Part of why players love him is his easy positive attitude. He has an eye for ability. He knows what players can and can't do, but he accentuates the positive. After Dorsey was missing FTS in the endgame which helped lead to one loss, McHale said at the next practice that he was not worried about Dorsey's FTs. McHale: Dorsey made 10 in a row. He told me, and I said, "Show me." Then he made 10 in a row again. That straightforward but easy way he interacts and challenges players makes them feel understood yet wanting to grow tougher as a player as well.
He's on with Charlie right now on 790. Pretty good interview. Said Canaan came back too early from his ankle injury and didn't look good in games or practices. Said he looks a lot better now so hopefully he'll get some burn soon. He was really disappointed that we had to dump Black. Doesn't seem like he was happy we chose him over Dorsey but didn't say it point blank -- just reading between the lines. T Jones is running and looking better. McHale seems to be excited about this development so any concern that Jones' injury is a season/career ender shouldn't exist. Has been talking to KPap and DMo about minutes. They are understanding that minutes will be limited with the newer players acquired. Josh Smith needs to stop his pass-first mentality when he drives and look to score first. Smith is being too unselfish (this is actually a good thing since it proves he's willing to adjust his game, but he's overcompensating right now).
^^ I appreciate the recap. Was at work unable to listen in, but I've listened to nearly all of his interviews this season. I just hate how most the time he states the blatantly obvious in his interviews. Good to hear that he shed some light on the Canaan issue. I know a bunch of us were concerned as to why Isaiah wasn't playing.
<iframe width="670" height="377" scrolling="no" src="https://media.iheart.com/player/embed.html?autoStart=false&useFullScreen=true&siteid=589&omu=http://media.ccomrcdn.com/media/station_content/589/2015/01/mp3/default/the_matt_thomas_show_01-29-15_0_1422558923.mp3&artist=No Title/Artist&mediaTitle=Rockets, Coach Kevin McHale, Marshawn Lynch, Super Bowl&osu=http://img.ccrd.clearchannel.com/media/mlib/589/2014/08/default/pallilo_0_1407762390.jpg&overlayImg=http://img.ccrd.clearchannel.com/media/mlib/589/2014/08/default/pallilo_0_1407762390.jpg&startButtonColor=0xA33335&share=http://www.sports790.com/media/podcast-the-drive-home-with-charlie-pallilo/rockets-coach-kevin-mchale-marshawn-lynch-25774024/" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" ></iframe> Interview starts @ 134:15
Not all of it. Harden's game five Tough game. We ask James to do a lot and he has the ball in his hands a lot. You need to have the ball in your hands a lot to have that many turnovers. He played poorly, nothing else to say. He had a bad game. James has the ball for us an awful lot. We need to get a guy that can take play-making off of James' plate so you can get him off the ball and let him catch rhythm spot up shooting...there's lots of ways to catch rhythm in the NBA but didn't seem like James caught rhythm during that game. Just one of those nights I guess. Clint Capela? A lot of it is weight room, technique on his shot, FTs, post moves. Diligent kid. Experience of D-League, how'd you feel in games, how do you mix & match with this guy. Terrence Jones? Ability to play-make, driving, attacking, creating shots, he gotta a good skill set. Don't be so down on yourself. Here's your skill set and how you fit, here's how you can become consistent, weight room, his body, improving on that. Terrence was down. The kid played 1 and quarter season of NBA basketball. He got a tremendous chance to be a good player. I knew his mood and how down he was. How big of a concern is HAR if all your bigs are bad FT shooters? We can't have it. I told that to Daryl. If there are 100 poss., every poss. is worth a point, if you shoot 50%, all that stuff works out well from 30K feet. We're up 5, they can't foul from 3:30 down to 2:00 in the clock and to make 1 of 2 is not enough. You gotta make FTs. Not being able to go big hurt us. We had multiple guys struggling. D-Mo should become better. Honestly, bad FT shooting at this age, in the NBA, it's not mechanical and nothing physical. It's all mental. You shoot so many FTs and we shoot so many as a team and spend so much time on it. When you can do it on a Thursday morning practice and can't do it Friday night, that has nothing to do with practice. Our guys practice their tales off. It's more mental than it is physical. Mediocre 3pt shooting team. Would you love to add a gunner off your bench? A knock down shooter, everyone wants one. That would be fantastic. A guy who can get downhill and create for others. Those are the two things we can really use. A big man who can shoot FTs, we have to work on that from within. 60%, 50%, that's not good enough. Those are areas we can improve on. We have to be better at defensive rebounding. There's a laundry list. No one has a perfect team. Cleveland & Golden State are not perfect. I've never played on a perfect team or been around one. You have to make do with some limitations. You have Beverley, Brewer & Smith, only so much you can do with other moves. You can't get everything. We prioritized everything. There were FAs we looked at that are available. We looked at our guys. Signing our guys is our number one concern. We'd love to bring over Sergio Llull. Anytime you have rights that you feel can help you is huge. Let's say Beverley goes somewhere, we can't re-spend his money. Signing a Sergio Llull would be huge if we can get that done. From now until everything gets signed, Daryl threw 3-4 things at me, do you like this guy or that guy? You're always prioritizing. They know. Les sat in the meetings with us. He knows what the priority is. We'll try to fill a few holes. <iframe width="670" height="377" scrolling="no" src="https://media.iheart.com/player/embed.html?autoStart=false&useFullScreen=true&mid=26091757&siteid=589&startButtonColor=0xA33335&share=http://www.sports790.com/media/podcast-sportstalk790-spotlight-790interviews/sportstalk790-spotlight-kevin-mchale-26091757/" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" ></iframe> http://www.sports790.com/media/podc...portstalk790-spotlight-kevin-mchale-26091757/
thanks as always J.R…. for those of us outside of houston, your sharing the local stuff is invaluable
A little surprised McHale just openly brought up Lull coming over, sounds like that's a priority for the offseason then.
This sounds alot like not reaching to keep Bev, only for right price. McHale makes it seem liek Llull is a commodity if Bev leaves. Interesting. I don't know if it's an upgrade per say. We need some more little touchups.
No one, not one person, can accurately K-N-O-W what a guy will be when he's playing 'at home' overseas. Llull may be exactly what the Rox need; or he may not be strong enough mentally like Rodriguez and KillBill and others before them. I'm ready to see if DM the GM is right, he usually is. Of course until he walks through the door I'm still of the belief his rights go to Raps along with PapaNick + ? for Lowry. But, whadda I know?
I suppose I trust Morey overall, but McHale being equally high on Llull makes me feel better. I'd still prefer someone NBA-proven in a perfect world, but -- yeah.
The inflection in McHale's voice when he mentioned how signing Lull would "be huge" really gave the impression that he is pretty high on the kid.
The question about Llull is whether he will actually sign. Seems like his life and his pay rate in Europe are pretty good. Is the MLE going to be enough to entice him? Will the Rockets have the full non-tax payer MLE to sign him?
Interesting thanx jr! So there are 3-4 names the Rockets are seriously looking at. Doesnt look likely that Bev stays.
It's so hard to obtain a NBA proven PG/SG. I am not too keen on Llull, but if he can prove to a be a solid fit, it would be great for us. It seems like he is not interested in coming to the NBA, and the Rockets are trying to convince him to change his mind. This might be suggestive that McHale and possibly Morey too aren't convinced that any of the potential PG's at the 18th pick would be able to contribute much this year.
It goes back to your question of how much does Morey actually value a playmaking guard aka at what cost? In my eyes, what Llull can bring to the table is easily worth more than Josh Smith @ >$2.5m
