used to dislike mchale but i said it before will say it again.. mchale made me a believer game 2 of the playoffs. he made great adjustments after the blowout, thought he out coached scotty the rest of the series, there was just more talent on the other side of the ball.. mchale has my support..
Nice! I love it when a post contains 14 suppositions and conjectures and not one single lonely shred of fact. A classic!
I was too lazy to google with facts. Since you are one of my favorite posters here, jtr, I will pull out all the articles in a few minutes.
Well, since you put it that way, don't bother. But a question. Is Spoelsta a great coach, or does he just make sure that the players egos do not derail the team? He has 3 finals appearances and 2 rings. I would argue that Spoelsta is a middling coach who has 3 hall of fame players near their prime on his roster. Phil Jackson once said, and I paraphrase, "I am not a great Xs and Os coach". Coaches in the NBA today do not have to be anything but facilitators for their staff and players. So your original post almost got it correct. And thank you for the compliment!
When you have one of the most talented teams in the league, it's not hard to look like a great coach even if you are sleeping during games.
LINK I personally feel that Spoeltra is a top tier coach. His defensive strategy is among the best. What made me liked him was that one incident when he stood up against future HOF Wade. It wasn't easy to do if you were 'inexperienced' and 'unproven.' Edit: additional articles: Link Conflict between Adelman and Morey
Personally I find it hard to assess Spoelstra as a head coach given the overwhelming talent advantage of having Lebron and Co. as your first assignment. The only way to truly judge a coach like Spoelstra is to monitor him through multiple rosters over a fairly long period of time or to see how the team does if LBJ gets injured for a prolonged period. Unfortunately LBJ's win impact of 20 wins per season is so overwhelming that it makes it hard to truly assess whether Spoelstra is a genius, or merely smart enough to let LBJ do his thing.
I would like to summarize a thread I started 21(?) months ago. A great coach in today's NBA: Keeps his roster content and happy. +1 for McHale. Hires a great coaching staff, +1 for Morey. Is respected around the league and by his team. +1 for McHale. Presents a dignified face to the franchise. +1 for McHale. Delegates responsibility appropriately to the front office and his coaching staff. +1 for McHale. The exact opposite of McHale is D'Antonio. And there were a horde of people on CF lobbying for him to be hired two years ago.
Excellent analysis. But does even 20 wins sum up the impact of LBJ? I don't know but IMHO that may be on the low side.
That's pretty much my argument against Phil Jackson and is related to my opinion about McHale as coach of the Rockets. How many wins did Jordan in his prime or Shaq and Kobe together in their prime add? My guess would be a ton. I think that Harden and Howard together in their prime add a ton of wins as well and I'm just fine with McHale becoming the next overrated coach.
i get headaches reading stats so let me end this just by saying....if my dog fido were coach of this team we would still end up with 50+ Ws just based on our talented roster...So in the end, does it really matter??? Ponder that for a sec. And if we end up with a sub .50 record then let's revisit this thread.
Actually his WARP for the 2012 season was 23.9. I just put down 20 since it was a nice round number. Historically he tends to bounce between 20-25. Either way, his beastly play really distorts any assessment of a Coach.
Another reason McHale and Morey fit well together was McHale was willing to surrender his power to hire his own assistants. I believe that was part of deal when Morey chose him. In a way, McHale was too desperate for a coaching job. You will never find top coaches who are willing to come to term with that demand. I really thought Mike Budenholzer would be a great hire and didn't even know he was available until this offseason. Maybe he was available all along but not the type of coach who was willing to surrender his partial power.
torocan. It's quite sad the lengths you would go to discredit McHale. First you reference an ex-player interview and then take the words of said ex-player without caring about context or motivation of the source. When given counter argument from Morey's own quote And your responses So instead of agreeing(or disagreeing) with Morey, you just dismiss his words like they're just GMSpeak. Which is fine. Many posters here, at least before Harden/Howard, were also quite skeptical of Morey's words Except, You tend to believe Morey in other matters. For example, on the subject of Jeremy Lin. Is there any doubt that if I were to pull up a random quote from a random ex-Knicks player that says "Jeremy Lin sucks because..." that you wouldn't immediately counter with a Morey quote if one exist that directly contradict it? Of course you would. Yet when it comes to someone else, you somehow stop trusting Morey as a source of information. Personally, I thought you were a great asset to the board. Although you were a LOF, at least you seem to judge him fairly and you back up your idol with good support. But it seems that now, you are just like other bitter LOFs in that you would ignore evidence in order to further your agenda.
An interesting question. I just happen to have the answer. The first time Jordan retired the Bulls championship roster made it to the ECF. They lost 6(?) wins over the course of the regular season.
The difference in the two quotes is one is an opinion of basketball knowledge, the other is a physical, measurable, quantifiable statement (further backed up by Lin's combines statistics). My opinion of McHale is based on what we know of him so far. To say he's a great or fantastic coach with no data to back up that opinion is purely conjecture. It has been covered in numerous articles that McHale does not design the offense or defense, both in the general media and Rockets.com. The player interview was merely confirmation, and it was not an anonymous article but one that was specifically attributed and quoted verbatim. McHale not knowing X's and O's is not necessarily a strike against him (Phil Jackson freely admitted he's not an X's and O's coach), however given his short tenure with the Rockets I think it's a mistake to assume that at this point in time that McHale is a good or great coach. When I think good or great coach, I think of a coach that elevates game play. IE, not mediocre/passable like the vast majority of coaches in the NBA. Calling McHale a mediocre coach, hired into a rebuilding team (you don't hire superstar coaches for teams in rebuilds -- remember, he was hired Prior to signing Harden or Dwight) is not an insult, it is the most likely scenario. As for his basketball mind, let me pose this simple question. Was there a single team that hired McHale as an offensive or defensive assistant prior to his being hired with the Rockets? There are exceptional basketball minds that are acknowledged to be leaders in their areas of expertise. The brains behind our offense and defense are Finch, Bickerstaff and Sampson. McHale is just the guy on the top of the pyramid. It's not discrediting someone when it is factual, it is merely reality. This is no more insulting than saying that as of last season, Lin was a mediocre starting point guard. That's what the statistics said, and numbers are numbers no matter how you want your personal opinions of McHale or Lin wants to change them. As of right now, I consider McHale to be a mediocre coach. Until we see more from him, he'll stay in that category as I don't believe he falls into the elite company of coaches like Popovich or Doc Rivers. Do you?
!!! It honestly is Morey's team. McHale is absolutely perfect for the role. Any finger pointing this season needs to go past McHale directly to the FO.
There are WAY too many variables involved to use such a simplistic method. Even if you want to use that method, the counter would be that his first full year back they won 25 more games than the previous season without him.
