I find your recent attacks on Dream so stupid. Do you guys really think Rudy T would have won Championships without Hakeem? Rudy can't coach!
Rudy T. and Hakeem needed eachother, and they worked well together as a team. Take either one out of the picture, and the Rockets probably would not have won the championships.
Guys who can't coach don't win championships. Rudy T has coached his team to two championships. Therefore, Rudy T can coach.
I second that - the Rockets weren't even favored going into the 1995 playoffs, seeing as how they were aging and ranked rather low, yet Rudy's coaching and the team's play led them to the promised land and a 2nd title that season. A team of players cannot win a title alone - it requires a great coach to lead them there.
Is Gregg Poppovich that good of a coach? Rudy is a suckass coach. Great person. Great Rocket. Gets along great with his players (as far as we've heard). Terrible X's and O's. Terrible substitution patterns. Hasn't shown he can get it done since those days when Hakeem was unstoppable on both ends of the court. Has been thoroughly outcoached in every playoff series since Orlando in '95. Don't get me wrong, I like Rudy. Players seem to like playing for him 'cause he's a 'players coach,' which these days means he doesn't get in thier face. But how productive is that?
Your name suits you well. You must not be up to speed with the game of basketball. Your talking about a hall of fame coach , and a coach who is fixing to win his third championship after rebuilding. Not many coaches have done that if any with the same team.RUDY STAYS!
Well, he won a title in San Antonio, and has kept that aging team propped up for years, even with Duncan, so I'd say not only is he a good coach, but a good GM too. He kept Duncan there and has assisted in rebuilding that team. Rudy T may have his faults - all coaches do - but he is still one of the top coaches in the league and the man who brought Houston two titles a mere 6 and a half years ago. Just like I think people are forgetting how great Grant Hill is because of his injury, I think people are forgetting how good of a coach Rudy T is just because of this losing streak. Funny how you see two polls from ESPN in two days on those two very subjects...and how the sports populous has the foresight to shoot down those two options. If you all think Rudy T is a bad coach - then who would you replace him with, why, and what credentials/experience/knowledge does he have that would make him a better coach? I'm not sure you can come up with any logical answers. Winning cures a lot of ailments, and even another one of the best in Riley is going through turmoil this year. Once everyone is heatlhy, the wins will come, these threads will die, and we all will realize how stupid the mere thought was. But yes, as I said before, he does have his faults and no, he won't be here forever. However, he is the Rockets right now. Support him.
Rudy had all those talents on Dream Team 3 in Olympic down under, they almost got undressed by bunch of European players not good enough to be drafted for NBA.
When you have an improving foreign talent base and a bunch of players who don't feel challenged nor wish to be there, you are setting yourself up for failure. Rudy did the best he could and won the gold medal, even under the circumstances. Plus, it was a bunch of players he had never coached before. No playbook, no organization, and no planning due to lack of time and lack of effort from the players (again, owing to their belief of a cakewalk) will hurt you no matter the opponent. Just like the adage - "on any given day..."
What about Bill Fitch. Was he a good coach? No. But he had some pretty good players in Boston. Rudy is a lousy coach. He's always been a lousy coach. But the Rockets will never fire him because he has convinced most people in Houston, including, apparently, most people here that he is brilliant. The Rockets are one of the worst teams in the league at fundamental basketball. How is Rudy not, at least, partiall responsible for that.
When the Rocks won the 1st championship, they had a grand total of ONE player that was above average. The rest of the team was basically average NBA role players. Rudy milked every ounce of talent from each person to maximize that team. Since that team broke up, Cassel (who was an inexperienced rook back then, mind you) is the only player that maintained any real trade value. I give Rudy a lot of credit for coaching possibly the least talented championship team ever. They played well as a team and with a lot of heart. Year 2 when the season was in the tank 1/2 way through, Rudy pulled the trigger on the Drexler trade and won another championship. That's good coaching too. Dream was invaluable but without Rudy, it would not have happened.
Typical Lame excuses used by Rudy appologists! MJ used to say that Vernon was the one who actually could guard him. Isiah Thomas said once in 1995 that Hakeem Olajuwon was actually equal to "TWO" players, one is Hakeem and one is Olauwon. Otis Thorpe did not have good shooting touch but he really had mucles to ban with at the defense and was a good rebounder. Kenny was actually a great shooter but a defense liability, partially due to Rudy's design on defending pick'n'rolls. Isn't it funny how Rudy's teams can never defend pick'n'rolls? As far as I was concerned Rudy won those two Championships because he actually was coaching 6 on 5. He was LUCKY, just like Houston was. The reason, Hakeem.
I remember a Rockets team that struggled during the season, barely staying around 500 (at a time when many teams were over it). Then, this team suddenly started winning, went to the playoffs, and almost made it to the Western Conference finals. The only difference? Rudy became the new coach. He did something.
Tod The bod - You said it best there, Rockets are probably the worst Fundamental basketball wise team. Listen, I love the rockets. Im always going to love the rockets. Rudy T is a great guy but hes not good at x and os. The rockets had Hakeem, the best player in the nba. He did whatever he wanted to. Now rudy doesnt have that dominant player.. what does he do? Hes lost SERIOUSLY, rudy haters and lovers. The way we run the offense and defense is the biggest joke. Look at the way they stand, look how the plays are called. One on One ball, this and that. I dont think we can even beat some college teams. The rockets look like they never practice plays or rudy just doesnt know a way to get this team looking ORGANIZED.
How many rings did Hakeem win BEFORE Rudy arrived? It wasn't just because of Rudy and Hakeem, TEAMS win championships! Stop trying to give Hakeem full credit for the championships, obviously he was a major part, but it wasn't Hakeem that hit the game winning three in Game 7 against the Suns. The Rockets don't win the championship if Cassell doesn't mature way ahead of schedule. The Rockets don't win a championship the first year if Thorpe doesn't help enforce the paint. Houston doesn't win a championship if Robert Horry doesn't do a great job defending the PFs of the West. Kenny Smith hit big shots. Championships rae won with combination of great players, key role players, clutch shots, and players knowing their role and <b>great coaching</b>. It's easy to say "Is Bill Fitch and Greg Popovich great coaches", they only won one championship so we wouldn't know. But Rudy coached the team to TWO championships, including arguably the greatest playoff run in history in 1995. It takes a great coach to convince a team that they can win a championship out of the 6 hole in the conference. Rudy did a great job helping Drexler fit into the system in mid season. How many times have teams picked up superstars and they weren't able to fit the team? Now imagine picking one up at midseason! Some of you guys act like the Rockets were a machine with Hakeem being the main show, but in 1995 that team was so injury riddle that they almost DID NOT make the playoffs, Rudy had to take the remaining players and CBA fill-ins and fashion a playoff berth and hold the team together until the big guns came back. THEN Rudy took an injury riddled team with the franchise player being a 2nd year player, and the Number 2 scorer being a 3rd year player, an aging, injury prone Hakeem and little else and won more games then any non-playoff team in history. God what does the guy have to do to show he's a great coach!? Fundamental basketball!? I guess the championship teams aren't fundamental sound. Maybe the team isn't "fundamentally sound" because they haven't had time to play together to build chemistry! People forget when Rudy took over the team this team wasn't even a playoff team, had a disgruntled franchise player in Hakeem who was almost traded, and showed no future, and he turned them into a playoff team that came 1 game from the conference finals then followed it up with 3 WCFs and 2 NBA championships in a 4 year stretch. All while battling injuries and personnel turnover. Oh yeah this guy is a horrible coach.
Remember who passed the ball to the "Junkyard Dog"? I don't live in Houston anymore, so I really don't care about how long Rudy coaches. But I know he has been and will keep sucking. So will Rockets. I just find it so unbelievable that people suddenly turn on Hakeem, just because he said something on Rudy. Were you guys there, when they were negotiating during last Summer? You think Cato is a better player than Dream? You think Cato should get paid more than dream? I was never a fan on the so called dump-it-in-to-Dream-every-time play. But I won't loose the perspective. Dream was and could still be a great asset to Rockets. If Rudy knew how to coach a team ball instead of ISO only game, he would have realized how valuable Hakeem could still be for Rockets. He would have saved his $42-million-dollar-affirmative-gift to Cato. Rockets game is basically one man has the ball 4 other men standing around and watching. It seems that many fans in Houston have voted against Rudy T and his brain dead basketball by not going to Compaq center. Good for them.
Rudy is going to have a huge ulcer by the end of the season. Does anyone remember how we played during the 94-95 title seasons? I do. We played unselfishly. We believed in each other. We had a knack for always winning the close games. We relied on teamwork to win games. We PASSED the ball to the open player. We made few mistakes. We had veteran leadership. We had players who knew and were comfortable with their respective roles. I havent seen this type of play in quite some time. PASS FIRST DRIBBLE SECOND.
