Yes Harden is only 23, but how many older, more experienced players are better than him? The Thunders I guess(just guessing) was probably the youngest team the last couple of years, how good were they?
I agree, to a certain extent. I don't like McHale as a coach, but besides Harden and Asik there is no real dependable consistent productive talent on this team. If you look through the history of the NBA it is usually the teams with the best players in the NBA that compete for a championships. And it's unfair to compare Lin to Harden. Harden has been doing what Lin did in NY (for a handful of regular season games) in the playoffs last year and all season long this year.
The thunder is one of the youngest teams (#5). New Orleans, Denver, Cleveland, and Rockets are younger. But the Thunder hasn't always been good.
But win a Championship is a whole lot different than win a game. And I believe regardless who finishes the final game, Lin likely would have contributed to the Championship, would that be great?
Then how about those Nuggets? 2009/2010 Thunder won 50 games. 2010/2011 they won 57 games and reached the conference finals. Last season they reached the finals. This year, inspite of losing Harden, they have the league's 3rd best record, being the 5th youngest team. I am not knocking on the Rockets, just saying young doesn't equal to inept. Not being an X's and O's fan, it seems to me that the league is increasinly dominated by young stars.
This is true, but we also have to remember the initial seasons with Westbrook and Durant were downright terrible. They didn't really start clicking until their 3rd season together after they signed Harden and Ibaka in the off season. 2007/8 - 20-62, Drafted Kevin Durant 2008/9 - 23-59, Drafted Russel Westbrook 2009/10 - 50-32, Drafted James Harden, Signed Serge Ibaka 2010/11 - 55-27 2011/12 - 47-19 (lockout) This is the first year the Rockets starters have played together, with less NBA experience than OKC outside of Delfino and Harden. So yes, while Youth isn't always indicative, youth + experience nearly always is.
I'm a really big RA fan and think he is a terrific coach so I don't want to sound like he is not as good of a coach as KMac but... I just don't think he would have done any better job than McHale is doing now. I think its completely unreasonable to think any coach would get any more out of the Rockets than McHale is getting. By all pre-season predictions the Rockets are basically exeding what most people had as best case scenarios. Plus by all acounts from players and anyone associated with the team, the players love Kevin McHale. Anytime a large group of players team wide meet or excede expectations I have to think coaching has something to do with it. - Is McHale perfect? Hell no. - Is McHale the right coach to take the Rockets to the next level? I don't know. - Does almost any reasonable measuring stat or result indicate McHale has done an outstanding job this season? Definitely. - Has McHale done anything this year for people to think the team is winning dispite him? Absolutely Not.
Now I am at it, I would ask this question: what makes a good coach? Winning more games definitely is a good indication, but there are a lot of factors determine win or lose. Another indication is, are the players improving their games due to coaching? Harden is playing great offensively, but there is no evidence that MacHale makes him this good. Harden's defense is perceived being weak, has he improved in this regard because good coaching? Again, there is no evidence. Is Lin becoming smarter basketball wise and making better decisions, due to coaching, not sure. Does he play with more energy or play happier, no evidence. Is Asik's great rebound numbers the result of coaching? Is Parsons becoming better because coaching? I don't see it so I don't believe MacHale is a good coach. Do they play better as a team? This one I am not sure, someone please tell me. If so, I would willing to give MacHale some credit.
You are right before the season started Rockets were projected being a lottery team, but that was before Harden shows how good/great he is.
Over the last week I have read some very interesting posts..... Including: The NBA knows that Harden signed an extension, teams probably won't want to trade for him. Apparently Harden is now a salary albatross that is not movable, with the assumption that the Rockets want to move him. I guess it makes sense, who wants a dynamic 23 year old SG that can score 26 points a game, is a very good passer, with a high basketball IQ. Harden is a ball hog, the Rockets would be better off with Kevin Martin. Yes, this poster was serious. I guess he was too busy watching the Knicks last year to realize Martin was a disaster after Yao was gone. Fans excited Harden is not playing against the Clippers. Yes, one of my favorites... "fans" excited that the Rockets best player did not play. Claims that McHale sat the entire starting unit in the 4th quarter against the Clippers because McHale could not just sit Harden. This one was common, in the game thread several posters stated this. Apparently McHale is not really the coach of the team and cannot discipline Harden or bench him. Claims that McHale has been told by Morey to let Harden pad his stats so the trade looks good. Yet another common statement. I guess the Harden trade looks so bad, that Morey has to make Harden look better to keep his job. Claims that Harden is only interested in padding his stats. Another common one, I guess all those games where Harden will only shoot the ball 15-16 times are irrelevant. In reality Harden is a greedy ball hog that is all about numbers and not wins.
I have heard you and other posters say this, and I can understand where you are coming from. However, I would ask you, have you ever seen McHale take credit? He may have, but not that I can remember. If McHale is consistent that it is on the players, praise and failure, I do not have such an issue with him not taking blame. In Minnesota he took blame a few times that I can remember. As far as McHale being average, below average, etc.... It is hard for me to say because his role is more inline with the Celtics coaches post Auerbach. That is to say he is not here to design plays or call plays. His job is to keep everyone on the same page and playing hard, and he has done that. There is no doubt that coaches like Popovich and Vogel and Carlisle and Thibodeau are better than McHale (all also have more experience), but where does McHale fit in with the next tier of coaches is up for debate.
Not that haters would care either way, but isn't it normally considered a GOOD thing when coaches don't make themselves the story? Fans pay to watch players play. It would seem natural that they would also want to know what players do behind the scenes. But do fans really want to know about coaches? I remember JVG "blames" himself after certain games, but he always did it in the context of players, that he failed to get his players to play. I don't remember him ever saying how he failed in the Xs and Os, that he should've tried zone at times, that he should've tried different matchups. I've only seen him talk about how his players played like crap, and that's on him. It seems to me like it's just a different way of saying the same thing. JVG tries to put his players through a guilt trip, McHale's just telling them to stop playing like crap. Either way they're putting the emphasis on players. And given Morey's background in business, it would seem natural that he would ask McHale to make interviews about players, and not McHale himself.
Ultimately, it'll be Harden's and 2nd superstar's call. You better believe DM will go after that 2nd superstar, now that he already has the one. That being said, Spoelstra would've been fired during the bringing together of bosh, wade, and lebron had wade or lebron said something. But wade liked spoelstra and sold the other guys on him. If the heat lose game 7 last year to boston, erik is an assistant coach somewhere right now. that being said, the fact that mchale is a former big man and maybe someone like d12 would like playing for a guy like him could help his cause. But, with lin, asik, mchale, etc before Harden, the team will be built around him and the 2nd superstar they bring in. so the question is...does harden want MCH around? hard to say, you can argue either way, but as much as people on this board think they know what's really going on inside the locker room, they don't. Unless you go back to that player's only meeting when PPat called out Harden. Now look where PPat is at. That's how it works.
I don't know. I also don't know if Popovich makes his players better. I mean, is Tim Duncan better because of Popovich? Maybe he's just that good. Maybe Parker would've been MVP caliber in his 3rd year if Popovich weren't so mean to him. Maybe Leonard would be a star right now if Popovich didn't make him Bruce Bowen 2.0. I mean, do we REALLY have any evidence that it's Popovich and not Buford+players?
Not to mention that a lot of us thought that the Rockets were much better before the season started than what most of the "experts" and veteran posters on this board thought. I had the Rockets at making the 8th seed even before the Harden trade and still think it would have happened. Just because there were many people who were wrong about the Rockets talent level and roster construction doesn't mean that McHale is a good coach.
Wait, you are comparing Phil Jackson's coaching record without 2 superstars to Jeremy Lin's Linsanity streak? In other words, you believe Jeremy Lin possessed something(similar to an extra superstar in Phil Jackson's case) during his Linsanity streak, that he no longer possess now. If so, that sucks. Because I want Jeremy Lin with whatever he had for Linsanity. Just like I want Phil Jackson coaching my team with the most talent in the NBA. I don't care if Phil Jackson or Kevin McHale's coaching .500 talent into 1st round ass kickings.
While I agree a head coach needs to be a "leader of men" I also think he needs to know Xs and Os. This is an NBA head coach we're talking about here. If he doesn't know his Xs and Os how can he possibly evaluate the kind of job his assistants are doing? Ultimately, the guy in charge has to be super competent. I like McHale as a man and leader but his IMO undoing will be the lack of adjustments and his haphazard rotation. Maybe I'm being too rough on the guy. I totally supported benching the whole starting lineup 2 games ago. That was an inspired and gutsy move. I'm just glad it worked or the wheels might have come off.
I get your point but I highly doubt Patterson was traded because of that. We all knew he was not our long term solution at the 4 way before he called out Harden. And if I remember correctly, didn't he get more touches after that meeting? He had some really great games before we traded him.
Hard to say where Morey is going with this. Using 1st round picks on mook and ppat. Maybe he realized their ceilings werent as high so he wanted to flip them so as to not have them cut minutes from other guys he needs to evaluate (smith, asik, dmo, tjones-hopefully). That or he's really high on TRob since he brings skills that ppatt lacks. In the end, I think all this maneuvering is to develop assets to trade for the 2nd superstar.
Don't ever think Phil Jackson was lucky that he had super stars on his team. It is the most difficult thing to be the coach of super stars. If Jordan didn't trust him, his azz would be out the door in no time. Has McHale shown the quality of molding a superstar into team play? I don't know. He is very lucky that all current Rockets are good sports and they seem all team 1st guy, including our own superstar Harden. I wonder if he can handle Kobe, DH type of players. I am not saying Kobe is a difficult person, he is just a strong willed player. If the rockets wants to win a Championship, they will need another superstar, can McHale keep both Harden and another superstar happy and meanwhile keep other players relevant and motivated?
