Well, this year is potentially an opportunity to demonstrate how true that might be. Wouldn't it be awesome if he surprised all the naysayers?
so your going to complain about McHale and the Harden iso ball but you wont give him any credit for having the best offensive system in the league and being 1st in PPG as a team since last year....seems real reasonable
I would love him to prove me wrong, but I just don't see it happening. Same things happening this year from last year: 1. Harden still no D. 2. We still don't have go to plays aside from Harden ISO, added Howard post-up. 3. In game adjustment. We are still one of the worst in clutch time performance
Don't get me wrong. I recognize that, but that won't lead us to championship. Also, the fast pace system isn't really a system, just see how many TOs we make per game. We play fast pace, and we have a talented roster can shoot 3s and run. I will give some credit to Morey instead of McHale, though I recognize McHale's belief into the fast pace and offense really helps the team. But as I mentioned, just having this isn't enough to lead us to championship. I'm not saying McHale is a bad coach in general, I'm saying he is not a championship caliber coach due to his weakness. I think given time, he will get better, but I don't think he's the right coach for this championship run team.
Sigh. OK. Let us get a few things straight. 1: Lin is not starting because there are not enough shots to go around in the Rockets starting lineup. A team could have 5 Lebron James starting but they are not going to take more than 1.64 shots per minute on average. Thus the Rockets are not trading for someone like LMA. There simply are not enough shots (or CBA salary) to go around. And Lin and the Rockets are better served if he plays with the second team. And with Harden when Bev rests. And with Bev when Harden rests. 2: McHale is above average as a NBA coach. At no point have his teams fallen short of expectations. And he is 10-5 this season which projects to 55 wins. Just above the average estimations of the Rockets season win totals both by CF posters and the media. And I personally expect them to improve that record as they integrate Howard, Casspi and Garcia fully into the rotation. 3: Most CF posters suck at realistic fact based analysis. Sorry. There are some notable exceptions among the icons of Clutch fans and some of the smarter new faces. I have attempted to point out some salient facts in this thread but to no avail. But then I am talking to people who cannot see the difference between an off the ball screen and a P&R. 4: if you are going to comment on McHale as a head coach it is critically important to understand the current dynamics of the Morey-McHale relationship. Most NBA head coaches run the show as far as how the team plays. That statement is much more nebulous when talking about the current Rockets. 5: No coach can control how a top 10 NBA player behaves on the floor. What are they going to do, bench them? The best example in recent history is Kobe. Does anyone blame the Lakers coaches for not being able to reign in Kobe's incredibly inefficient play style? Few if any. Will McHale in the future be able to change Harden's iso instincts and get him to begin to trust his teammates? My money is on McHale.
It appears to me a lot of you are confusing Mchale with Kubiak. We have a young team with ample amounts of talent and potential, yet some of you call for his head 15 games into the season? OP I can clearly see in your tone of questions and answers that you see our biggest problem as being not enough Lin, but that's because of your rose colored glasses. We truly need a tough as nails point guard to be the coach on the floor and game general. Lin is just not that and probably never will be. I would like to see a young Chauncey Billups type (where is Chauncey anyway?) to run this team in the closing minutes. It has NOTHING to do with race, Jeremy just won't get the star calls from the refs and won't be the pg we need in the clutch moments because its not in his nature. I don't think another coach would make any difference unless his name was Phil.
I'm hoping that that this year, with the addition of Howard and with what the whole team was saying during the off-season about working on defense, that Harden would put in a lot more effort on that end. He's shown it in spurts, but the real problem here is that he's been injured since the start of the season. Until that problem goes away, it's hard to know if it's an effort issue or if it's a pain management issue. Hopefully when Harden comes back he's 100%, and then we can clearly see whether or not he's just being a lazy %#$ on defense. At that point, if McHale doesn't bench him for players who will at least put some effort in on the defensive end, I'd be more than comfortable calling him out for not managing Harden (or the team) well in that regard. One of a coach's few meaningful tools on an NBA team is player minutes. If McHale can't or won't manage them properly to promote (or clamp down on) certain behaviors, then that's a failure on his part. I can understand not wanting to treat every problem as a nail if all you have is a hammer, but McHale had an entire season last year to do everything short of cutting Harden's minutes. At some point he needs to at least try it out, or he's doing the whole team a disservice.
You can criticize Harden's effort on defense and I won't disagree, but I strongly disagree with the "lazy" comment. The guy is not lazy. He expends a tremendous amount of energy doing the primary thing we got him for... his offense. You probably meant lazy on defense, and I disagree there, as well. I think he needs to improve in that area a hell of a lot. No doubt about that, but considering that he's been playing hurt, I don't blame him as much for his D, or lack of it, as I would were he healthy. McHale has been playing him too many minutes, and it's hard to get a guy like Harden to come out, but that's McHale's job, and if he has failed, it's managing minutes. He needs to take a hard look at how he been dealing out minutes, and his rotations. With Harden, especially his minutes, which dovetails with the rotations, of course. Get him healthy and cut back his minutes, and perhaps he'll not only play better offensively, but have the energy to expend on the defensive end, where I agree that he has everything needed to be an outstanding defender. Everything except the "want to," which I don't equate with "lazy." It's McHale's job to instill that in him on that end of the court, and he could start by not running James into the ground. We can win without Harden playing 40 minutes a game, and he's half a minute below that, which is rediculous.
Why are people slamming Steve Kerr? Because he made a trade for Shaq, and some other perceived bad trades? If result mean anything, Pheonix made the conference final after he stood up to D'antoni and let him walk. Slam that! Kerr as a GM is head and shoulder above MJ and Isiah. And he's plenty smart to walk away from that job choosing a better life style.
I meant lazy on defense. I have no problem with his offense game aside from too much iso. I certainly hope his poor effort on D was due to injury, but it was like this last year. My view will not be changed until he gives efforts on D for consecutive games. Also, isn't not giving effort a form of laziness if he's not injured?
It's just a comparison to say great players don't translate to great coach or GMs. Kerr was a great player and a good analyst now, but he wasn't good a GM, not saying he was horrible.
First, it's debatable if Harden is top 10 NBA player, he's certainly close. Second, Kobe was the no.1 player of the league for many years with multiple championships until LBJ took over. Someone like that has too much backing from the front office and owner and sponsors. Are you honestly comparing Harden to Kobe that way? Harden certainly has potential to reach Kobe's prime as a player, but I doubt Harden will ever pass Kobe prime "influence". With a few championships, maybe. No coach can control how a top 10 NBA player behaves on the floor? How about Popovich? And I don't think it takes a coach like Popovich to correct Harden.
If I remember correctly, McHale benched him once last year. That was it. We rely too much on Harden to create in the offense to not play him. McHale needs Harden to play to hide that he does not have a go to play in the offense system. McHale is a decent coach, maybe even above average in the league, but he's not a championship caliber coach.
Funny that RA was Morey's choice but Morey didn't leave when RA left. Morey is not going anywhere. DM should have been the Executive of the Year in the NBA last season and he should definitely be the executive of the year this season. Look at how he completely transformed a team that had no all-stars into a team with two superstars (D12 & Harden) and a bunch of up and coming talent (CP25, TJones) and one of the deepest benches in the league (Asik, Lin, AB). And he did all of that with no top 10 draft picks. Your post was a big joke.
Kerr is a great spot up shooter. You are being generous on your evaluation of him as player. He is a far better GM than some fans might think. His record speaks for itself.
I don't agree that McHale is an above average coach. I have seen him being outcoached by some decidedly average coaches as well as rookie coaches way to often.
And your lying eyes will deceive you always. How can 10-5 be called anything but above average? How can last season be called anything but above expectations?
Although I still disagree he's a good GM, I do have to say I may have used him incorrectly in this context. He's not as great of a player, or as bad of a GM to be compared to MJ and Isiah.
I do agree with this McHale deserves the entire season to show what he has. No more excuses. He has the talent around him and we have a training camp. Why are we calling the OP a lover of Lin? I think your post kind of just feeds into the OP's point. He just mentioned Lin because he noticed that ever since jeremy joined the team it has become a lot harder to critisce mcHale because people just dismiss the OP's opinion as being a lin lover which is what you are doing right now. The OP has been a member of this board long before Lin was on this team. Just because the OP thinks that one of McHales failings as head coach is not starting Lin doesn't make his opinion less relevant. The way you responded to the OP makes me see why the OP was right in his initial post.
