[ESPN] Rockets to evaluate GM Daryl Morey, interim coach J.B. Bickerstaff after season

Funny, that didn't seem like much of a problem in the first 2 rounds. It wouldn't have mattered, the players we had playing in their place elevated their game enough. Dallas and LAC were more injury riddled than us. Chill out with the insults, no need to get emotional.

 

just a reminder

 

Well, at least you've branched out from calling people who happen to disagree with you 'idiots' to allowing that they may also just be 'blind'. I'm glad your mind has opened at least a little bit since the last reply.

I'm well aware that GS improved under Kerr. Everyone knows that in fact. What I asked for was evidence that it was all due to Kerr. All you provided was the fact that they won more games, which isn't evidence at all, it's what we already know.

Teams and players improve for a variety of reasons, one of which may be a coaching change, but there's certainly no proof of that. Don't rookies improve after their first season? Is it because of a coaching change, or do players just improve from experience? GSW went from 67 wins to 73 wins, which is pretty amazing. How on earth did they do that without a coaching change? Oh wait, was it because Kerr missed all those games during the season? I guess it had to have been, right? "Basically the exact same team was not close to being as good as they are now when Steve Kerr was coaching the entire year."

 

Huh? They won the championship - they are nearly the same as last year only with another year of chemistry under their belts.

And the way they play under Kerr is much better than under Jackson - clearly he and his staff made a difference.

DD

 

This season, Morey's entire philosophy blew up in his face. Not only that, his roster decisions have proven to be extremely questionable, in addition to his attitude towards coaching. I predict a very tumultuous offseason for Daryl. He will be under tremendous pressure to retool. Les won't accept a losing season next year. Les better see a direction that he likes at minimum.

 

Let me get this straight. So you are basically saying that DMo was more important than Dwight, and Beverley was a key to our success last season? And you conveniently omit the luck we had in getting Josh Smith and how he, a known inefficient chucker, miraculously hit clutch shots after clutch shots saving our playoffs run.

 

Bickerstaff evaluation must be going great so far

 

Luke Walton was running the same system as Kerr's. I recall when it was mentioned Kerr used to get on the phone before and during half time for instructions and tips. Not discrediting Walton here but the system was already set up by Kerr .

 

result of evaluation:

 

I pray this is the case.

Although considering common sense isn't a trait from the top down in this organisation - I can just envision a news article from the Chronicle:

"Rockets re-sign JB Bickerstaff after leading downtrodden team to the playoffs"

Les Alexander: We're just so pleased with what JB was able to do this season. After a horrific start JB got the group playing together and hard, and was able to go against all odds and leapfrog teams to reach the Playoffs

Reporter: But Les, you lost all 4 games by an average of 29.4 points. Dwight Howard was ejected twice and Patrick Beverley was ejected once.

Les Alexander: You just have to love their fire and passion for the game, I'm going to speak to Dwight tonight and try to convince him to sign my new max offer sheet. We want him to retire a Rocket in 5 years time.

Reporter: lol what?

Les Alexander: I've only had two losing seasons. Last season was a great success.

 

The Rockets also had a pretty easy schedule in the last month. Sacramento, Dallas, New Orleans, OKC, Charlotte and Utah were not exactly giant killers.

The only games that were against particularly good teams were the two games against San Antonio which we lost. We needed at least one of those wins to maintain our hold on the two seed but couldn't get either at the time. We needed an San Antonio loss in their last game of the season to re-claim the number two seed.

With out Pat & DMo the Rockets very likely would not have won some of the games earlier in the season against some of the tougher teams in the league like Cleveland, Portland, Memphis and LAC that put the team in position to secure the 2nd seed during the last very short month of the season.

Using your logic, there is absolutely no such thing as an injury riddled. All teams chose to structure their teams with players bench players that are typically not as good as their starters.

The Rockets structured their team with Pat Beverley as their starting point guard. He was on the bench in street clothes and unavailable due to injury not because of how the Rockets structured their team.

It was not structure that caused the starting power forward to ride the bench during the entire playoffs it was injury.

It was not structure that hurt Dwight Howard's knee during the GS series it was injury.

It was not structure that forced Dwight to still be trying to get into game shape when the play-offs started it was injury.

It was not structure that created multiple injuries for Terrence Jones that forced him to go into the play-offs still trying to get into game shape it was injuries.

Ok I'll play your silly game. The Rockets were able to win 3 games with Chris Paul playing at an elite level including what would have been a close out game in LA in game 6. The Rockets went on to dominate the Clippers in game 7 with who starting for the Clippers? You guessed it, Chris Paul. So tell me again why they wouldn't have been able to have won game 2 with Chris Paul?

The drop off from Beverley to Terry or Pablo was huge, particularly on the defensive side of the floor. How many times during the series did we wish for Pat to come off that bench to defend one of the Point Guards during the play-offs.

Not having DMo healthy and available was also huge. DMo played exceptionally well last season and without him there is a very good chance the Rockets missed the play-offs. For much of the season he was our only offensive option in the post, our number 2 scoring option and best defender in the post and more importantly he absolutely put the team on his back at times and won games for us. He had turned into our best 3 point shooter as well. Having DMo and JSmith sharing the minutes at the 4 instead of Smith and a hobbled Terrence Jones would have been huge.

Both DMo was on his rookie contract and Beverley signed his contract when he was still an unknown playing in Russia. You of all people should know you can't judge a player based on his 1st NBA contract. Pat makes well over the minimum and DMo's next salary will very likely be well over 10 million a season as long as teams don't see his back as a chronic injury.

Once again by your logic, the Clippers played well and won a game in the play-offs against the Rockets without Chris Paul so they must not have been injury riddled.

 

Clean house

Clean HOUSE

CLEAN HOUSE

 

I have no problem with this. I think it starts with hiring a great head coach. I can't help but think that the team would have taken a step forward instead of backwords if Pops, Budholzer, Carlisle, Kerr or someone as good as those guys were coaching the team.

 

Honestly I think JB was given a raw deal. Is he ready to coach? Maybe. I think he deserves a chance to get a team that is rebuilding with young players from the start of training camp. He inherited this bunch of head cases in the Houston Rockets. I don't think it is 100% fair to say he can not coach simply because he could not turn around this team. Asking him to turn it around is like asking a rookie captain to finish Titanics trip to New York after the boat danced with an iceberg. Give the man a fair shot somewhere else.

 

As long as he is coaching for some other team I don't care. He has been horrible with this team.

 

Like Bima, the culture of the team is the problem that concerns me most. Unfortunately, understanding chemistry and culture seem to be Morey's biggest weaknesses. I hope this hot mess has taught him you can't just plug one-dimensional, low BB IQ players in to cover for the weaknesses of other one-dimensional, low BB IQ players and expect to get a well-oiled machine. I honestly don't know if you can turn things around with this group regardless of who the coach is. This team, collectively, just seems so accustomed to losing and making excuses that I'm not sure any significant change can occur without a lot of new faces who cannot stand to lose.

That's the largest issue if you consider the poor defensive effort and focus to be a byproduct of the culture (which I do). The next issue is this offense. It's fool's gold at best and even with a top 3 defense will not get this team to a Championship. This team absolutely needs another playmaker or two and Harden needs to understand how to play without the ball. Fail to achieve either of those things and this team is completely wasting everyone's time. Harden ball does not work in the playoffs and all indications are that the league and the officials like it less and less by the season.

This mess won't get turned around in one summer or even one season but at least there are some obvious issues like coaching and a lack of two-way players that Morey can clearly see need to be addressed ASAP.

 

Is there any chance we trade harden

 

Les Alexander has lost the pulse of this team. He needs to go the way of Drayton McLane at this point and sell the team after he puts on a fire sale. I think he's just gotten to the point where age is becoming a factor and his decision-making becomes questionable. The McHale firing was a prime example. It was just done at the wrong time even if warranted...which it wasn't warranted at that time because of several factors contributing to a slow start only very few games into the season (primarily, Harden's slow start due to injury and the Rockets being all around hobbled during the pre-season not even getting in the work together). And, please don't tell me JB is the reason the Rockets even made the playoffs because that is a load of crap. The Rockets couldn't have been any worse this season under McHale. Now, if he throws a max contract at Howard in the off-season and for some inexplicable reason Howard accepts, then the Rockets will be doomed for another how many ever years because the Harden-Howard experiment is officially over at this point. But, maybe not for Les and Daryl.

 

Why are folks even spending any time or energy recapping last (14-15) season?

This season was doomed from opening night tipoff