Fans always overreact. The fact of the matter is that the Rockets are not one of the top three teams in the league. The Rockets are a good team. Probably a top ten team. But the team as currently constructed, just isn't good enough to beat a team like Golden State. Morey has some work to do. This team just doesn't have the players to be the top them in the league. The Rockets are good, but they aren't the best. People want to blame McHale, and I understand that, because fans always blame the coach. But just look at some of the players on this team. Have other coaches won a championship with players like Howard, and Josh Smith? These are players that cause problems every place they have played. These are the players that Morey wants McHale to win with? Really? Patrick Beverley is a flawed player. Ariza is a flawed player. Howard is flawed. Josh Smith is flawed. I'm not sure why fans expect the Rockets to beat a team like Golden State, when we just don't have the players to do it.
I don't think people realize how ridiculously good the Warriors really are this year. They are head and shoulders above the rest of the league right now. They rank #1 in offensive efficiency and FG percentage. They ALSO rank #1 in FG % allowed from a defensive perspective. Their point differential is off the charts. And it's not even close when you look at the next teams in line on these lists. Stop and think about that for a moment. It's extremely rare that a coaching staff has the talent and personnel to be as efficient on the offensive end as they are on the defensive end. But the Warriors have managed to do it. It's not a surprise to me that they have destroyed the Rockets this season. It's not that the Rockets are a terrible team; the Warriors are just that much better. I will agree that the Rockets core weakness of turning the ball over and lack of offensive movement make the Warriors look even better. If you constantly turn the ball over against this team, they will indeed own you. But give credit to their defense...it's that good. The Warriors lock down the perimeter and have a guy named Bogut that they'll take their chances with on Howard inside. They clog every passing lane and have the quickness to match up with anyone laterally and can switch pick and rolls. They're just friggin good. The Rockets need a primary ball handler that's a scoring threat other than James Harden. And there's no question that they need more movement on offense WITHOUT turning the ball over.
Perspective is this team with championship aspirations was brutally humiliated twice within 4 days by the same team. That never feels good. McHale wanted Howard on this team. No rewriting of the narrative. He's teaching him how to post up. He asked him to be a dominant player. But now he needs to put Howard and the team in the best position to succeed. Which is pnrs and lobs all day. No more of these awkward post-up moves.
THIS. THIS. THIS. My expectations at this point are championship or failure. The treadmill of disappointment and failure in the post-season is unacceptable for a team that tries to think of itself as a well-run organization, especially when you can begin to measure that disappointment in decades. I will grant a small pass to the team this season because it's a historically great, perhaps unprecedentedly challenging Western Conference, but the fact is that the modern fan is a lot more educated than the fans of yesteryear. Look at our roster and the contract situations we have and tell me what players are going to be back next year, and what our "rivals" rosters are likely to look like in the coming years. The fact is, we hitched our wagon to the success of Harden and Howard, and it's been a mixed bag. Harden has been an other-worldly, amazing acquisition. Dwight has been acceptable but not spectacular. The rest of our team is actually very good and each pickup seems to have been a good move, but the wheels are starting to fall off as the season is wearing on, and unfortunately it appears that the Rockest are all in this season. The biggest quibble personnel-wise is how thin we are at point guard, but honestly I'm not sure how you solve that without creating a hole in the frontcourt. This is the great unanswered question for how Morey will proceed going into the deadline. But looking at our personnel, it looks pretty great, but the intensity and execution has fallen off significantly since the beginning of the season. People point to fatigue and injury, coaching, and some point to chemistry, particularly after the arrival of Josh Smith. I was hoping it was just fatigue, and that the Brewer/Smith acquisitions would alleviate things, and that definitely seems to have helped. But if they can't really stay competitive with the best team in the league, championship aspirations go out the window, and suddenly you do the math and start to wonder how many more years you're going to have to wait to have a team that's this good again, and that hurts. The city of Houston doesn't have very many laurels to rest on, and a mountain of post-season disappointments to haunt them. If you wanna talk perspective, you're fighting against decades of angst here.
I think that McHale and the coaching staff need to try different personnel in different times of the game. Give K-Pap and Brewer more minutes, take away some of Jet's and even Beverly to put in a distributor. Also, the Rox should shut down Dwight when T-Jones comes back, until Dwight is fully healthy again and that seems like a good idea. T-Jones, D-Mo and Smoove will have to take it to another level and I honestly think they can do that. And also this might sound redundant but GIVE CANAAN A CHANCE! He's a playmaker with scoring ability and isn't terrible defensively. I tend to overreact after every loss like most of us, but these are changes that I believe would help.
I don't mind being disappointed after a loss. But I find the attitude of fans just depressing from a human being disappointing. Fire McHale over and over. Get rid of Howard, Smith, Beverley, Ariza, whoever's not performing well for the last few games. Acting we might as well tank the rest of the season because there's no hope. Forget that plenty of teams have turned the table in the playoffs after regular season beatdowns(Rockets-Spurs 95 anyone?), even if we cannot beat the Warriors, that just means they're better. It just means we need to be better come playoff time. I don't mind if there are discussions of how we can become a team capable of beating the Warriors. Perhaps by getting better players, better defensive schemes, have players play better, etc. But it probably isn't cutting every player not named Harden and fire the coaching staff mid-season.
Exactly. Its not a knee Jerk to point out that McFail is possibly the worst coach in the NBA. We've been pointing that out for years. I don't think anyone ever claimed JVG or RA were the worst even those calling for them to be fired at the time. McFail just sucks.
The Rockets arent very good right now. But some people cant handle the truth and they get mad at anyone who presents them with the truth. We r just ahead of the clippers and spurs anyone with eyes can see a first round exit coming. We would be lucky to get to round 2. We are simply not contenders as constructed.
It's clutchfans.... Not too long ago many of these dudes wanted to trade Harden and were all over Paul George's jock. Some were even saying ridiculous s**t like how much they miss Stacy _ oops, I mean Tracy.
OH! This is definitely worth it's own thread!! This is exactly why after a blowout lose, I don't get on the board til the next morning. That way, the coach & GM have been fired, the team was been traded & Les' in the process of selling the team. Cooler heads are prevailing, even on the "glass half empty" posters that had to drink half a glass of their own pi$$ to get there. I also agree with dobro that this is a generation of media access thing & not just Rockets fans. No, this team isn't perfect; but the morning after usually yields better discussions on the subject.
But are we building a championship team? We have a great shooting guard. But we got him 2 1/2 years ago and are still struggling to surround him with talent. Our supposed superstar center is not playing like one. Maybe he's hurt, but he also is being poorly utilized. Dwight is not a postup guy, yet he and the team insist on using him as one. Where is the improvement at PG? We let Dragic walk 2 years ago and replaced him with Jeremy Lin under Les' orders. Then when that failed, we plucked Bev out of the middle of nowhere but he's obviously not the answer either(especially since he can't stay healthy). We prioritized Melo over Lowry last summer when it was clear we needed a PG way more than a SF who loves to shoot(given that Parsons was still a Rocket at the time). Here we are now still desperately seeking another playmaker in the backcourt. What about the frontcourt? We lost Parsons and replaced him with Ariza who's a good defender, but inferior offensively. Asik was never really replaced. D-Mo has shown a lot of improvement offensively and T-Jones will hopefully be back soon and pick up where he left off, but are either of them the long-term solution at the 4? I doubt it. Smith is just a half-year rental, so he's not even worth discussing. And of course there's the coaching staff. Where is the improvement there? 3 years ago, McHale was having trouble controlling the team as evidenced by their late season collapse which led to them missing the playoffs(despite 96% odds they'd get in). 2 years ago, they collapsed again, this time dropping from the 6th seed to 8th which landed them a first round matchup with the Thunder instead of the Nuggets(who lost to Golden State, BTW). Last year, they collapsed yet again down the stretch with horrible defensive efforts that nearly cost them home court. Now here we are this season and again we're witnessing another stretch of lousy, undisciplined basketball that could quickly drop them in the standings if they don't get it together. How many seasons does this crew get before a change is made there? Cuz according to the owner, he thinks everything is going great in that area.
Decided to check this out. You're not kidding. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=238579&page=49 A sample of posts on this one page alone.
Do you know how many members there are on Clutchfans? Those posts don't even account for 1% of the people. Second Paul George is a damned good player and the fact that the Pacers suck so badly without him is a true indicator. While I never agreed with them I can understand their point of view.
I don't understand what barring trade scenarios have on being a fan of a team. Some of you guys are sensitive. You think because some people wanted to trade Harden that they are not true Rockets fans. While I never wanted to trade him he is just a player when he is gone these people will still be here. Yeah they were wrong about him but a lot of people were right. Most people mad at Mchale were right. We have a whole thread full of trade scenarios, why is that offensive to you?
Well, when you talk about expectations, you really need to think deeper on how your expectation is coming from. Before the season started, when the last image of the Rockets in your head is that shot with 0.9 second left, and with whatever happened in the offseason that almost made Morey as the laughing stock of the league. I hardly believe most people's expectation for the Rockets this year will be championship or bust. Now is it because we are winning more games in the early season due to a weak schedule? Or because we picked up Brewer and Josh Smith and then suddenly changed many people's expectation to championship or bust? Or may even be, because of Harden's offensive outburst made us believe we are having probably the MVP in the league so that we must be very good? I think its all of the above. See that's the reality, this team is actually not as good as many people are expecting now but the real problem is not that, this team is not as good as the players in this team currently expected, that's the real problem. When you think you are so good which you are not, you will not try harder and you will be careless and you will look down on your opponents, hence you will get destroyed. ** ** Harden told his teammates before the game started in Toyota Center last week : "GSW is not even that good of a team, let's go."
