Seriously, McHale NEVER gets any praise for going with the hot hand. No one said McHale was a genius when Greg Smith finished strong against the Lakers. But plenty blamed him for not having Lin over the same stretch. So posters like you who think he needs to be less conventional blast him when he uses conventional pattersons. And many other posters blast him when he does things unconventionally. And that's why I found the hate for him funny, because he gets blamed for both sides of the issue. And for things that Popovich, Phil Jackson, Pat Riley, and any other historical great coach you can name also do every game. You see these things all the time. By different coaches with different players. Greg Smith had 3 fouls in 7 minutes against the Spurs. I don't know why he deserved to stay on the court with that ridiculous stat line. Dude was getting abused. Obviously Greg Smith is more productive than Aldrich in general, but on a game to game basis? He was terrible. And since EVERYONE stunk against the Thunder. It's normal for coaches to go with a different lineup when the conventional one doesn't work. He tried the Greg Smith/Asik combo against Minnesota when things stunk, and the Rockets promptly came back from a 14 point deficit. Any praise for McHale afterwards? Not a single bit. Rockets fans didn't like McHale last season for two reasons. 1. They believe that McHale, despite being the most successful GM in Minnesota history, was a horrible GM and therefore must also be a horrible coach. The logic doesn't make sense, but that's why fans are fans. 2. They wanted Adelman back. So after every loss, they say that Adelman would've won the game. Also makes no logical sense, but again, that's why fans are fans. 3. They didn't like the fact that he played Patterson over Dalember/Camby in many games(kind of a Greg Smith over Asik down the stretch thing). 2012ers don't really care much for the Rockets front court rotation, nor McHale's rep before coming here. So you are not sharing the same type of hatred for McHale as normal Rockets fans.
News to me that I blasted McHale for starting Patterson. When others were advocating for Smith or Morris to start over Patt I said no. And McHale does get praise for going with the hot hand that is false. I listen to Morey's interviews on the radio every week & radio personalities were praising him for it. Some posters on this board praise him for it as well I see it all the time & I am sure you do too. I think this needs to be stressed once again, I do not hate Kevin McHale as a coach, I do not want him to be fired. I don't blame him for any losses either. Are my reasons for questioning some of the things he does different from other peoples sure. But at the same time there are other veteran posters who have had the same thoughts as I have had in regards to some of the things McHale does (good & bad). To say otherwise is blatantly false & that is the root of my post.
If you do a search on thread titles with McHale and their post count, you can't tell me that the reaction to McHale is a "mixed bag of good and bad." As for radio personalities, I don't listen that much. But since I post here, I am obviously directing my comments to this board, not the media or Rockets personnel in general. I mean, Jeremy Lin himself seems to love McHale, doesn't really mean anything to his fans posting on this board.
I agree with you Meh. I think the most ludicrous assertion on this board is regarding his "X's and O's" knowledge. Can anyone here actually tell me that they think they know the intricacies of NBA offenses? Because if you can, you'll see that we run corner action, elbow action, pistol action, loop action, and a variety of other "actions" that the rest of the NBA runs as well. Even more poignant in my opinion is the fact that everyone seems to go nuts when a play out of a timeout or half doesn't work, and they say something about how bad he is at it. But when Jeremy Lin gets a back door lay up to start the Knicks game, it must've clearly been something in spite of the basic intention of the play and just the players making a brilliant play despite McHale's obvious lack of basketball knowledge. We have a team of coaches like every of team in the league. These guys are pros. To actually myopically state that we don't have an organized "X's and O's" game because of one of our coaches would be a much more damning statement of the whole staff and the person in charge of hiring them (Morey). We have well designed plays and, in my opinion, an offense that performs beautifully in comparison to 80-90% of the other teams in the league. If you watch the Spurs or OKC and say "why can't we have that?", then you're asking for us to keep the same players in the same system for years. For the short amount of time that McHale has had these cats and the turnover that happened from last year, we have an INCREDIBLE offense. Fans can't seem to see past their sneakers, but if we had a problem, it is our defense. A lot of that, to be quite honest, is because our best player doesn't want to get a hand up on shots or perform his defensive rotations. Alan Anderson put up a career high on us, OJ Mayo put up a career high on us, Danny Green went off on us when James lost him a couple times and didn't rotate over on the others. It happens every single game. Once we decide we want to compete defensively, as a unit, we'll get better. But this team is young, and it's hard to instill that in to kids who have been the #1 option on an AAU team from the time they've been 9 years old. If by the end of the year, the team isn't doing better defensively, I put that on the coaches, but the amount of inane, poorly-thought out commentary about the coaching staff on this board is remarkably incorrect and clearly the bottled frustration of keyboard warriors who probably didn't even make their high school varsity team, let alone play at any other level.
So I guess Meh was stating his entire commentary toward you, but since you wanted to tell us what you didn't blast him for, let's hear what you do blast him for. If you are one of the "rotation" people, let me postulate this: the people who make decisions on playing time are around the players EVERY day. Terrence Jones is in the D-league, the GM assigns players to the D-league, why would it be McHale's fault for not playing him over MM? Or why do you think you are more qualified to say that Aldrich shouldn't be getting some run (do you think we lose games because of our backup center getting 10 minutes of run)? Seems like that goes deeper than just one guy's supposed hatred for rookies (which is another laughable comment considering he started Chandler all of last year).
Coach has every reason to bench Lin or any other players. But if you have to think Lin was specially attended by coach, you got to remember last season, when the condensed schedule had Lin injured. 4 games in 5 nights resemble lots like it. Do you Lin only lovers wants this happen again? If you really love Lin, you should thank McHale for resting him when hes showing fatigue, fwic.
ah, right. decisions are made on instincts on stupidity rather than reality. larvs8 logic. your boy mcfail is responsible for royce white too. tell us how that crow tastes.
McHale wanted Tyler Zeller at the #16 spot there chief, as a few articles have alluded to since then. So tell us what reality is for you as a fan of a team who you have never even talked to, please. Let us all know what reality you see, and what changes to our offensive and defensive schemes you would make (would you high side the drag screen, or on the mid screen/re-screen would you switch?). Or would just putting different people in the game at a variety of different times, not paying attention to match-ups or who actually knows the schemes on the team, make all the difference? -- like many uninformed people here seem to believe.
I was reading news articles and saw the following http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...-and-jeremy-lin-a-viable-duo-in-the-long-term I especially like and agree with the comment Brandon May had on there.
Well, he sure didn't want Zeller over Royce White. "The rest of the room besides McHale says you're too risky..." (3:55 Mark) http://youtu.be/BRUS6QBiViQ?t=3m55s McHale's never been regarded as a good coach although with the Rockets being over .500 and having low expectations he has been getting credit. I'm far from convinced though. We have top 10 talent, I think we should be where we are and I believe with a top coach we would be even higher. McHale as a coach has a winning % of .456 and 0 playoff appearances in 3 seasons.
So because a sports agent says something on a video, you believe it? I believe the reports and stories that I've read since then long before I would think that a guy who is just begging for his client to get drafted is in the mind of the Rocket's draft day war room. The real reason I don't believe this is because knowing Morey, I don't see him capitulating and acquiescing to his coach off of a random hunch. So, if you want to blame someone for that decision, it starts at the top, jefe. We have the youngest team in the league, we have 1.9 years of average NBA experience on our roster. In Houston, McHale has been over .500 as a coach. We have top 10 talent? So you don't think that the: Spurs Lakers Heat Clippers Timberwolves Grizzlies Knicks Nets Warriors Thunder Bulls (when healthy) Trailblazers Nuggets Hawks have at least an arguably equal or better talent level on their team? Sans James Harden and Omer Asik (and possibly Chandler?), we have a roster of guys who wouldn't start on 80% of the teams in the league. Do you measure talent by youth with potential, or by talent that has come to fruition? We have the potential to be talented, but the fact remains we have a young roster who have barely stepped their little toes in the deep water of the NBA. Out of the teams left off that list, like the Mavericks and Jazz, they have NBA experience that translates in to them having a better W/L than I would have expected from just looking at their roster from a arbitrary "talent" evaluation.
Where are the articles that said McHale wanted Zeller over Royce White? They might exist, but I've only seen some articles pre-draft that state Zeller would be a good fit with McHale. I'll take the word of a video where the agent says multiple times that McHale is the only one in the Rockets war room that wants Royce with the rest of the room being against him. It would be a pretty elaborate lie for the agent to state that and one that makes little sense. I'll take that video as evidence over your "belief" that Morey wouldn't acquiesce to his coach despite the Rockets having three picks in the first round. As far as top 10, I do think the Rockets are around top 10 as far as talent goes. I think we're comparable to Golden State, the Bulls, Blazers, Nuggets, the Hawks. People keep saying how young we are, but Harden was three years younger and on an OKC team that was younger than us and won 50 games. I think the youngest team in the league thing is overblown for us considering how our best player is now in his fourth season in the league.
Team is over 500 in spite of mchale and Sampson not because of them period. Anyone who thinks otherwise is drinking the kool-aid.
How is it reasonable to assume the coach has anything close to the final say in personnel decisions? I wasn't saying those teams have better talent than us, necessarily. It's just that a different fan could argue they do and it's debatable. We are not some clear cut top 10 talent team especially because sans Harden we are a bottom 10 talent team. The difference on that OKC team is that he was the 3rd or 4th best player on the team at the time. They also weren't as young as us (over 3.5 years of average NBA experience). We have 1.9 years of average NBA experience, the next 2 closest teams are the Hornets and Blazers with 2.6 and 3.1 years respectively. The OKC Thunder have nearly double the average NBA experience as our roster at this point (3.7 years). We had a total of about 325 starts cumulatively on our roster (half from Delfino) to start the year, KD had around 400 to start this year by himself. The Hornets had about 780 starts, and the Blazers had well over 1,000. These things matter in the NBA. There have been threads on this site with links to studies about how young teams historically perform in the NBA. Just look at the other "young" teams in the NBA and see how they are performing. I expect the team to get better, but until we actually figure that out, the inane criticism on here is just ludicrous. The fact that we are above .500 with the schedule we've played thus far exceeds or at the very least equals what I thought this team was capable of this year.
That's not what was being said, it was not implying Mchale wanted him, it was saying he was willing to work with him. It was a case of, if Mchale had said he couldn't work with that, Morey would have never picked it.
Coaching decisions are made on myriad of inputs including winning, strategy, tactics, matchups, player development, number of fouls, effort, following directions, etc. When you are older you will learn the real world and thier processes aren't made on a whim like they are on the inter webs where this is no accountability.
For those complaining about McHale's rotation and substitution patterns or the results of plays directly after a timeout, how many of you were here before McHale was the coach? Changing coaches won't necessarily change the results of what you're seeing and complaining about. Adelman, with a better pedigree as an NBA coach than McHale, was roundly criticized here for the same shortcomings. If Lin for some reason in his doghouse it'd be Hell on Earth for some of you with TD as the starting and maybe closing PG. Plays drawn up during timeouts regularly resulted in dissapointment during his time here. He played a set number of guys and stuck to them like glue. Be careful what you wish for in this case.
Credits to the coaches. Nice rotation arrangement this game. Just hope he can make it consistently. Another blowout, we may be fighting heats in 7-series in conference final, if it's in eastern.:grin: Keep the hot hand most of the time till's over, then good opportunity for Aldrich,Dmo,Machado develop.
