG, but this season has revealed his largest shortcoming - his offense structure on this team is not diverse enough, is not deep enough, is slow, and is simplified. A more dynamic and versatile offense prospers greatly in today's NBA. Lots of weapons (not just two). Phoenix. San Antonio. Dallas. Miami.

Strong defense is a must. Absolutely. But strong defense alone is not enough.

 

it's simple. 21-10 is 21-10. that's a good record no matter what.

things that make this 21-10 record still better looking:

- t-mac and yao were not at their bests or healthy in all of those games
- other important players were injured
- the team had not that much time to play together


the truth is: we would have been a really good team if our players stayed healthy. probably not on top with dallas or san antonio but we would have been a top-5 team. i don't need to be a jvg lover to recognize that.

 

Rafer 3 pt%
05-06: .336
04-05: .357
03-04: .376
02-03: .392

Bogans:
.329
.311
.337
.329

Wesley
.374
.375
.383
.350

Sura
.355
.266
.279
.250

Bogans has pretty much always been mediocre. Sura has proven that he can hit the shot in our offense. Rafer has been very solid in past years, better than Francis at shooting the 3. Wesley is a proven shooter.

So, 2 of em are hurt, one is being his same mediocre self, and the Rafer has just inexplicably been getting worse every season.

I don't know what the problem is, but if these guys have any pride, they'll just start knocking down those wide open looks. It's downright embarrasing to watch our guys miss 8/10 wide open looks every night.

 

There. You didn't say anything different from what I said

Here's some perspective: people are frustrated because they have high hopes for this season. After the game 7 fiasco last season, "competitive" is not enough. Yao Ming, for example, has set top 4 seeding in the west as his goal when the season begins. 2 of the top 5 teams you listed are division rivals. We understand injury, but the Rockets have a lot fo things to do.

 

Yeah thats why San Antonio and Detroit keep winning championhips.....uhhmmmmmmm no it isn't IT'S DEFENSE!

Our problem is not getting open shots its "making them". Most of the shots our guys take are considered open looks by NBA standards. We just can't seem to knock them down. If we would make 15% more of our shots we would be in the playoff hunt without T-Mac.

 

I didn't say that. In fact, I ended by saying:

"Strong defense is a must. Absolutely. But strong defense alone is not enough."

 

he said it to the american media. it was in the post game recap online. it surprised me when i read it first but it really emphasizes how important the outside shooting of the guards is to yao's game. if our bums on the perimeter start hitting shots then the spacing opens up and the double teams aren't as tough. the guards are even more important to yao than some other centers since yao is not terribly mobile in the post and can't really put the ball on the floor so he needs the guards to be an extention of his game.

 

Geez. I hate to repeat myself. I didn't say 21-10 isn't good. I'm saying 21-10 for a team with arguably 2 of the top 15 players in the league, against mostly sub .5 teams, that's not strong evidence how good a coach JVG is, Nor is it an evidence to BASH JVG. I don't hate JVG, I don't critisize him often. I made that comment because 21-10 always come up as if it's a smoking gun that JVG is a great coach.

 

Next step: Yao buys a black Hummer with tinted windows and spinning rims.

 

We don't use 21-10 to say JVG is a great coach. We use it to call people idiots who think he's a bad coach because his two stars have been hurt all year.

 

I wouldn't say JVG has "no clue" in coaching offense. And I understand what he is trying to say. Hitting shots is beyond control. The only thing they can do with effort is playing defense.

But I agree with your gripe that JVG never acknowledges the fact that our poor shooting is hurting our defense. He is the defensive guru. He should know that. But he would not admit it because you can't hit shots by mere hustle. BTW, it's classic how he praised about their shooting practice, as if practicing would suddenly make poor shooters good. I bet if Ryan Bowen shot 5000 shots a day, JVG would consider him a good offensive player. Effort is the only thing JVG notices, even when it comes to shooting.

I have said it many times, How much effort do you need to hit an open jumper? Our problem is not effort. It's the lack of shooters on the team. Outside of Yao and TMac, the only guys on our roster who are known to be good shooters are Wesley, Howard, Lampe, and Frahm. (Head is still unknown.)Bogans, Alston, Swift, and Sura have never been good shooters in their career. Shooting is clearly not a priority in JVG's team building plan.