Finally! I am sad it had to be like this though. With all his flaws, he still had us playing hard last year and injuries didn't stop him from adjusting. That being said, I'm sure players were tired of the same old same old messages he was also conveying to the media. Still if Harden remains a lazy bum and we run the same offense, this will look very bad. Leslie came through on his promise and sending messages left and right.
Kevin McHale's Imperfect Marriage with Rockets Reaches Its Logical Conclusion By Kevin Ding , NBA Senior Writer Nov 18, 2015 201 Comments It was May 19. That was the last time it felt like Kevin McHale was on a real high as the Houston Rockets' coach. The Western Conference Finals had yet to begin, and the concept of firing the coach to whom they'd given a three-year contract extension at Christmas wasn't even a glint in the eyes of owner Leslie Alexander and general manager Daryl Morey. What did shine in their eyes was a certain gold trophy they felt was finally close. Alas, that night the Rockets would lose the first of three consecutive games to a clearly superior, tighter-knit Golden State Warriors group. As the series wore on, the Rockets showed fundamental limitations as a team beyond James Harden's creativity. They would be gone in five. And they would look even worse in starting this season 4-7, triggering McHale's removal Wednesday, barely into his fifth Houston season, in favor of interim head coach J.B. Bickerstaff, as first reported by Yahoo Sports' Adrian Wojnarowski. Despite the timing, less than a month into the season, it isn't surprising whatsoever that this 6'10" square-shouldered peg was rashly removed from what was always an imperfect fit anyway. It was back before the West finals that McHale had sat in Oracle Arena and rah-rah'd to reporters the same way he had to his players. "How hard are we going to have to play? Who are we going to have to knock on their rear end? How much are we going to have to try to punch them in the mouth on this play and attack and go downhill? And how much fight are we going to have to try to win this series?" Rocky Widner/Getty Images As he spoke, McHale was still riding the exhilaration of the Rockets' improbable series rally over the Clippers. Even so, the entire old-school mentality felt dissonantly out of place at the elite level of the NBA's final four, and it was a reminder of how different McHale was as the keep-it-simple head coach of a cutting-edge analytics organization run by Morey. The Rockets need something less simple now, and maybe they always did, even if McHale's laissez-faire way freed Harden to elevate his game to unimaginable heights. But it was apparent this fall in training camp how little urgency remained in the team's spirit. Guys were lax in various ways, taking the lead of Dwight Howard, who continued his I'll-pick-my-spots mentality to prepare for the season or even go hard once it started. Injuries and Howard's quest to feel 100 percent limited McHale's ability to establish a flow at either end—and the simplicity of McHale's message wasn't enough to stimulate the team to be on point. It was always an awkward match, but McHale got by because he was open-minded to applying the data from the offices and video rooms. A guy who became a Boston legend amid the hardwood physicality of the 1980s was not a natural fit for the modern stats movement in the way someone such as Bickerstaff, who is 21 years younger and never played in the league, is likely to be. The Rockets are logically hoping for that part of their game to be elevated in practice with Bickerstaff's promotion, aside from the temporary alarm that goes off for the players when the coach is fired. Bickerstaff, 36, relates to the players on a totally different, closer level than McHale. There's a cool to Bickerstaff that makes the players believe that he gets them, and there should be an immediate unity for this group as a result. Rocky Widner/Getty Images However, take a step back from the coaching change and understand that this has been an uphill battle for the Rockets for a long, long time. Despite his heralded analytics pedigree, Morey has been hunting for traditional superstar talent every which way since the Yao Ming era essentially ended in 2009. It led the Rockets to the Harden-Howard foundation, which no NBA insider would've predicted to be a secure leadership base. Neither guy naturally inspires those around him, but that ended up being the reality in Houston, with the team's approach just to take the great players it could get. That was the same mindset that brought Ty Lawson, branded a knucklehead in Denver despite his obvious skills, to Houston to answer Harden's call to lighten his load upon elimination by Golden State. Pat Sullivan/Associated Press "When you're trying to be the best team out of 30," Morey told the Associated Press after trading for Lawson, "you've got to risk all over the place." Trying to trade for Pau Gasol, throwing money at Jeremy Lin, dumping Lin just for the chance to land Chris Bosh…Alexander is more driven to go for it than most know. That urgent opportunity-seeking has unquestionably fueled the Rockets' rise—yet the byproduct is substandard. The whole operation feels like a panicky, desperate grab. That's the road the Rockets are on, right or wrong. It only follows that they would dismiss McHale much sooner than later—a totally incongruous move after just validating his work with last year's extension. When things are going wrong in a place that feels like a panicky, desperate grab, you push the next domino instead of waiting for it to fall. Kevin Ding is an NBA senior writer for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter, @KevinDing.
Bleacher Report is garbage, and so is Kevin Ding. But there is a little truth there - you need leadership and consistency, and we don't have it.
I never believed the McHale hire was a good one from day 1. But I've come to appreciate McHale as a person and while he has a lot of room for improvement as a coach, he is not as bad as some haters here think. I feel that he is scapegoated, perhaps deservedly. In this business, you can't fire the team, and you can't fire the owner, so you fire the coach. I think Les Alexander and Morey should bear a good portion of blame in this mess. Why did they hire McHale in the first place? Why did they give him the extension last year? Why do they blame McHale NOW when there is obviously off court issues most likely with Harden. Harden is clearly the weight that pulls the team down. Can someone else fix him? Morey has to make a choice. If he wants an "open-minded" coach like McHale, he's not going to be able to control Harden. If he hires a respected veteran coach, the coach won't be so "open" to his ideas. The only other option is to trade Harden for a more coachable cornerstone.
agreed. but maybe, just maybe, morey needs to abandon his hands-on approach in terms of the x's and o's.
Kevin Ding known for severe anti-Howard rhetoric, so thus anti-Rockets rhetoric. Look up his history; he was previously an LA beat-writer who is still not over Howard leaving the Lakers. "Start's with Howard", the ****? Feigen debunked that. Morey debunked that. BR has gotten more credible, in which he is one of the reasons for, but he should move on from LA Howard.
I hated the mchale hiring at the time, but I'll admit that he earned my respect. I never thought he was a good X's and O's coach and I was dumbfounded by some of his lineup choices. But he also had to contend with an ever-changing team and up until this year, for the most part, his players played hard for him. But i didn't see us pulling out of the tailspin unless there was a drastic change made, and McHale isn't really a top coach in this league. I fully support Les on this. Accountability is key. I love Morey but think it's fair to put him on the clock. If McNair ran the Texans like Les runs the rockets, they'd be much better off.
Wait, is that true? They fired him by text message? I seriously hope not that is BUSH league if true. DD
Four major changes from day 1 of post McFail era : 1. We play defense with more intensity 2. Less Harden iso and more ball movement 3. Utilizing Harden's Post-up game 4. Timely time outs here and there Still have a lot of tweaking to do, but man it's becoming more and more apparent as to how McFail was dragging this team down with his ****ty coaching.
