This came from Charley Rosen in today's issue of The Sporting News: "Don't expect Jeff Van Gundy to produce much of a turnaround with Houston. Sure, the Rockets will play better defense and hustle more, but Van Gundy's offenses are extremely simplistic. Even worse, Van Gundy is arrogant, secretive and manipulative. But he's so rumpled and pouty-pussed that he has convinced too many media muppets that he's really a hard-working underdog who made it big. Also, Van Gundy purchases his players' loyalty by kissing their butts. How long before Stevie Franchise and even Yao Ming turn the other cheek?" At first, I thought there was something to it, maybe. Until I got to the sentence about kissing player's butts. Yeah, Mr. Rosen. Whatever. Just someone else to prove wrong, I guess.
Sounds to me like he might have watched one or more of the first three games and made a blind prediction based on what he saw in those terrible games. I think most rational Rockets fans realize the regular season team will be considerably better than what we saw in those three games. This guy is just producing more knee-jerk crap journalism.
Charlie is Phil Jax' a-hole buddy and Phil and JVG are not buddies. Hence, the dispassionate reportage is patently flawed.
JVG is definitely good at the PR game. We don't know whether it's just PR or if he'll really make a difference. We may never know. Is Phil Jackson a great coach or just someone who went along for the ride? Either way he's smart because he positioned himself not to fail. Van Gundy is hoping to inherit a similiar situation here. There are 2 things we need from Van Gundy: Manage egos and talent evaluation. The first will be easy because Yao is humble and coachable and Francis understands the importance of being the ying to Yao's yang. In other words, Yao balances him out and he needs to play nice because he's not the "only" franchise player on this team. If he starts pouting, he'll lose the PR game fast. He and Cat have already been lableled selfish and unwilling to pass to Yao. That may be unfair but that's their rep. Talent evaluation is what makes or breaks a team. A few bad drafts, a few bad contracts and you are stuck in NBA hell. JVG has smartly stayed away from the spotlight on personnel moves. He's waiting to see how it pans out. If Piatkowski, Adrian Griffin and Jim Jackson are failures, people will blame CD not JVG. CD picked them, not JVG. JVG has a lot of built in excuses. Long term contracts, dealt draft choices, and salary cap limitations have limited the Rockets ability to make any major potential moves. In other words, as long as Van Gundy rides Yao and Steve's jock to their natural talent progresssion, he'll have a safe job for at least 3-4 years. If things don't start improving, he can claim burnout again before the ship completely sinks. He'll have pocketed about $4 million a year and still maintain his rep.
Sound like that to me too. Or the guy just want to be "controversial" and draw attention to himself. GO JVG!!!
At least we are ranked #8 in SportingNews power rankings... Of course..we aren't going to become contenders this year...but I hope we will play good solid basketball more consistently....
I think he's talking about Phil Jackson ! Seriously, why would he write this article?! & I take it Charley is not a big fan of JVG! What a cheap shot ! I guess it's easier to hide under The Sporting News than coach an NBA team!
Well it was part of Sporting New's NBA preview.. And the article said which coach will be good...and it said like Van Gundy? No. Tim Floyd? Yes.
this guys is a flamer, in every sense of the word. What did he get shot up his a**?? he didnt have a nice thing to say to any body in that article, just flaming away. well i guess he did say paul silas is a nice guy, but then proceeded to call him a moron with no plays. and i guess Brown is just a whiner, looks like we got the better end of the bargain, with the egomaniac
lol...who actually goes to foxsports.com?!?!?! Incredible....front page. Kissing their butts? Whatever. I guess we'll have to see how this season goes...
It's a news collaboration... If you go to http://www.sportingnews.com/ , but then click on NBA. It takes you directly to Foxsports.
