Bring back Rudy T. He is the type of motivator sleepy guys like Yao and T-Mac need. What I mean is, Rudy's enthusiasm, namely for the game itself, was infectious. I couldn't see T-Mac talking about retirement if he had a Rudy T type, as opposed to "Grind it out" Gundy, who's looming contract situation and general personality type is conducive to constant pressure on and around the team. Those guys need to be loose and happy to perform. I dunno, that's just my .02
I would like to see Adelman coach the Rockets! This guys offense was a thing of beauty. On top of that, look at what he was able to achieve with no superstar. This team has two of them!!
Adelman would be interesting (if he doesn't get a job in Boston, Memphis, or elsewhere during the season), SVG as an assistant, Rudy T Reloaded, Larry Brown in Texas part deux, etc... There are a lot of interesting scenarios out there, some more plausible than others, but that's what scenarios are supposed to be -- interesting. Whoever we get to coach our team, or even if we stay with JVG, should make it a paramount objective to make the game more than a job to our team, especially our passive superstars, otherwise we're gonna end up with T-Mac pondering a Tiki Barber-like retirement out loud more and more three seasons too early, Bonzi eating KFC instead of grilled chicken salads in street clothes during games, and a team that lacks the passion and killer instinct to close people out. We need a motivator. We have the talent for now, let us not squander it.
The fact that the fans want JVG gone while he has a winning record after a very difficult start with a lot of new players shows that there are many people on this board who are: a) classic bandwagon supporters who love the team and coach when we are winning however love to tell people how bad a job the coach and players are doing when they lose. b) people who have little to no idea aout basketball. Dallas is 5-4 after an easier start than us so therefore Avery johnson should be fired. Same goes for Mike D'antoni. No one on their boards are calling for the coaches heads. c) people are forgetting about the very good year in 04/05 where we took the Mavs to 7 games and, barring a few shocking reffering decisions, would have beaten them. Instead of remembering what a good job JVG did then people rather remember the njury riddled year of 05/06. The bottom line is we are 6-4 after 10 games and possibly the toughest schedule in the league so far (Utah, Dallas, Miami, San Antonio, Chicago, Detroit.) People should realise that this is a new team who is still gelling and that with time we should be a very good team. With time. Given what i have said i do believe however that if once again we fail to get out of the first round of the playoffs then maybe JVG's coaching position should be reviewed. However for now lets just give the team and the coaching staff time to sort things out because i tink they definantly can.
Case for replacing JVG: 1. JVG constrains players instead of letting players do what they do best 2. JVG blames players for failures. Even though he blames himself sometimes, but that’s more rhetoric than anything. He blames his players for not playing hard enough, not doing enough of this or that. Hell he even blames his players when they win. 3. JVG is too tight with his players. You notice that almost every player that comes to JVG’s team becomes scary cats. They look at the coach for what to do, can’t take initiative, hesitate in shooting, etc., etc. Basketball is a fluid game – some level of dynamism and creativity is needed for players to do well. So what if the players make a few mistakes along the way, they will learn to play through it, and will get better as a result. 4. As a result, note the level of unhappiness amongst the players here. Stro was happy to be traded back, and is doing better back in Memphis. TMac hinted on retirement. Battier hinted on wanting to be traded to Pistons. Alston is becoming less comfortable in his game than when he was in Toronto that was a pretty bad team. Mike James didn’t want to come back to Rox (he has other excuses, but we all know why). This is not a team having fun, and it is hard to win when you are not enjoying what you do. 5. The reality is, JVG is not creative. He uses the same style of play in NY, which he learned from Pat Riley, and still uses the same style here. Comments from a few coaches (e.g., Phil J, Isiah T) indicate as such: JVG is predictable. 6. Examples of this: Dallas playoff series 2 years ago. It is obvious by game 3 and 4 that Avery figured out Rockets’ gameplan, and had countered it successfully. Did JVG change the plan? Of course not, and hence Rox lost the series. Naturally, he blamed the players for not playing hard enough, not going for loose ball, bla, bla. The reality is, when opponent figures out your strategy, it is much much harder be successful with your strategy. Just like a football game, if a team always runs, it will be much easier to counter it. The running team can still win, but it needs to be vastly superior. In the parity-driven and salary-capped NBA, no team can be vastly superior to others. 7. JVG is a mere average coach, according to this observation: http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/5996466. Not that say a FoxSports writer is an expert, but note that this was written 31 days ago, during pre-season, so not biased by what’s going on now. 8. Most importantly, JVG simply had not delivered results. With its two superstars, and 2 more legit 2nd or 3rd team NBA, Rox has one of the best set of players in NBA, but are barely winning. Tell me which teams have clearly superior talents compared to this team?
Thanks, Solid! 88 is just representative of my geeky glasses. At least I admit being a geek What did you guess it meant? (Curious)
I'm afraid there are some points in your argument I don't agree. If you read through the forum, you won't be surprised to find there's a lot of fans who are wise and insightful and don't change their point of view based on a few wins or losses. If you read through the forum, you won't be surprised to find there're far more people than you can imagine who understand basketball better than you. Take your argument as instance, it's true Mavs and Suns are having worse results than us. But it doesn't mean their coaches are worse than ours. One of the reasons I think their coaches receive fewer complaints from their fans is that Johnson and D'Antoni have achieved something before and they still earn their majority of fans' trust. JVG has spent three years in experimenting the Rockets yet he still didn't deliver the result we fans expected with the talents he has. This clearly seperates JVG from a good coach to a great coach. There is little or no doubt JVG is capable of leading a team to the playoffs given enough talents on the team. But taking a team to the next level by still using his old coaching style, that's one of the main reasons why we played well in 04-05 regular season but failed in the playoffs. I'd also like JVG to stay and finish the season because I still believe he can improve the team to a certain level. However, with him being the headcoach, just as fuzzy88 analyzed, I see little or no hope Rockets can win a championship in the near future.
I am defianantly not disputing that their are many more fans on this site who know more about basketball than me, their is no doubt in my mind that there is. My comments were not meant to be disrespectful, in fact i respect most peoples opinions on this board. I must point out however that Van Gundy has achieved something before, in fact he has taken teams deeper into the playoffs than D'Antoni has and just as far as Avery Johnson has, and he did it with less talented teams as well (New York going to the NBA Finals from the 8th seed) I also am no sure why people are losing trust in JVG. 04/05 was a very good year for us and we were really robbed of a second round playoff birth. Last year was a horrendous year with injuries and IMO JVG cant be blamed for the poor record. This is just my opinion and wasnt meant to insult you. Please dont rip this post to shreds like you did to the other one
Yes JVG has achieved his best in New York but that was long time ago. Things have changed a lot in the league but he is still using his old system (at least a lot of fans think so). Johnson and D'Antoni made their achievements in recent years and those are more convincing. JVG can't just rest in his laurel because what he has done in New York only looks good in his resume. If you check my previous posts in this thread, I never said I'm a JVG hater, I do not even completely agree to firing him. I just think, based on the statistics, evidences, trends, comparism and years of watching experience as a lot of fans did, that his system is not suitable in the long run and if Rockets still have a desire of winning a championship, then JVG is just not the man who leads us to the tip of the ivory tower, but a building block in this promising journey.
JVG coached in a different era of NBA ball, and he has yet to adjust with the times. Only reason Rockets are winning because of Yao and T-mac, two legit NBA superstars, JVG's just getting in the way. Everybody has us figured out, but by the sheer brilliance of Yao and T-mac, they can win games because they can be unstoppable. On the other hand, look at the Suns, everybody's aggressively covering the kick-outs, and there's nothing the Suns can do, hence they are struggling. Problem with JVG is he is a stubborn coach. He does not adjust his gameplan to better fit his personnel and he does not make in-game adjustments, hence our meltdowns in the 4th quarters.
Battier hinted on wanting to be traded to Pistons? Wow, what's that? Hearsay or reported by media? I almost missed a whole day of action in GARM today. Anyone care to provide some more detail? TIA. The case against JVG is indeed very "incriminating", as laid out by fuzzy88. Good stuff there. Let's see what kind defense JVG apologists can come up with, sans "6-4 record isn't bad, what more can you ask for," "it's still early, we have 72 more games to play, are you a Rockets fan? wait until mid-December," oh, almost forgot, "why do you Chinese hate JVG" ... LOL
wnes, you misread the context of the Battier piece. Battier was asked by a hometown reporter whether he wants to play for his childhood favorite team. He said sure, I'd love to play for the hometown team. Typical piece written by local papers when a decent player with local ties comes back to play with an opposing team. Space filler more than anything.
Oh, I didn't know anything about that report by the Detroit local paper. Thanks for clarifying it for me. It sounds kind of shoddy, I agree. fuzzy88's post got all my attention. Regardless of the Battier tidbits, the damning evidence against your alter ego is pretty overwhelming. Don't you agree?
Not really... people can always 2nd guess the coach... hell, SAC fans had been 2nd guessing Adelman for years for being too lax. Lakers fans 2nd guessed Phil for being stingy with timeouts and lettitng the team collapse in the playoffs up 3-1. Riley got 2nd guessed for playing Toine too many minutes, for putting together too old a team. Coaches are either too this or too that unless their team is blowing out every opponent and winning at least 60 games a season. **** happens, plenty of decent teams have show blemishes early. Anyhow, my guess is Alexander isn't going to pay JVG and another coach at the same time, so JVG will be around for the rest of the season unless something terrible happens. None of the b****ing or supporting of JVG matters. More likely, though, is a trade or two to round out the roster... the Rockets were thin up front and are hurting badly from one critical injury to Hayes. They can also use a speedy PG who can guard the Ben Gordons of the world. Battier is a good defender, but he's more free safety than cornerback. The Rockets need a Deion Sanders to throw out there.
