James Harden opposed to JVG being the new HC of the Rockets

He's doughy relative to NBA guards. LeBron can take punishment. He's strong. He's also lean. Jordan could take punishment. He was strong. He was also very lean. People can take physical punishment and be lean. It takes a lot of effort and discipline to be lean and strong like many of the all-time greats.

 

Never said it was the only thing important. I'm saying for some all-time greats, the cardio conditioning was placed in the same level of importance as their iso game skillsets.

 

The positives are that JVG is very bright, he will work very hard, he has excellent connections through out the game and his teams are always prepared.

The negatives are that he hasn't been a head coach in this league in 15 years, that he never was all that great at making adjustments and when he last was coaching he was not very flexible at all and did not develop young players.

I have seen a lot made of Van Gundy being too old........ he isn't young at 58 years old, but he could still coach over a decade theoretically and is only about a decade older than some of the younger candidates like Silas.

 

That's nice.

Harden doesn't miss that many games. I'd say his conditioning is fine. It's basketball, not a beauty contest. Lebron doing national TV interviews shirtless, if you're into that sort of things; no judgement here.

 

His endurance is great in terms of not getting injured. He is one of the strongest guards in the league and takes on physical punishment well. His cardio conditioning isn't hence why we are often stuck with such a stagnant slow moving offense.

 

I work in media. For those of you who don't, I just want to make clear that 1) we don't write "fake news" (reporters actually have sources), but 2) this particular story is classic hype. Anonymous speculation is being passed around as something Harden said or believes. When I look at this quote, I see a writer filling out a story with a quote from some guy he talked to, who conveys no basis for his speculation and might never have even spoken with Harden.

If the quote had any basis — e.g. that the source had spoken with Harden or had said to the reporter that he had it from somebody who had spoken with Harden — the sentence would have conveyed that.

 

I don't think people are calling the article fake news. I think they're calling the idiot OP fake news for his terrible thread title. The article is pretty clear that "some random guy guesses Harden doesn't want JVG to be the coach because he guesses Harden doesn't want to practice a lot and guesses that JVG will want to practice a lot." The fake news is reading that quote and writing a title that says Harden is opposed to JVG.

 

Yes, this is obviously not information within the Rockets orginization so it's a pretty irellevent article honestly. Not "fake news" but definitely not "worthwhile news". Just some executive's opinion.

 

Of course he is. He's hardheaded!!!!

 

You say that, but there are a lot of people in this thread that did not read the article or even the quote, and only read the title. Like the poster right above me, for example. That's a problem. The thread should be deleted by a moderator or they should change the thread title.

 

Right. Sorry, I'm not being clear when I use the word "story." I'm talking about the way this quote is being passed around. That happens a lot with political articles, too. I see people passing around stuff they heard on Facebook that's pulled from some out-of-context excerpt, and pretty soon it has taken on a life of its own.

 

Agree the the thread title is misleading. Though I think a simple edit "Executive from outside the Rockets orginization believes..." is sufficient. That would make it not misleading but then it would also make it a worthless thread

 

What do you make of it when reporters put ellipses in the middle of an attention-grabbing sourced quote, especially when those ellipses were likely mentioning other people.

Eric Pincus (the writer) is one of BimaThug's favorite capologists to quote. He's also a big Lakers fan, lives in LA and covers them now for bleacher report, so he's like the combination of Bima and Clutch. When he puts an ellipses in the middle of this sourced quote, I can't help wonder why:

"James [Harden] ain't playing for [Van Gundy]," the former executive said. "It's a player's league ... [Van Gundy] is going to want to practice every day."
​

Is it because he wants to eliminate unimportant elaboration, or is it because that elaboration changes the story too much.

If that ellipses was mentioning players, then likely Pincus did not want to include them in this article, lest it distract from his focus on Harden. Lebron and Kawaii are clearly the top candidates for missing players within that ellipses. "It's a players league, guys like Lebron and Kashi" [ellipses]. Guys like Lebron and Kawliflower do what? (Lebron certainly had plenty of opportunity to pick JVG as a coach multiple times. Kawhi is the biggest load mgmt diva in the league.)

So, not only is the writer doing what you suggest, but that Lakers fan maybe withheld something key to the quote, which would have led to the conclusion that actually "No Superstars want to play for JVG." imo, that turns the article to a completely JVG focus.

 

PRECISELY why JVG might be justexactly the coach they need.

Although, to be fair, this is someone else saying what JH would think....he might be totally fine with it. As I've stated in other post battle posts, I didn't see JH as the problem. He was hustling, playing pretty good D most of the time, etc. What some saw as 'passive' against LA after game 1 was, I think, him simply passing out of double teams, as he should do. If JH being double teamed is a better option than someone else not covered, that's not a JH problem, that's a DM issue.

 

It's definitely not a only a Harden problem but the issue is that doubling Harden is easy and it's easy for defenses to readjust after he passes out of the double because he just stands there. Watch when someone like Curry passes off a double and see what he does.

 

I want a coach that is good at X’s and O’s along with in-game adjustments, and, just as important, develops a killer instinct on this team. I’m sick and tired of the Rockets jacking around against lesser teams or when they get big leads along with not having the requisite energy or intensity in big games.

I want someone that wants to rip the hearts of the Rockets’ opponents out and stomp on them until they lose the will to fight. If you want to be a championship team, you have to be able to put teams away when they are on the mat.

 

When I put ellipses in a sentence like that one, right after a "said," it's because I don't want to have to put another "said" after it. I have three quotes I want to use there, and I just used a "said" to separate the first two, so I switch to ellipses to separate the next two.

Sorry for the boring theory. I also think that in general the simplest explanation is the most likely, so I favor that in this case, too.

 

me too. but, "superstars don't want to play for JVG" is an established story, I've seen before. And no coincidence, it's the story about Thibs and SVG, too. So, it's somewhat a boring story, and my "boring theory."

 

"No nonsense" coach...like Jim Boylen! My way or the highway!

FOH.

Yeah, give me the tactician in TODAYS NBA.

 

It will always be a long time since JVG coached... till he actually coaches again.

At this point, the Rockets... and their players... need to decide if they want to try all out to win it all. They've gone through the motions and gotten by with a sheer amount of talent... but they really haven't strained themselves with a "win at all cost" mentality that drives the truly elite of the game (namely, Lebron).

Not even sure if any member of the current team even has that mentality. I know JVG would bring a semblance of a killer instinct and immediate accountability to those players who were either lackadaisical or just weren't in-it-to-win-it. If we don't have players that want to buy into that sort of mentality, I'm not expecting this team to ever break through with the current core.