You know that health thing applies more to CP3 than Westbrook right? CP3s entire career he's been hurt in the playoffs. Westbrook has been there more often than not, CP3 has not. We don't need to go back over this CP3 v Westbrook thing, I think you scapegoat him way too much. But Kobe is right, we saw how easy it is to key in on defense, what he said about it is exactly what everyone is saying that you said people were stupid for thinking...that yeah, it is easy if a guy brings the ball up the court, stands at the top, and iso's...it's easy. Your best argument against it is "IF" but the reality is they did not win. Ignore the excuses man, no one will care about them years from now, they didn't win playing this style. That's the reality of it. You can say they COULD have beaten the Warriors and COULD have beaten Lebron's Cavs, that's could. They didn't. Kobe said they never would and so far, Kobe is right.
Well who was more healthy this playoffs, who was healthy last playoffs and was still better than Westbrook. Im not scapegoating Russ, he does that do himself. Dude ignores plays Datoni draws up to do his own thing. He's statistically one of the worst players we had out there and Im not joking about that. Maybe, we'll see what happens with the new coach. It was certainly the case this year(Though i would argue it was more because of Russ). But we were championship material. I know, that doest mean they are correct in that line of thinking. It doesnt mean our 65 win team wasnt championship material.
That's a small sample size. Remember CP3s clippers squad? Championship contenders destroyed by Josh Smith and Corey Brewer Rockets? Never even making the conference finals once? That was CP3s team...just saying, some of yall act like this guy was bullet proof. He wasn't. Anyways, Kobe was just saying how we played would never win. Said that MDAs philosophy wasn't something he liked. MDA even admitted that Kobe didn't buy in. The owner of the Lakers said Dwight was misused (After Dwight left), Pau said he was misused...I mean, there is significant evidence here that MDAs stubborn reliance upon his system is an issue. Time will tell. I think MDA will go to Indy, they'll get far but never to the finals, Oladipo will have the best years of his career, they'll win lots of games, but will ultimately get pushed aside by the Celtics and Heat and Nets because MDA can never get past the team he needs to get past.
He's not bullet proof....but he always performed with those Clippers, he either got hurt or his teammates let him down. With Russ, he gets hurt or he lets down his teammates or both. Kobe can be wrong. Dwight sucked...and sucked pretty much everywhere he went not playing with James Harden. So did Pau Sure, maybe you are right.. But lemme ask you...was Oladipo and the Pacers getting passed them with a different coach? Like does anyone expect the Pacers to be better than the Bucks, Raptors, Heat, or Celtics...or Nets?
Russ is untouchable because of Harden....if you trade Russ, you trade Harden. And that's it. That's why im for trading both.
lol, what a surface-level, narrative-based article. could (and probably did) have written it before the playoffs considering it's just a rehash of a bunch of stuff. did stockton and malone and barkley and robinson and ewing and reggie all lose because they couldn't be coached? did oscar and garnett and baylor all lose without becoming second bananas because they couldn't be coached? did dirk take 12 years to win because he couldn't be coached? did hakeem lose for 9 years because he couldn't be coached? is saintly chris paul who the evil james harden banished still looking for a ring because he couldn't be coached? now that they can't play the defense card any more, now that they can't point to his stats in the playoffs any more, we're down to what he does on plane trips.
no, he said they couldn't win with harden scoring 40 a game like he was doing with cp3 and gordon out (which is an obvious statement). then he said something about how it could work once cp3 came back. it was a comment about a moment in time, not the overall team.
dude, you're at the point that you're arguing that gary clark and montrezl harrell could have been manu ginobili if they just got playing time. you might wanna take a step back. lots of people get playing time all over the league. they don't just become hall of famers. ginobili was a euroleague champ and a gold medalist who dominated team USA in the olympics and was like 26 or 27 when he joined the spurs. he was good, end of story. tony parker was i think 19 and fast as lightning when he joined the spurs. was pop ideal for their development, sure. but anyone would have played those guys lots of minutes because they did lots of things well. the idea that d'antoni would have benched a clearly talented parker or a ginobili who was already almost in his prime just because he didn't play gary clark is absurd. danuel house became a major rotation player here without being amazing when he first started.
That is fair that the Pacers, as constructed, probably won't win. I do think they are better suited to MDAs style of play than even the Rockets ever were. Their big men can be small ball big men, I think we'd love to have either Sabonis or Turner and Oladipo will likely thrive considering he returns from that injruy fully.
That's not what he said, he talked about James dominating the ball so much and that when CP3 comes back maybe they would have more motion...but they really didn't, we've always played this ISO system. This, paired with his early comments about MDA make it clear that he's not a fan of his coaching style. It really can't get any clearer than the quote I linked the page before. He literally said Mike;s philosphy isn't winning championships.
That is a complete strawman lol. Exactly my point, we don't have to argue just to argue. I mean just after I said Pop really helped Kawhi, my point wasn't that Trez could be MVP caliber. My point is that great coaches develop their players. Manu and Parker were NOT surefire. There are players that break out when used correctly, look at a guy like Ben Wallace who was a garbage player for most of his NBA career until used correctly. That's my only point, developing players and using them correctly is a thing the coach determines.
Chris Paul was not good in the playoffs last year. He was a complete no-show except the very last game.
He deserves one, been Rocket's coach for four years. Didn't take us to the promise land but deserves one. People still raw from playoffs loss, so it's understandable. As a fan, I try not to play backseat GM/Coach too much, sure we got opinions, but ultimately you try to root for the team in uniform. Even if like a kevin martin / landry / scola line up, if they're playing for HOU, we'd root for them. I think sometimes folks get more caught up with wanting to be correct. If the team does something they don't agree with, they give off the impression to want to see Rockets fail. Sure we can vent, but we should never gloat at Rockets losing. A change of regime could means us getting better, but we can also keep it classy. Dude gave us four years, some bad and lot of good memories.
