Love it and hate it are exactly my thoughts. I love it because it obviously needed to be done. I hate it for what it likely means for the rest of THIS season. Very few teams go on to do much during a season in which they had to fire the coach less than 20 games in.
Never happy when somebody loses their job, but this obviously had to happen. The results this season were indefensible. Frankly McHale should have been fired after the Portland series, but given last seasons result you can understand why they kept him. This is really on the players. They aren't giving the effort, Harden in particular, but you can't fire them. Something had to change.
If anyone is surprised by this... Of course the players wanted him out, they are being coached by MilkHair, they are in contact first. This is exactly what you want as a manager or owner, the team to show their satisfaction or dissatisfaction with coach so you know where the team is going. When you see Jason Terry is disconnected from whats going on, you know what time it is. Not even Jason freakin Terry cares! It was the right move. MilkHair is a terrible coach, coaching a very good team. ANyone now saying "see Harden and Dwight wanted him out, they suck" Hell freaking yea. I want my stars to push for changes. And, it was the whole team who just wasnt connecting with whatever MilkHair tried to do...
WTF!! Why didn't they do this in the offseason. Why did they extend him? If was on such a short leash.................... This has to be Morey being in McHale's corner and Les being against McHale. WOW
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Kevin McHale's greatest coaching moment was when he benched a packing-it-in James Harden in Game 5 to save the Clips series...</p>— Bill Simmons (@BillSimmons) <a href="https://twitter.com/BillSimmons/status/667004967606030337">November 18, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Maybe we weren't expected to be 4-7 after 11 games. Feigen says Alexander and Morey didn't want to fire him, but essentially had to. No point in being coach if no one listens anymore.
They extended him last December. He took them to the WCF in the spring. There was no way they were firing him after that. The real mistake was not canning him after Lillard's 3. But once that decision was made to pick up the 4th year option, there was no point at all last season or this past summer he was gonna be let go. They started 6-0, 19-5, finished 2nd in the West with 56 wins, and reached the WCF which was the furthest they'd been in 18 years. All this despite a horrific number of injuries, including season-ending ones to D-Mo and Bev. Believe me, I've never been a McHale fan and I wanted him gone after Portland and started calling for his firing after the 0-3 start with the 3 straight 20-point defeats. But I'm a big enough person to admit he did a good job last season coaching this team.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Tom Thibodeau could be a long term candidate in Houston. Ex-JVG assistant was in camp last month. Relationship w/Harden from Team USA.</p>— Chris Mannix (@ChrisMannixSI) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisMannixSI/status/667006201457221636">November 18, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
the difference between alexander and mcnair. he demands being competitive and winning. spent good money on howard and harden and us being below .500? adios
This is a classic " we can't fire the players so let's fire the coach" move. McHale had a tough job and is a very good man, let's hope he lands on his feet.
The mystery is what the hell happened this summer. The Rockets went from digging out of a deep hole in the series vs. Clippers to being totally unmotivated and tuning out their coach-- the same coach that the team just signed to a $12M extension which will be paid in full even with the firing. And it all happened within a few months when there were no actual NBA games played. Is it Ty Lawson being the locker room poison? Is it Josh Smith or Pablo Prigioni being more important than we thought? Are Sam Dekker and Montrezl Harrell team cancers?
Starting to feel like this whole season has been intentionally bad just so Harden, Howard and Tywon could hand pick the coach they want. If it works I'm all for it. So we better win a ****ing championship this year if these types of shenanigans are taking place
