Van Gundy's 3rd best scoring option was Luther Head. He started Clarence Weatherspoon in the playoffs. His primary x-factor was Ryan Bowen. Adelman gets here and there's Scola's and Artest's and Lowry's running around like it's ****ing Christmas morning. I like Adelman. Great coach. So is JVG.
We are all born ignorant, but you my friend seem to be working hard at staying stupid. Yao said himself if he had JVG as his coach to start he would got back on the plane. Yes JVG had Yao work hard. He made him play the game exactly the way DMo does. Watch the film. It don't lie.Shaq never had to play the game like that. No true big ever did. Yeah playing year round hurt but he never played D in the summer like he did under JVG and his feet never had problems until Van Gundy started pushing him. All that pounding and hard stops and starts killed Yao's feet. JVG did make all his players play hard on defense. He gets that but without Yao his defense was nothing and it was easy to see when Yao went out.
Yeah and his first and second where Yao and TMac. That's all world power. Take away the scoring of TMac and Van Gundy wouldn't have won 30 games. Okay I won't argue I know some of you people love JVG and he is a good citizen of Houston and I really like him as an announcer. But as coach he is great as long as he never coaches here again.
George "First Round Exit" Karl :grin: 1a. Hollins 1b. SVG By some miracle he comes available: Tom Thibodeau Others: Nate McMillan? George Karl? Avery Johnson? Mark Jackson? (If fired?) Alvin Gentry? Lawrence Frank?(Finalist with McHale) Oh what I'd give to trade for a Rick Carlisle.
You're totally off-base... and btw, he did win more than 30 games his first year here without T-mac. JVG turned Yao into a legitimate/unstoppable low-post threat. He also had a rag-tag/un-athletic bunch playing legitimate top tier defense. I'd have concerns about that style wearing the team down throughout a long regular season... but I have utmost confidence that you need that sort of tenacity/effort/defensive intensity/offensive half-court execution come playoff time. Right now, our free-styling/run-gun/no-structure/no-defense team is being exposed on every level. Hell, this team may not beat any of the Eastern conference opponents (let alone the west) with this style in the playoffs.
With all due respect OMR....It was playing 24-7 all year in the NBA/China that killed him. No to JVG. I love him, but he's not it. Bring back Adelman! Les needs to buck up and mend things with the Monocle as he is the man to coach the contender we'll be after the moves in the offseason.
Yeah, because McGrady's replacement would have been Jon Barry during JVG's era... JVG did plenty with a weak and injured NY team. They overachieved and lost in the finals. I'll take a finals appearance over 22 wins in a row. That was sweet though. Yay for good memories.
Lionel Hollins hates the analytic side of the game so I'd say it's a slim chance he'd be hired here by Morey. Stan Van Gundy would probably be the top target of Morey along with Lawrence Frank.
You constantly remind me why you're on ignore. You slipped into senility a long time ago, bruh. OH NO, playing defense ruined Yao's career! Yeah, good luck selling that one.
Oh no he had him play defense, the horror. He should just have stayed on the offensive side of the court, and let the defense play 4 on 5. You know that Yao played his most minutes per game when Rick was the coach right. That was after Yao already had a couple of injuries. JVG didn't destroy Yao, how many healthy player of his size do you see in the NBA? there is a reason for that. I would love to have JVG back as a coach, I like defensive basketball a lot better than the run and gun we are playing now. With players like harden, Parsons and Howard we will have enough offensive fire power.
Yeah yeah yeah, you've been carrying this torch for JVG for 8 years. Let it go his never going to be a Rocket again. It's not like he's a bad guy. I think the stress of coaching had him go a little batty. His much better now and I really like him as a person and Houstonian. I say that sincerely.
(re: Hollins) Yup, unfortunately. Morey would have to take a step back/back seat. Let the coach coach. Let the coach decide who should and shouldn't be playing. Don't interfere. Yeah, unlikely.
8 years? Lol, go look at my post history. Good luck finding the last time I spoke about JVG other than today. Alzheimer's? I don't want JVG (although he's a vast improvement over what we have), I want Phil.
On a completely serious note, we should only hire JVG (and I love that guy as a coach) as an assistant coach, but make him the highest paid assistant in the world. Whatever it takes to lure him out of broadcasting , hrie him his personal sushi chef or something. McHale wants to blame this on Sampson leaving? Fine, give him an assistant coach that is even tougher and better at defence.
It's no horror. It's just Yao's feet couldn't handle what he was having to do for JVG. Once they snapped it was over. Perhaps if JVG knew that he would snapp he wouldn't have him do so much switching. If Shaq switched like that his career would have been cut much shorter too. That's all I'm saying.
