Well, it sure sounded like he was the only one that wanted Royce from that video. And coaches generally have a lot of pull in the war room. Do you have the links to articles stating McHale wanted Zeller? I only could find ones that said McHale and Zeller were a good fit and that was pre-draft too. You can't say sans Harden because we have him and he's one of the best players in the league. I said top 10 because I think that's around where we're at. I think an argument could be made for #9, #10, #11, etc. It's a general ranking. My point is that with our talent and how hard our guys play we should be above .500. This could be my version of the "eye test," but I believe that stat doesn't hold true weight when you have a top 5 player mixed with talented teammates that play hard.
Did you watch the clip? How is this not implying McHale wanted him??? It's clear McHales wanted him... "If McHale can pull this off.. Houston's a question mark at 18... The rest of the room was against you... The rest of the room besides McHale says you're too risky." 3:40 Mark: http://youtu.be/BRUS6QBiViQ
With all this said, I am impressed by the Rockets wins in these blowouts. I still question McHale as the coach for this team in the long-term, but the Rockets have looked good in these blow outs.
Feigen or Friedman or someone put a tweet up on it and Joel Blank has mentioned it on the radio. I'm pretty sure it's in the archives of the forums somewhere. I can't search for it due to being a 2012 I think. The point here is that our overall roster is not very impressive in terms of talent if you just take out that one player. The Heat, Spurs, Lakers, Clippers, Knicks, Nets, Thunder all have arguably better talent than us even if you exclude one of their best players. Again, just search the forums for all the posts in the past. Just name the team that has averaged 24-25 years of age and won the NBA title. Name a team in the history of the league that has been 23.6 years old on average with an average team experience level of 1.9 years that has gone over .500. Portland may be close to that from '08-'09, but they had 3.0 years of average experience on their roster and 1 out of {22 teams (on average) x 65 years} isn't something close to statistically relevant. And oh yeah, they got knocked out of the first round of the playoffs.
well definitely am curious to read it. if anyone has it post it up. thanks in advance My point is that our one player is a top 5 player so of course we'd be a lot worse. Again this is my "eye test." I think times are changing and secondly has there been an example of a very young team that had a top 5 player in the league? I know we're young, but Harden is a superstar and it's his fourth year in the league. I think the young teams people compare us to didn't have a top 5 guy entering his fourth year.
McHale doesn't seem to have much of a complex half court offense. That or he is struggling to get his players to run it. Seriously, we really look out of sorts in the half court. We really have do the same thing pretty much every time: Lin/Harden looks for screen. Goes around screen for drive. If drive isn't there, no foul to draw, or no Asik, kick it out for 3 point shot. Everyone else is pretty much a spacer. Parson now looks to be struggling with confidence issues. I think McHale needs a mentor of a coach. Or a post-up player. Something. I am shocked we are winning - that's a testament to Harden and Lin and how good of a backcourt we have.
So you put an arbitrary stamp on it (is he really a top 5 guy with the kind of defense he plays?) and it narrows your sample size to zero, making it a moot point? I'm sure there are "young" teams that have had a top 5 potential talent guy on their team, MJ's team was about 25 years old on average his rookie year in an era where teams were generally older due to the restrictions on leaving early -- they finished 39-43 with MJ averaging 28 ppg. And they lost in the first round of the playoffs as well. It is very hard to be young in this league and win. Every metric I've ever seen has played this out to be true.
We just put up 123 points on a top 6 defensive team and we have bad offense? Are we serious with this? When we run pistol action in the half court, do you know what that looks like? When we set a drag screen with a weak side pin down, and James just holds the ball out top instead of turning the corner or kicking it high for a swing-swing, is that really the coach's fault? We only get stagnant when one guy has the ball, and it's James. Ever hear the term "ball stopper" on offense? He's the quintessential ball stopper at times. Melo had the same criticism in Denver. You could hear in the game tonight that McHale was upset on a play when James held the ball out top and we got a rushed shot because he made a last second pass. When people want to point the finger at our coaches, I would understand if they would say something about defense, but it just doesn't seem like the average fan has any clue of what a defensive scheme in the NBA looks like and it's just a lot easier and more convenient to rip the guy you don't like for offensive mistakes, even if we're one of the top ranked offenses in the league.
I think we have one of the best transition offenses in the game, but our half-court offense really is Lin & Harden and due to their talents. The rest of the team depends on them for 80% of their points. Overall, I think our offense is rated 8th. We score a lot because we play uptempo - and it's why we give up more points than anyone not in a Bobcat uniform. We also shoot more 3's than anyone that helps us score more points efficiently, and turn the ball over like crazy - I think we're near worst in the league in that department. So I think when we run we're a very dangerous team. And when Harden/Lin can penetrate to the basket that will cover up a lot of our weaknesses as well. Take those massive elements out and you see that the rest of our offense really isn't that great. Both OKC and SA put us in a bind when they picked up their defense and took away the penetration and pressured the ball to prevent transition offense. SA did it in the 4th qtr, OKC in the 2nd qtr. Both times we totally came unglued and looked frazzle and unsure. Now, this is a young team...so how much of it is inexperience, and how much is it that these guys are not prepared? Or how much of it is just not having the personal? Not entirely sure to be honest. It's hard to say. But having the highest scoring team doesn't necessarily mean you have the best offense. especially when you shoot worse than you opposition.
So if I understand correctly, us playing well in the transition game is the player's success, and us playing decent (we're not a terrible half court team statistically) in the half court is the coaching staff's failure? Go listen to the post-game with McHale, he doesn't sound like he cares much for our offense getting "sticky". But I'm sure that's just an elaborate cover so he can fool everyone in to believing he knows what he is talking about with 30+ years of NBA experience when he really doesn't know as much as the varsity playing, CF posting, keyboard warrior!!!
I have a theory that the offense has greatly improved since McHale return because he is relying more on the offensive assistant coach Chris Finch than when Samson was in charge. Samson wanted to put his stamp on the team in hopes of landing a head coaching job in the NBA. From reports Chris Finch is the heir apparent. He is a new school coach, playing MoreyBall. Only shots in the paint and beyond the arc. http://www.nba.com/rockets/news/q_with_chris_finch_2011_11_10.html
That's not what I said. And what is this garbage at the end here? Seriously, who are you? Since you think McHale is so great, I guess you think our scoring output doesn't have anything to do with Harden huh? It's all McHales genius? What does McHale do then that's so amazing then? SInce you seem to know it all, why don't you explain how we put up 123 points other than transition offense and penetration by either Harden or Lin? Where's the half-court sets that make McHale so brilliant???? How many times does Harden create points out of nothing? How many of Delfino's trey's come off a pass from Lin after he penetrates? That's it - that's our half court offense. Put the ball in Lin's or Harden's hands and set a few screens for them, and space people out.
Your hatred for McHale is like Fox News, always trying to fit things to your own narrative, regardless of actual results. And the more the Rockets win, and your narrative gets disproven, instead of copping to being wrong, you double down. Finding new things to blame the coaches, finding new things to discredit him. Your New Year resolution should be lessen the hate and just enjoy the youngest team in the NBA being 17-14 with a 23yr old soon-to-be-superstar.
McHale and Sampson both said that the team is keeping things simple and introducing new things slowly due to the youth of the squad. I don't see any reason to doubt them. It's one thing for the players to know the sets, it's another for them to be familiar enough with them to run them competently. Getting too complicated with young squads is asking for trouble. I am pretty sure there is plenty of knowledge of NBA offense on the staff with McHale, Sampson, Bickerstaff and Finch for them to teach a more "complex" offense. The question is whether this is helpful or counterproductive.
If you really are looking for insightful analysis of our offensive game, I would love to discuss it, because the slanderous comments about it all year have been laughable to me. To address the other stuff: Where did I say that McHale was "so great" a "genius" or anything of the sort? Because I don't needlessly rag on a guy who is used as a scapegoat for everything from Royce White to bad offense and even worse defense, I think that he is a deity? Look at how you describe our half-court sets. We get all of our half-court offense off of Carlos Delfino shooting 3s and James/Jeremy making something out of nothing? Los averages 9 points a game. We run pistol action as much as OKC. If I had to guess, we probably installed it to make James comfortable when he came over from there (because I didn't see it as much last year). We used to run a lot of loop action, but didn't get any weak side action after the initial play ran its course. Lately, I see the coaches going to more elbow action to make the point cut and get a wing on a rip screen for a potential back door cut (opening play against NYK in MSG). We rarely fill the strong side corner so that James/Jeremy have the lanes to drive off the drag/step-up screen. They don't get those lanes you talk about because of some mythical, mystical superhuman ability to win despite the morons who are coaching them day-in and day-out. Our staff preaches court spacing, but it's more than that, it's getting the guys to spots on the court they can score from and having our court balanced -- if you think this is a moot point and all pros do it, just watch some of the low scoring teams in the NBA. Our half-court sets get blown up by guys trying to do too much at times (Marcus is culpable, as is Chandler, James and Jeremy), not because they are actual isolation plays. That happens to every team in the NBA, minus perhaps the Spurs. The Thunder, Heat and Lakers have serious problems with guys trying to "iso" up too much. I never see us run in to a set that is "iso" action from the bench. If James starts waving people off and directing traffic, it's him making the play an isolation play. When he did that tonight in the 2nd quarter, you could hear McHale yell over the broadcast to "move the ball" and "get some body movement". I bet every coach on the bench was yelling or thinking the same thing. Listen to him after the game talk about our offense. I don't think that's the audio from a guy who is secretly sabotaging the team's offense because of his lack of basketball knowledge.
Yes. I believe he's a top 5 player this year. Do you think he's not? Again, I think this is more of a new phenomenon. The same way the NFL is much different now than 10 years ago. I think the NBA is going through a similar situation. OKC won 50 games when they were young like us. Unlike a lot of others I don't think being above .500 is a great accomplishment. We have one of the top 5 players in the game and a good deal of talent surrounding him. I think we should be aiming higher. We're almost off topic. So you do think McHale is a good coach, right? What do you like that he does?
