No, but Dwight, JET, Ariza, Brewer, and T-Jones all did. They're all still here and getting heavy minutes with the exception of Terry(who is still in the rotation). So these aren't heartless quitters. 3 of them have rings and another's been to the Finals. I think something must've happened for McHale to lose these guys. And all I can conclude is that they started the season off on a horrible note with the unfocused training camp and messy preseason and after that it just snowballed.
While all yall are blaming Khloe I really have been let down by Ty Lawson... He is the only major change to our team and has been a ghost most of the season. He better get fired up from this because he's running out of time to earn that next contract.
Not upset that he was fired at all, but this is Harden and Lawson's fault as they don't play hard. Probably because they are hung over
Les Alexander came down with the BanHammer. This pill wouldve been easier to swallow after a loss but on a morning after no game, I kind of feel bad for McHale, the person. It will soon be forgotten after the offense runs some set plays and the defense actually rotates though.
Harden is what the team has been built around. Harden's efforts were pitiful in my opinion; hence the overall team played pitiful. For whatever reason, the team wouldn't respond to McHale. Change was imminent.
Very strange indeed. How you can go from a WCF run to this, I don't know. Maybe it's just a coaching wall that he couldn't get through, couldn't figure out how to flip the switch to get guys to respond to him anymore and maybe the players know it isn't working, so they have given up. It's just very strange to see a team that is supposed to be a title contender give up on it's coach and themselves like that.
It really was an inexplicably bad preseason. He never addressed the defensive problems. He never tried to get the Lawson and Harden combo to develop chemistry and cohesiveness. He never worked on his rotations(Does Lawson or Bev start? Do we play small or go with Capela and Harrell as the backups?). He just went into the regular season acting like the team would figure things out because they did so well last year. It doesn't work that way. When there are obvious problems that aren't due to personnel, the head coach needs to fix them.
In all honesty I appreciate Mchale and all that he did in his time here. I really appreciate his humble professional personality and hes not a bad person but you could tell they just werent responding to him anymore.
That's what it looked like to me as well. Even the sports analysts like Norm Hitzges here in Dallas observed that this team had far too much talent to be going through the motions on the court. This move seems a bit premature in that I thought they'd give McHale up to Christmas before pulling the plug. Oh well, things just got real for the Rockets.
