Nothing terribly new, Dwight needs locker room to feel like family, but interesting to see that McHale does not even try to sugarcoat how bad it was. The interesting part starts around 6:15:
it seemed no one really liked Dwights fake nice anymore. He comes across as fake. JJ Reddick pretty much said the same about his time with Dwight in Orlando .In fact this seems to the common theme with Dwight.
LOL - McHale was chiefly responsible for the bad locker room atmosphere not holding any players accountable and letting them do whatever the F they wanted. This is typical McHale. All BS talk. Anything to deflect the blame away from him.
Here is the actual exchange... Ernie Johnson: How much is left in the tank? Kevin McHale: That's the biggest question. One thing I always said about Dwight: The bigger the game, the more focused he is and the harder he plays. I will give him credit for that. I've seen a lot of players who the bigger the game comes, they shrink a little bit. He doesn't shrink. He plays harder. He gets after it. My experience with Dwight -- he couldn't bring it every single night. He was hurt a lot. He had a lot of different things. His back bothered him, he had his back surgery. His knee. He just... I don't know if he can bring it every single night like you have to. And he needs a really, really copacetic -- like, the locker room for him, everything's got to be really tight for him because his biggest beef was always -- 'well this guy, we don't get along well enough'. I'm thinking, 'Get along? I'm going home to my wife. I don't know what you guys are doing after practice'. I never believed in that stuff. Look it, if you and I were going to go out and fight, I might say 'Smitty see you tomorrow'. That's the last time I talk to you. But the next day, we step out on the court and we get after it. He likes that whole family thing and everything else and that was not the case in Houston. It was pretty disjointed at times there and he struggled with that.
Yea McHale out of ANYBODY can't talk about other players and their shortcomings. McHale was horrible when it counted most, and I think the only reason he gets a pass is because he's likable. If this were Mike Brown, MDA or Sam Mitchell, the press would crucify them getting fired so early in the season. But McHale left Houston mainly unscathed
FACTS.. Harden busted his ass everynight and made mchale look good, their was no system like what we have here with mda right now
I know he gets paid to talk now but someone should pay him to shut up. He's so annoying. Record aside, one of the worst coaches we've ever had imho.
The thing about this piece that stands out most to me is the fact that McHale knew what one of his stars needed in order to be successful, yet said that he, "never believed in that stuff." Part of good coaching is helping your players reach their potential and capacity, and McHale basically just said that he didn't really care to go out of his comfort zone to do that. I'm not very impressed.
When asked who will be the top 4: Ernie: Last year we had Memphis in the playoffs, we have Houston... Rest of the guys: ugh..nah I think Houston does have a very good chance of being the 4-5 seed this year though, the way we have unision from management, coaching, players (philosophy towards basketball matters a lot in a team IMO) and James Harden being a better player (has there been a player that ends up top 3 in scoring and assists?) Also, LMAO at the awkward silence when Isaiah Thomas mentioned Sacramento being a sleeper candidate for the 4-5 seed. lol.
If you go earlier in the video you hear Grant Hill trying to blame everybody else except Dwight for the way he acts now that he is with his Hawks. The narrative will change now that he isn't with the the Rockets and that is going to annoy me for the whole season. Some fans thought everyone hated the Rockets and Harden because Dwight was on the team. NOPE they have ALWAYS hated the Rockets. thanks for the video @corrado