spot on. that's why TWill cannot be a starter. he can be a good fire starter when your main offense is not working.
Very well said. Many on this board overreact from game to game. But I did notice that he has us playing zone, which will be interesting to see going forward.
We also couldn't get a rebound to save our lives when he played Scola at the 5 against Orlando. He may work out well as our coach, but this is not a good example of his expertise!
While it's too soon for a complete praise and Poppy seemed to throw in the towel at 1/2 time (3rd game in 4 days - doesn't want to blow out a star this early) I was very impressed with going his going 13 deep for decent minutes. It gives us a chance to see what we have even though it may just be a case of our scrubs can beat your scrubs. I still like seeing the young guys get some burn. Just need to get Thabeet more garbage time sooner to get him going because he's not going to get MVP playing 4 minutes a night.
It is a win win situation. Either he performs well and we are in the playoffs or he sucks and we end up with a high draft pick.
About Mchale, to me the biggest difference is unlike RA, Mchale is quick to discard what isn't working. If you remember, RA started coaching the team with the idea that Yao Ming is best used as a high post player, and we basically had him make passes to cutters in the high post. And it took several games before RA decided to abandon that and try something new (I think we went 0-5 that time). I think part of that is Mchale is using DM's analytic info, while RA and his team doesn't even look at them. If they have something that's similar to 62games.com, then Mchale would probably know which combinations would be effective on the court. Scola at the 5 seems like a ludicrous strategy, but as we have seen the past two games it seems to work, probably because very few Cs are effective scorers, while PF scorers are a dime a dozen. I think the data showed that, and that's why Mchale chose to play Scola at the 5.
The center was Dwight Howard aka best rebounder in the league. Sammy D was the only one who can sort of match up against him, and when he got gassed we got no one left. Alternatives like J. Hill and Thabeet, who among those guys would grab a reb over Dwight Howard with the game on the line? Thought process probably was, hey DH is a great rebounder but he's not a good scorer. Since he's not a good scorer anyway, he won't be able to take advantage of Scola's sucky D, and I can put the better defender (j. Hill, Adrien, whoever) on the PF who can actually score and hit 3s. Scola getting outrebounded wouldn't matter, because anybody who matches up against DH will get outrebounded anyway.
Let's see how long he keeps playing Bud, TWill, Hill, and Thabeet. Other guys deserve more minutes, IMO.
Its hard though to make changes on the fly that affect the rotation and overall strategy of a game. As a coach you need to give some consistency to your players so they are clear about where you stand with the program. That doesn't mean you are stubborn to the point of sticking to something indefinitely but that you aren't changing things so much that players don't know their roles. As far as Adelman starting off with a losing record 10 games isn't much in the NBA and he more than made up for that later on when the Rox rolled of 22 wins. As a coach he was able to do that too with injuries and players being traded. So while Adelman clearly has a way that he wants a team to play he has shown many times he is able to adjust to changing circumstances. Keep in mind though that Adelman played Scola at 5 before so this wasn't some revolutionary idea that Mchale came up with.
I like McHales in game decisions so far. I like that he does not call a time out every time something goes bad, but instead gives the players a chance to play through on court issues. I don't know why people feel the need to take shots at RA to try and make McHale look better. McHale is doing a fine job with out the comparisons so far and RA is an outstanding coach. I would not read to much into who is or is not playing at this point. McHale is still trying to figure out who plays best in what situation and what combinations work best. The rotation may look significantly different in a few weeks or it may not. Instead of focusing so much on McHales rotation this early I would focus more on the play of individuals when they are in the game. If Parsons continues to produce he will continue to get minutes. As Morris learns the system and gets more comfortable he will get minutes. Regardless, in this compacted schedule, everyone will get a chance at some point.
He was an idiot for leaving a center inactive in a game against a great center, and you are an idiot for extrapolating out a point that was never made, so you STFU troll. DD
Do you think Kevin McHale knew we were going against a great center? (Hopefully, we get a yes there.) If so, do you think McHale would want to put the players that gave him the best chance to win on the court??? (Hopefully, we get a yes there.) If so, do you think that you know NBA level talent better than McHale???? The logical answer here is no. Hall of fame player. Been a GM, coach, scout of guys like Kevin Garnett, etc. Made millions of dollars in the game. And then there's ..... you. If you really feel McHale was an idiot for making that decision, then why hasn't the NBA discovered you yet??? There is literally millions and millions of dollars to be made for a guy that knows so much about the game that he can detect that a hall of fame player, who has spent most of his adult life in and around the NBA and served in numerous roles on an NBA club, from player, to coach, to GM, to scout, etc. is an idiot compared to yourself, especially after he's spent weeks in the gym with Hasheem and you've only spent a few minutes watching video of Hasheem. That's crazy dude.
Ok. I'm okay with that. Everybody makes a stupid mistake, even Michael Jordan. But you are backing off calling him stupid. You know McHale is far from stupid. Although I disagree with you still, it wasn't a stupid mistake. Dwight would have ate Thabeet alive. Now, while Adriens wasn't really an option, he only played 7 minutes and he was only stuck on Dwight for 2 plays before McHale was able to stop the clock and make the adjustment. DD, you think Thabeet could turn into something. Man, he can't even beat out Hill for minutes at the 5 spot and you said yourself Hill is too light in the drawers to be a 5. He is so bad that McHale didn't even activate him against Dwight. McHale actually felt we had a better chance to win by having Adriens active instead of Thabeet. Why does he feel that way?? Because he has watched Thabeet and coached Thabeet. IF....McHale felt he could contribute anything positive at all against Orlando, he would have activated him. He left him inactive. That says a ton about Thabeet. He's had 2 seasons to get experience, to play well enough in practice to get on the court, he's had two years to work on his skills, stay in the gym, pound hook shots, work on boxing out, work on moving his feet and getting his butt down, down, down. He went through the same coaching and training camp that Hill went through. He heard the same things. He got the same coaching. Hill has improved incrementally. (Still not very good.) Thabeet is on the inactive list to start the season. That says a lot.
McHale knew what Thabeet did in practices the WHOLE time while you saw CLIPS from these practices. Who do you think knows better who to play and not to play? You or McHale? Stop calling people idiot just because they did not do things you would like them to do.
You do remember the response of GARM when McHale was hired, right? McHale was the r****ded ex-GM who supposedly didn't know basketball while Adelman was the genius coach who turned a bunch of nobodies into a .500 team. You can't not compare them when the coaching change was considered idiotic by almost the entire Rockets fanbase.
