You know... I hear this, but the more I ask around about the various candidates, and listen to what they have to say... Hammon is moving up the list for whom I feel should be the Rockets head coach.... if I had to personally hire someone right now, it would be Becky Hammon and it has nothing to do with her being the first woman NBA head coach. In fact that is just a distraction, Hammon just has a lot of very positive qualities.. and she also will bring a different way of looking at the game than a man and that can be a real advantage. Hammon is in her early 40’s, extremely successful. She is the lead assistant in San Antonio and has coached the Spurs summer league to a title. She has been called the mist prepared coach he has ever had by Pop. She apparently has also helped make adjustments during the game...
The league would bend over backwards for her to succeed .... Rockets end up on the right side of the Referee's calls for once.
Sssoooooo what makes any of these better than Sam Cassell? How do we know Becky is get at X's and O's? How do we know Sam is not? What catapults these people to the top? Rocket River
Sam Cassell gets Associate Head Coaches inserted over him every which way. It's so strange. It's like he never wanted to take the next step. Becky is a higher ranking coach on a better ran organization. Who knows who is better. If I had to guess. Becky will be a more successful head coach than Sam Cassell. I have no idea. Whoever gets the job in Houston Indy and Philly are going to look like they are all time greats because each team is already a great team. It doesn't matter who we hire for the regular season. Any one of these potential hires aren't going to turn the team into bottom dwellers. The question becomes, who can use the regular season as a learning experience to have certain players able to contribute in the post-season? MDA turned the regular season into an 82 game playoff series. Never tinkering unless it's an extended break like All Star. Never making lineup changes unless there are injuries. Danuel House was objectively better as the starter than Eric. Eric just didn't fit with that group. MDA for some reason couldn't just look at the standings and wins and losses with each player in the starting five and the +/- of each lineup and see that. Bruno sat on the bench from February - September. every mistake he ever made as a Rocket last season was due to him being uncomfortable on the court. He never was given a shot. He and Hart were the only players with size we had and we refused to use them even during meaningless games because MDA wanted to keep the narrative that small can win. We need a coach who can allow the team to lose a few regular season games while relying on young guys in crucial moments. We need a coach to use the regular season as an education and not as a test.
Sam has a teacher mentality. I think he will definitely help alot of players . .. play better including Harden Rocket River
Honestly, I have no idea. He could be great. I don't like his track record (countless head coaching interviews and countless big name guys cutting him in line on the Clippers bench) and feel that most love him here because he means so much to this organization. He definitely deserves a shot and if it's here, then I'd be happy to see how it plays out. I don't see Doc Rivers as a top of the league coach and think blowing that many series leads is a stain on a resume. Cassell is attached to Doc and maybe when he becomes a coach it's not the same or maybe it is. I trust Pop's tree and I trust coaches who are running a similar system or something involving motion. Stephen Silas (Dallas Mavericks Associate head coach) coached an all time offense, Becky / Will Hardy/ Ime Udoka all coached under Popovich and have garnered his immense respect, Chris Finch unleashed Jokic and was an early adopter to our style, and Kenny Atkinson turned a bunch of unheralded guys into borderline all-stars (Lavert, Allen, Dinwiddie, Joe Harris) and one Lakers reject into a max player (D'Angelo Russel) and ran a fast pace offense with lots of threes. I personally don't think a drastic change is philosophy is needed. That's why I'm not huge on Ty Lue, Sam Cassell, Jeff Van Gundy but I'm not hiring the coach so we'll see where the organization goes.
