I agree. We have high expectations for Harden and we have to remember that he's 23 years old. He's not a finished product, and he's going to have weaknesses as well as strengths. However... I think it is the coach's responsibility to work with a player like Harden to mold his play. One thing I do notice about Harden is he has the tendency to try to force the offense sometimes. Other times, I'll notice that we have a good offensive flow going but the ball will come to him and he'll call for a 1-4 weak side clear out, or he'll hold the ball too long when defenses come out for the double team. None of these are necessarily the best options as they aren't in the "flow" of the offense. That I don't put on Harden. He's young, he's learning, and he's trying to find a balance just like everyone else on the team. However, what I would like to see is McHale pulling Harden aside more, calling time outs when that happens more often, and maybe even calling out Harden once in a while. McHale seems more than willing to call out the other players on their faults and errors. I have yet to see McHale call out Harden on his offensive and defensive lapses other than a generic "the ball gets sticky". That and I would like to see him take personal responsibility for a poor team performance at least ONCE this season. I've never seen him in a post-game interview say that he didn't prepare the team, or have them mentally ready, or that it was on Him. The closest I've seen is him saying that he needs to find a way to get players involved more. Maybe it's just the era he's from. Maybe that's not his personality. However, I think it's a good thing when a leader steps up and takes responsibility for the errors of others. Interview after interview I see Harden and Lin say it starts with them -- that individually they need to do more, or be more aggressive, or lead better or play better. I've never seen McHale say that he needs to be better. And this is part of why I believe that McHale is an average to below average coach.
Unless you mean in post game interviews, we don't know what he says to Harden. I know I saw a guy post in a gamethread once that he saw McHale yelling at Harden to move the ball. I can't find that original post but here's another person saying they saw it: http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showpost.php?p=7639239&postcount=2037 I think you're right that there are just different kinds of coaches and that's just not the type of coach McHale is. At the same time, who knows, it's probably inconsequential in his eyes to mention something like that in a interview. Personally, I wouldn't be surprised or care if he did it next week. As a leader, motivator, manager, I really don't know which way is better. It probably depends on the personalities you're managing.
While there is no 100% accepted Coaching manual, I'm a big believer in the idea that showing a willingness to "take a bullet" for your men is one of the more under-rated facets of being a leader. Whenever I had a boss that was willing to take the blame even when it was on the team, it engendered tremendous respect and loyalty from my co-workers and a desire to work harder to show that their trust was being earned. I just think that style of coaching is going to get better results from a wider swath of people. Of course, your personal experiences may be different.
Good post, OP. I don't recall the Rockets going to a straight isolation with no movement after a timeout and I pay close attention to that stuff. If it did happen it certainly was a rare exception, so I don't see the point in complaining about it. Not counting end of quarter possessions, the Rockets very rarely isolate Harden by design and if they do, there's usually some movement to set the isolation up. Harden isolating is usually the result of (1) the offense breaking down, (2) Harden blowing off the screener -- mostly when teams are getting ready to trap -- in pick&roll situations or (3) early offense opportunities not working out, which essentially is (1). You see, when Harden gets a defensive rebound the Rockets give him the freedom to do pretty much do whatever. Given that Harden is a natural scorer/playmaker that usually means he'll either just attack by himself or use a drag screen from the trailer big to create an angle. <iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/IBhDykzoULk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> This obviously doesn't always work out and at times this leads to the ball getting "sticky" in Harden's hands, however the good far outweighs the bad here, so you stick with it and just try to work on getting better secondary action along the way. I actually don't disagree that at times there isn't quite enough ball and body movement, but really, that's the case with pretty much every team except the Spurs. So, you're basing your opinion on McHale as a coach on whether or not he publicly says that he needs to do a better job at times? I mean, I get the whole taking blame thing, but really?
Just because your favorite player is standing in the corner waiting to receive a pass doesn't make it iso. Watch the whole team.
THIS ^^ But I don't agree we should trade Harden, but fire McHale, definitely. McHale is done more harm than good to players confident. Yes, you don't hear players talk bad about McHale because the players has good character. If Rockets has DWills or D12, McHale would pack up long time ago.
Oh gosh... We win one game without Harden against a banged up Clippers team on the backend of a 4 game 5 day road trip (and they played like it) and now McHale is some sort of genius and his game plan has been perfect all along...Lol... Seriously, Asik was the most efficient scorer on the team last night...lol.. But I'm not complaining because that's free money and we needed the win. I'm not a McHale apologist at all and I would love to see the Rockets move forward under a different head coach.. But in his defense _ the guys on this team aren't that good... And their up and down play and there numbers show it... This team will have 3-5 new faces in the rotation next season.
you realize you just agreed with a post that is obviously sarcastic right? I love how some guy makes a great thread with quotes and facts, but the mchale haters stick to their stubborn opinions and crap about player confidence with no evidence to back most of that up. mchale is AT WORST an average coach in this league just like lin is AT WORST an average point guard.
Great post....this one's actually an "analysis". Some of the hating threads are just full on knee jerk emotional bias that just continue to fuel misconceptions. Thanks for putting some actual data and research into the discussion.
You know I'm not one to correlate join date with stereo typing the poster, but man with the exception of a few, looking through his thread there seems to be an undeniable pattern with the 2012/13 cf'ers. Its not fair but now it just makes it hard to take most 12/13 posters seriously. It's like there has to be a filter now for all the crap that's spewed out on the GARM.
McHale could coach the Rockets to an NBA Championship but in the event that Beverly finishes the Championship game that the Rockets won or because Harden scores more points all the LOF's would cry that McHale sucks and is just killing Lins confidence.
Agreed 100%. I think Harden could be a plus for the team if he stops playing like he is the PG, SG and PF in offense and other players must hide him in defense. Murphy could have said it more clear: If a player demands teammates to play out of strengths to achieve his efficiency then the player is a negative to the team no matter how great his stats look.
What make a good coach good (not great coach, just good) is he stick to his plan. Obviously, McHale has no clue. He is inconsistent. The only consistent is when the Rox were down, he called a timed out and go Harden ISO. It is not a matter of trust, McHale is clue less. Every players have good and bad days and as a coach, he should understand that. I remembered watching the Knicks vs 76ers game last season where the 76ers went 0 - 13 (or something) at the beginning of the game, and what did their coach did? Did they pull the players out because they don't play with "energy"? No, he said to the players, every shoot you don't take is a 100% miss, just keep on shooting. At the end of the game, they could have won the game. They made a dumb mistake for not fouling with just down by 3 points. Good coach also take responsibility, as for McHale, he takes none of it and has no problem throwing players under the bus. If I am playing under this team of coach, I would give him on him.
McHale has been an outstanding coach this season for such a young team. The team as a whole loves him and would run through a wall through him. He has been able to show tough love with out killing the spirit of the team and is on the verge of taking the youngest team in modern history to the play-offs. Kevin McHale should get coach of the year!! He has been that good.
this is your opinion on what makes a good coach good. you're completely convinced mchale benches people for playing below his standard. if you can anticipate that kind of action, that's the definition of consistency. so are mchale's actions consistent? yes. does mchale call a time out and "go Harden ISO" consistently? no. go watch more games. this is funny because of your shining example of the 76ers. doug collins, the head coach of the 76ers, just recently threw his ENTIRE TEAM under the bus in a long ass rant about how they play with no energy during a press conference.
Okay so usually people can pick up on sarcasm due to the outlandish nature of flaming's statement. It's so over the top that it has to be sarcasm. The fact that you agree with 100% of his hyperbole is more concerning than the fact that you didn't get that he was being sarcastic in the first place.
The Read and React is the best offense to run in the NBA because you always have a counter to what the defense is doing. If you run a Jerry Sloan offense where they run the same sets every time then it's predictable and the defense can easily adjust, unless of course you have HOFers like Stockton and Karl Malone at the helm. If yall remember, our offense with Dragic at the helm was beautiful to watch. He always got Scola and Lee involved. Harden is a better scorer than passer so naturally we want him to score more. The onus is on the players and also management. Read and React takes a long time to practice especially with new teammates every year.
Harden without training camp, plus having his two PFs in rotation taken away. This is a raw, stupid and young team. I can understand complaints after a loss, but some posters here have been ignorant entitled shrews who haven't seen the Rockets for the last 5 years. I mean where else do you trade away "assets" and then pull up D-leaguers to fill in the rotation? This isn't standard practice like major league, but whiner's B&M about getting rotations and plays right as if team chemistry is something you can always create in 6 months. Wading through some turds and landmines here have definitely curbed my enjoyment of a surprising and enjoyable season. I don't even like McHale's overall tenure, but I'll give him credit where it's due. He, Asik and Harden have made a season work despite their overall imperfections that 25 other teams would kill to have.
Yeah he says a lot of the right things. He also said alot of the rigut things with lowry. Whats he gonna say? "I only trsut harden and want him to have the ball in his hands all the time because im comatose half the time and just hope harden can win the game". Dudes a terrible coach who has no idea about the flow of a game, zero clue on how to handle any nba player with a bit of an attitude, and a stupid game losing fascination with dlfino at the four. You can parse whatever quotes you want, his in game decisions are much kore indicative. Hell you can say youd do jessica alba all night long and everyne will agree with you but when its ganetime, how long you going 2 minutes? 3?
