McHale and that coaching staff will not be around to see this team win anything significant. He looks like an inept coach and is defined as thus. in·ept /iˈnept/ adjective adjective: inept1. having or showing no skill; clumsy. "the inept handling of the threat" synonyms: incompetent, unskillful, unskilled, inexpert, amateurish;
Was it used against the Jazz? Against the Kings? (Twice?) Against the 76ers? Against the Kobe-less Lakers? Against the Thunder during the team's 2nd half collapse? To be fair, McHale looks better when Harden isn't here. If we can win without Harden, can't we win by playing Harden LESS than 40 mpg? Why enable Harden's iso-hero ball? Why lean on that crutch so much? Show some backbone, McHale. Hypotheticals: ------------ McHale: (in April, after a first-round flameout) Hey, Daryl, well, we sure gave it a go. Boy! That was a tough one. Morey: Yeah. Look, Kevin, you know we love you. McHale: Really? That's great. Because I'd like to finish what I started--- Morey: Uh, Kevin, we're thinking of moving in another direction. __________ McHale: (in May, after we win a playoff series) Hey, Daryl, how's it going? Morey: I see you brought your agent with you. McHale: Daryl, I'd like a raise. Morey: Uh, Kevin, we're thinking of moving in another direction...
No that is silly, the context wouldn't be appropriate after a loss. Unless it was some sort of biazzro clock that is always right, but wrong twice a day.
The Key to McHale being a better coach and not getting fired is really simple to some degree. We obviously know that he isn't going to turn into some X and O's genius over the next few years, but what he can learn to do is get out of the way of the players and himself. The best way for him to do this is by: 1) Get him a better assistant coach to teach the DEFENSE. Whatever the philosophy is, whoever is teaching it, needs to go. They seem to have no consistent defensive philosophy other than "play harder with energy". But no idea how to defend screens, PnR, box out, etc. 2) Run a set rotation pattern and lineup that never changes with the exception of injuries and fouls. McHale's experimentation with different lineups more often than not makes the Rockets perform worse. He gets lucky occassionally, but overall his lineups and substitution patterns are usually horrendous. His lineup should simply be: a) Starters: PG-Lin SG-Harden SF-Parsons PF-TJones C-Howard b) Bench: PG-Bev/Ab SG-Garcia/Brewer SF-Cassipi PF-DMo C-Asik/Smith Granted that there are injuries/fouls and then you need to make adjustments, but if he not only stuck to these lineups and positions, but without injury or fouls concerns, played all the starters between 35 minutes minimum to 40 minutes maximum, and let only those backups play their actual positions, then the team would have better defined roles and understand what their jobs/roles are more easily. This team plays too many players out of position, which weakens their effectiveness and strengths. I am not in favor of the small ball lineups, even though I know that sometimes they perform well. Overall, it weakens the team in the long run to me for the playoffs for short term possible success. Our players are young and our coaches not experienced enough to play with different lineups like more experienced better coaches are. Even if McHale ran no plays, barely called time outs, had no strategy, etc., if he just ran our rotations and substitution patterns according to this, with the talent on this team, we would still win 55 or more games this season and any season that these are our players. That's how much talent we actually have right now. They are just UNDERPERFORMING due to being mishandled and over/under played or played out of position. 3) If McHale wanted to really positively impact this team, he would have JH and LIn run PnRs with each other, with DH and with TJones 80% or more of the time. This would give Parsons wide open 3s and many opportunities to slash to the basket for layups. It would put TREMENDOUS pressure on opposing defenses for 48 minutes, assuming that he is also smart enough to manage the rotations to always have either Harden or Lin on the floor to run the offense. I agree with those that say McHale may be good enough to get us to the promise land, but that would ONLY be possible if he got out of his own way and did some basic things like manage his players' egos and expecatations. Overall still, McHale will NEVER be a top 10 coach in this league. That's what you really want if you are aiming for a title or titles.
Thanks, lol. But I don't think McHale will be inviting any posters from CFs to his home for a sitdown talk. Especially ones from this thread. I know that you know this already...I'm just going along with the ride.
Sigh. A very, very exasperated sigh. Have you learned nothing? Are you dense? 1: Les has always hired the best coaching staff money can buy. McHale has plenty of support in his decision making process, and is backstopped by someone named Morey. 2: McHale is the ultimate player coach. This is partially due to the respect he commands from his players. Even Harden and Howard understand that as players they will never ever be as good as McHale was. In addition McHale has every player short of Asik happy and contented. Are there any doubts that the Rockets squad is happy, contented and ready and willing to compete? 3: Behind every McHale move there is a shadow. That shadow is Morey's. Is there a smarter and more knowledgeable person to backstop a head coaches decisions? 4: in case you have not noticed the Rockets are playing great. As in "we are going for the chip great". Asik coming back just adds an immense amount of talent that McHale can draw from. 5: Your wet dream of Harden and Lin running the P&R together works about one time a game. The opponents bigs just collapse and shut it down. In the era of the 2.9 defense plays like that are gizmo plays. 6: McHale's rotations recently have been just this side of flawless. It was natural that it would take half a season to cement the rotations with a roster featuring 3 new starters. Are you suggesting that McHale can wave his hand and make rotations function perfectly with no court time? Anyway I could go on. You get the drift. Your analysis is incredibly flawed and should be withdrawn.
I agree with everything you said except the first point. Morey and Les knew it was a rebuilding team and any coach they hired was just a stopgap. Les liked McHale and he was an above average people's guy and player's coach. He passed the test in what they were looking for at the time. But then we get Harden and Howard and now we are a legitimate contender. Fortunately McHale has improved and even more fortunate is Morey has taken a lot of his duties away in determining the best offensive strategies and defensive schemes. Still McHale deserves credit for implementing them and handling the players seemingly well. As I said I agree with all your other points and as one who wasn't always crazy about Coach before, I think he is doing a good job now. I see no point in this thread. Fire McHale for who. The only available coaches that I think would immediately help the team are already on the staff.
Good enough! McHale with the Rockets has never failed to live up to expectations. I believe a lot of the credit goes to the assistant coaches, but I certainly am not a good enough analyst to evaluate those people. The Rockets are currently in a perfect place in the playoff standings and I do have to give McHale some credit for it. Hopefully we both will find this season to be a great one!
Dense? Just because others don't share in this belief that McHale is a good coach? McHale's salary isn't even top 10 in the NBA. Adelman's was. McHale's? Is not. Try another one. Which is why Harden (and Lowry) walk/ed all over him. Morey: "Basically, I need a coach to rubber-stamp my "smalls-jack-threes, bigs-play-D" vision. Remember 'Moneyball', when Billy Beane is trying to get Art Howe to play Hatty at first base and Howe asks 'what about his fielding', and Beane says, 'His fielding does not matter!'? I don't want to run into that here." McHale: "I have no basketball vision anyway. Where do I sign?" Yes, they're playing well now. They do still tend to coast against weaker teams. I'll give McHale credit: I think the team would be actually playing better overall if a certain star shooting guard were a little more team-oriented, but that situation might resolve for the better. Asik? If he isn't traded now, he'd better get with the program; that's a problem that should have gone away last summer. True enough. Ack....ack...ack....PTOOEY! That one went down like a bad oyster. And looked no different coming up. Hell, the only reason we ever found out Terrence Jones can play is because McHale's hand was forced. Dmo, too, for that matter. If not for Asik's "injury" and Greg Smith's injury , Morey would be fielding calls from teams offering 2nd-round picks for Jones and Dmo. "And should be withdrawn." Love the self-righteousness. McHale has improved, I'll give him that. And I think we'd be even better if Harden would play more with the team and if the Asik situation will be resolved (stay or go).
I would like to elaborate on one of Morey strategies McHale has implemented. The Rockets currently shoot the fewest bad shots in the NBA. By bad shot I mean the mid ranged jumper. It might be surprising to some fans, but LMA, perhaps the poster boy for efficient mid-ranged jump shots, scores almost 0.2 PPS less than the average Rockets player does overall. How big is that difference? 8 points per game. The difference between being a top seed and missing the playoffs.
LOL. Have you re-watched the recent Rockets games? Harden iso is rapidly disappearing. His defense is also improving dramatically. He is learning to trust his teammates (especially Howard). Dense? Certainly. As opposed to having an understanding of how and why the NBA and its franchises work. I could have put it much more bluntly. Withdrawn? Is there any point of that post that resembles reality? I obviously missed it so would you kindly point it out to me?
lol why is this thread getting bumped after a 6 game win streak?! If we win the championship with mchale as the coach (this year or in the next 3 years) this thread is gonna be hilarious
If this team actually wins a championship, it won't be because McHale helped. It'll be because he stayed out of the way.
Isn't that the primary job of a NBA head coach? Make players happy and stay out of the way. Coaches never are on the court, and that is where games are decided. Or would you like D'Antonio who is as inflexible as a steel bar? What is your beef?
Exactly. And even if we win the championship this year, we would have won it in a much better style had the coach been someone else. You don't judge a good/bad coach solely by wining a chip, you judge it by whether the coach can make the best out of his team -- which McHale so far has done a subpar job, to say the least.
