LOL. I was gonna post the same thing. Anyway, great quote by McHale. I find it refreshing that he speaks honestly and doesn't sugar coat everything. Remember the GSW game when JVG was beside himself with how happy he was to hear McHale speak honestly about the team's poor performance to start the game? I'm sure LOFs were fuming and wanting McHale to say something like "Yeah it's my fault we're down. I forgot to mention that we needed to play D/box out/execute on offense/not commit stupid turnovers." But the reality is that NBA players shouldn't get that kind of protection. High schoolers don't even get that, so why should NBA players?
Somethings are better left to the locker room. Being professional involves tact. If a player isn't rebounding, tell him directly or pull him from game. Making comments publicly about players to media is poor taste.
Look dude.. Rockets Basketball Org is a team sport and each player is and has to be responsible to get better. There game outside of games and play like hell in the games. What McHale is saying without pointing a finger at any one player, (outside of a closed door) is that as a team ALL the players have to step up and play as a TEAM!! I for one, don't want a Kobe "type" player on this team if it is not the real Kobe Bryant! We have at times played the ("Oh well") lets hope James Harden can save us at the end to win the game on a last second shot that we have seen fail badly too many times after we lost a lead or got close to a comeback and he was shut down with the other teams hardcore Defense ! Little General maybe you should "Soldier Up" and do the following. #1 Use your best Presidential impersonation of Bill Clinton's voice and say, "I feel your pain" out loud once or twelve times, just to practice. And YES you do have to practice. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBmFwKH5bVY #2 Once you have this voice and the quote down pat, you can then graduate to number (3). #3 Hold your left handout and make a hard tight fist then snap a good old thumbs up. Practice this over and over until you have it good old thumbs up!!!!! to the guy that is paying to be a #3A...... the chick is s little lelrd
He doesn't care about "taste," Joe Joe. He's telling it like he sees it, which I find refreshing. As he said, this isn't a team with players that have several seasons under their belts, and that can't be said about the guys Morey brought in during the year, either. When AB, who's only had two practices, is one of your "vets" and was grabbed off the waiver wire with less than 20 games left in the season, with the team fighting to hang on to a playoff spot, I find it hard to criticize McHale for the job he's done. Like I said about the other comments he's laid on us recently, they don't bother me in the least. That we have the record the team has managed with the team wildly changed since last season, heck, during this season, and just since the break, that we're sniffing the playoffs is incredible. That we currently hold a playoff seed is just rediculous. That many here (not talking about you at all!) seem to think we're underachieving says far more about their intelligence, or lack there of, than it does about McHale and the job he's done. I was ardently against the hire for many reasons. I simply hated McHale for the wreckage he laid on the Rocks while he played (although I've always respected him for his skill on the court), and I did not want Alexander to get rid of Adelman. McHale's rotations mystify me at times, like they do for the majority of us, IMO, but again, as I've said repeatedly, in one form or another, the ultimate measure of a coach's success is the record of his team. How anyone could argue that McHale could have somehow improved on that aspect of his job with the team he's been given astonishes me. The media should be talking about a struggling young Rockets team with a bright future, a team way out of the playoff picture, not a Rockets team that's one of the most entertaining in the league, with an offense that's explosive and giving opposing coaches fits, a team solidly in the playoff hunt. A team that has lost games they should have won, games against teams that really suck hard (that's what young teams do, people), but they have also repeatedly beaten some of the top teams on the planet. It's nuts. It's crazy. This team has no business being this good. And people are busting his chops. Microanalyzing every word out of his mouth. Making excuses for their favorite players. Trying to find every reason in the world for the flaws they see in the team and laying it all at McHale's feet. I've read countless comments like that here, day after day after day, and have to shake my head. How they can expect this team to be better than it is blows my mind. To paraphrase something a guy in a flick once said, stupid is as stupid does, and this forum is currently just loaded with stupid.
LOL the question was about recharging batteries. The answer can be "yes" or "no." If McHale said "yes," you would write this response. But he said "no," and you also wrote this response. You see, it's the question that led to this response.
van gundy and the fuhrer will not talk to the media even if tortured and the fans get furious over it. Mchale speaks what he sees and feels and fans get furious over it. You can't win either way. I loved mchale for his philosophies coming into this year, defense and team ball, but as the season has passed my fandom is no more. Wish he was the guy in the long run because at some point you're going to need continuity. Can't be flipping coaches every 3 years.
I agree that it's in poor taste and literally serves no purpose. What does venting to the media accomplish? Unless he's doing it to motivate his players by prodding (an iffy strategy at best), it accomplishes nothing. And there can be a whole debate on whether McHale is even correct. However, I do like how honest McHale is with the media (though if he was truly honest, he might take some responsibility from time to time). It's better than the canned answers that some coaches insist on spewing out. Side note: I wonder how he's holding up emotionally/mentally. The family tragedy was only a couple months ago. This isn't a man who is sleeping comfortably at night and is filled with joy during the day.
Based on a SVG interview I heard, supposedly the NBA these days are really pushing coaches to always give interviews. Much more so than the JVG or even Adelman days. I'm sure if Van Gundy or Adelman are both forced to give multiple interviews every week, we'd hear quite a bit of stuff that fans would find to complain about. JVG in particular was really surly in front of the press. He's so much more mellow with ESPN these days.
Perhaps I believe McHale has underachieved because I was one of the few in the minority that didn't think our roster this year was much worse off than last year. If it interests you or other posters here ... this is what I wrote at the start of the season after the trade for Harden (AND before the 1st game of the season. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=228078 I felt we were slightly weaker at the PG spot, much much better at SG, potentially better at SF, weaker definitely at PF, and potentially significantly better at C. Overall, I thought we may be around even to last year's team. I thought we would be better rebounding, TS%, passing and defense, so I got 3 of the 4 right (wrong on defense, at least when Asik's off the floor). We have a weak bench, and young players, but I thought our core (Harden, Lin, Parsons and Asik) was already good and improving, smart players and that our core would be what drives record. And it's mostly been true. After the trade, that's basically what Parsons said. Sad to see the guys go, excited to see the new guys come in, but don't expect a backslide (and no need for excuses) because the core players stayed the same. For me, I don't give much horse**** what McHale says, just what he does. I think we have a good record, likely a better one if we didn't have two stretches where we wanted the SG to play PG (on the coaches, in my opinion, first time acceptable, second time not so sure), we suck in back-to-back games (minute management pretty bad), we suck in games decided by 8 points or less (9-18) and end-game situations, and we suck in away games. Many of these traits point to the coaching staff having flaws in terms of winning games that are winnable. And Parsons, Harden and Asik have all exceeded our expectations this year. I honestly believe that people underrated the team Morey put together, because they anchor their expectations not out of their analysis, but by what experts predict. So if experts predict 25 wins and you think the Rockets are a 40 win team, you end up thinking we may be a 32 win team. I think McHale's credit lies in not screwing things up. Going along and playing with an offensive philosophy that is clearly analytics-driven (and different to his own previous coaching philosophy), but we could have won more games than we actually did if we had better in-game coaching. The rest of the stuff, comments on Lin, or team, calling people out, horse**** vs batteries, are just sideshows. They mean close to nothing.
Been a Mchale hater when it comes in terms of coaching,,,but the guy knows what hard work is... he knows that common folk bust their tails every day to get paid...and he verbalized that...This has to be one of the greatest quotes from one of our coaches in Houston...Coach Mchale has earned my respect for the rest of the season...and ill never doubt his coaching decisions again...he shows me that he just wants to win...Go Rockets...
Deckard, He talks about being professional a lot. He demands professional a lot. Being refreshing is not always professional. His interviews the past two days might as well been tweets that ended in #bewell. On his coaching, I am actually surprised at how well he has coached. He has adapted the schemes very well to the personnel. However, being a coach is about being a leader. The Monday and Tuesday interviews are bad in that it may cause players not to follow him. Luckily for the most part, he has been the opposite in that he has given players reason to follow him.
Coach might make confusing decisions in game...but he really knows what to say and has the right mindset for the players...i love him for that.
I's hard for me to say this about one of the my most hated players growing up but I <3 McHale. Entertaining basketball, entertaining interview, and old school attitude. McHale has probably played in more playoff games than most of our guys have played regular season games.
McHale should be very thankful every morning and every day that he has a head coaching job, especially one with a group as young, likeable, and coachable as this one.
Interesting. I looked it up. McHale played in 169 playoff games. http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/m/mchalke01.html
Couldn't agree more. Players get paid millions to bring their best every night, Phoenix did play a lot harder in the last game, fighting for loose balls and rebounds. Our players deserve to be blamed on this one. However, McHale get paid millions to coach as well. Sure he is not the only reason for losing games but he should take on some responsibilties as well. He didn't address the team as "we" but "they" or "you", as if he is not getting paid millions or he never did a horsexxxx job. WIN AS A TEAM LOSE A TEAM
I have seen the stat regarding our record in games decided by 8 points or less and I realize it's not very good, but I'm wondering why 8 was chosen? We are 5-5 in games decided by 5 or less We are 9-11 in games decided by 6 or less We are 9-13 in games decided by 7 or less None of these are really good, but it just seems that 8 was chosen to fit an argument a little better than these other 3 would have.
If you were paying more attention instead of trying to make an ass of yourself, you would have seen that I was responding to this bit: "I don't know. I guess I'm way too old. You're playing basketball for a living. Recharge your batteries? Every morning you should get up and get on your knees and thank God that you're playing basketball for a living. Someone is actually paying you, in some cases millions and millions, in other cases hundreds of thousands at the minimum to play basketball. If you have to recharge your battery to play basketball, I understand recharging my battery that I've done three double shifts, I'm laying cement, and I come home. I understand that. I don't understand that, recharge your battery for what? To be able to come out here and play basketball for a living? If we have to do that, you're in the wrong sport, you're doing the wrong thing. This is a high energy game that requires total commitment but it's a joy to play. It's fun." If McSuccess just said a simple "No", there would be zero ****s given....
