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ESPN INSIDER - Can Van Gundy help Rockets avoid disaster?

Discussion in 'Houston Rockets: Game Action & Roster Moves' started by Do WHAT?, Oct 20, 2003.

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  1. Do WHAT?

    Do WHAT? Member

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    Can Van Gundy help Rockets avoid disaster?
    By Chad Ford
    NBA Insider
    Send an Email to Chad Ford Monday, October 20
    Updated: October 20
    8:43 AM ET


    Welcome back to the NBA, Jeff Van Gundy.

    It was a little less than two years ago that Van Gundy took a walk after practice, came back awhile later, and suddenly and unexpectedly resigned as the head coach of the Knicks.

    He cited fatigue, discouragement and a lack of passion for the job in his resignation speech. Just below the surface, you knew that Van Gundy kept looking at his aging, declining Knicks team and wondered to himself, why bother?

    Fast forward to Saturday, when Van Gundy had to indefinitely suspend one of his best young players, Eddie Griffin. It was the last in a long series of indignities in Rockets camp that has to have VG asking himself yet again -- is anything worth this?

    Why bother? Weren't the Rockets that hip, up-and-coming team with a young all-star point guard and center? Weren't they the team that was just one step away from being a real playoff contender? Wasn't Van Gundy's tough approach supposed to be the perfect medicine for what ailed this soft, but talented team?

    While I'm a firm believer that the preseason means nothing (see Around the League), if this were NASA, the engineers would be screaming "Abort!" right about now.

    What's Houston's problem?

    Start with injuries that have kept key players like Cuttino Mobley, Eric Piatkowski, Maurice Taylor and Adrian Griffin on the bench this preseason.


    Injuries and an AWOL Eddie Griffin have slowed Jeff Van Gundy and the Rockets this preseason.
    Mobley is expected back today, but the loss of four key players has hindered Van Gundy's ability to put in his new offense.

    "It is important," Van Gundy said. "We need to have our guys back so we can figure out our rotation and how we're going to play. So that's important."

    Next, put a dash of tired Yao Ming, who was worn ragged by the Chinese National Team this summer. False news reports out of China this summer breathlessly reported that Yao was suffering from some sort of fatigue syndrome. That's bogus. But he is exhausted and the Rockets are genuinely nervous about how their star center is going to hold up this year.

    Throw in an AWOL Griffin, who skipped the game on Wednesday and then didn't show up for practice Thursday morning either.

    The Rockets are trying to play down Griffin's absence, claiming that he'll be back with the team soon enough.

    "We're going to see this as a very short-term blip on the radar and get Eddie back as soon as he's ready to conform to what he is expected to do, which starts with showing up to work every day, on time, ready to play and perform well," Van Gundy said.

    However, he didn't show up to camp in shape and struggled when he was with the team. Something else is going on. This weekend, the Philadelphia Inquirer (Griffin's from Philly) claimed that Griffin was considering quitting basketball.

    "All anyone cares about right now is that Eddie is all right so he can play," a Griffin confidant told the Inquirer. "He wants to quit playing basketball. He doesn't want to play anymore. He's just drained by all the responsibilities in his life and he can't take it anymore. Some, you just know he'll get past. There's too much to lose. But that doesn't mean he isn't going through some tough times right now."

    If Griffin really did pack it up this season (physically or mentally) the Rockets will really struggle in the paint. With Taylor out for the season and Griffin on vacation, the team would be forced to play Yao more minutes and pair him alongside Kelvin Cato in the frontcourt.

    Cato? Here's all the proof that you need that Van Gundy is losing his mind.

    "I keep talking about this -- when you're surrounding Yao and Steve, all you need are tough, smart, hard-working professional players who know who they are. They're not confused," Van Gundy said. "So he (Cato) is not going to jack up perimeter shots. He's going to shoot a high percentage, he's going to rebound, he's going to know coverages, and he's a very smart player."

    Then to top it off, Van Gundy is already butting heads with star point guard Steve Francis about the team's new inside-outside offense. Van Gundy wants Yao to be the team's first option in the paint. Van Gundy's experience, from his days with Patrick Ewing, is that big centers get higher percentage shots than shot-happy point guards.

    "Steve offensively, right now, is trying to hit the home run every time down," Van Gundy said. "Steve is sometimes so great he can hit a home run. To shake somebody and take on another guy and take tough shots . . . the game's got to be easier. We're not playing team offense the right way. Blown play after play, assignment after assignment."

    "We're not adapting to change. There are a few pockets of resistance."

    Francis' experience, forged in the infamous Kelvin Cato era, is that you never, ever give the big guy the ball.

    "I've been playing the same way for five years," Francis said. "The part of me going one-on-one when the shot clock is going down, that's what I've got to do. I'm not going to throw the ball to a 7-foot guy on the three-point line if I can do something at the end of the shot clock."

    Van Gundy also wants Francis to step up and set the tone on the team. Every coach needs a star player who buys into the offense and sells his teammates on it. Of course, Yao's on board. But Van Gundy needs Francis to set the example to get the others to follow.

    "It wrenches my gut to say that right now we don't play hard," he said. "Until we do - and that's the foundation for every good team: giving an honest day's effort every night and being unselfish - we're going to struggle."

    Francis's response?

    "Whatever," he said. "As a team, we just have to get on the same page. We're straight. We're cool."

    Cool? If I'm Carroll Dawson, I'm making sure that Van Gundy doesn't go on another one of those soul searching walks after practice this week. If VG does, I'm not sure he'll like what he finds.
     
    #1 Do WHAT?, Oct 20, 2003
  2. codell

    codell Contributing Member

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    Someone tell Chad Ford that Taylor is not out for the season.

    Or is he???

    Hmmmmm.
     
    #2 codell, Oct 20, 2003
  3. Gutter Snipe

    Gutter Snipe Contributing Member

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    Uhhh .. .. .. MoT out for the season? Don't they mean preseason?

    Oh, and I know we're a bunch of sunshine asses here, but could you take every single thing that's happened to the Rockets and view it in the most depressing light? Oh wait, the writer just did.
     
    #3 Gutter Snipe, Oct 20, 2003
  4. lost_elephant

    lost_elephant Contributing Member

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    #4 lost_elephant, Oct 20, 2003
  5. Do WHAT?

    Do WHAT? Member

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    Sounds like a Championship season to me... well, maybe not
     
    #5 Do WHAT?, Oct 20, 2003
  6. gucci888

    gucci888 Contributing Member

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    Another dumb article taking bits and pieces of interviews and making putting them out of context. I can't wait for the season to start so dumb ass previews will stop.
     
    #6 gucci888, Oct 20, 2003
  7. JPM0016

    JPM0016 Contributing Member

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    Don't take Chad Ford seriously. He's a joke
     
    #7 JPM0016, Oct 20, 2003
  8. Rockets2K

    Rockets2K Clutch Crew

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    Geez...how many more sportswriters are going to take out-of-context quotes, supposition, and flatout incorrect facts and write a gloom and doom article about the Rockets?

    The Steve and VG quotes dont sound like that when read in their proper context(read back to the relevant threads for morre info, I dont feel like going over them AGAIN)

    The Eddie Griffin quitting thing again....unsubstantiated by a relaible source..ie, anyone that isnt afraid to name names, not some "Griffin confidant"

    Yao Ming is "exhausted"....he hasnt looked that way on the court so far this year. and it isnt like he was running for months on end...he played for two weeks last month and looked very energetic to me.

    Mo Taylor "out for the season"????? WTF?
    Did he actually bother to do any research for this article?
     
    #8 Rockets2K, Oct 20, 2003
  9. PhiSlammaJamma

    PhiSlammaJamma Member

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    Damn. That article was real crap. It's like he was up against a deadline or something. So he just decided to lump some stuff together and see what came out.
     
    #9 PhiSlammaJamma, Oct 20, 2003
  10. Thanos

    Thanos Member

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    First hoopsworld, now this.


    Really, this guy just leeches a couple of newspaper articles and wraps it around his own wild guesses.

    He should have bothered to actually check up the following events as we have already made strides in our preseason and most of Francis sttuborness wasn't as bad as it actually seemed.

    Taylor out for the season.

    * sigh *

    Amateur journalism at it's best. It sure is nice to be Chad Ford... start a site without almost no original content, place links to articles written on newspapers all over the net, and *BAM* next thing you know you are hired by espn thanks to your "insider" skills and laugh your way to the bank...
     
    #10 Thanos, Oct 20, 2003
  11. sweetie

    sweetie Member

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    can someone post chads email so I can give him a piece of my mind.

    1.taylor not out for season
    2.griffins absense will not slow the team because cato/taylor have more chemistry and eddie sucked anyways(it actually has improved our team since he's been missing)
    3. jvg is not out of character. Even if we were 6-0 he would still be mad at something and gripeing.
    4.steve is not butting heads with jvg. That quote was taken 1 MONTH ago and now things have cleared up. If Ford is that desperate for a story that he has to make up things and twist the facts,and bring in old news and pretend its new,he should be fired.Seriously.How much does this idiot get paid? If a temp on a job wrote such BS they would be fired in a second.
    5.Cato is not a joke and not bad. His saying "cato?" that way shows he has something up his ***. Cato was the best backup center last year and now with idiots like Calvin Booth and jake Tskalidis getting paid more than Cato means Cato is no joke anymore. It amazes me how stupid people outside of Houston are. They act like a player can never change ever. I honestly think if Cato were to average the most rebs per game this year in the nba people would still laugh at his name since it sounds like Kato in Kato Kaelin.
    6.Jvg will not quit. See,what Ford doesnt understand is that NY sucks,always has and always will . The fans in NY suck. The media in NY sucks. The players in Ny sucked. The Gm of the KNicks sucked. Gundy was surrounded by idiots so he left. Plus his friend died on 9/11 and that made him depressed. It amazes me how writers can forget that and still think Jvg is a quitter.
    7.Of course Steve didnt want to run the offense through Cato. If he did he would be bashed by the same media using his comment about Cato years ago to this day to bash him for no reason. Your damned if you do,your damned if you dont. These Ny idiot writers hate houston and should be emailed by all of us today requesting an apology for such a moronic,assinine piece of garbage that he took every quote out of context.
    8.It also amazes me that he thinks Eddie and Taylor would be the difference makers in JVg quitting or staying. Sheesh. Not only does Ford not make a truthful story writing wise,but he knows nothing of basketball.
    9.It also amazes me how ironically he says in the beginning that preseason doesnt mean much,but then says JVG should panic because of the preseason. It also amazes me how he never watched the rox preseason games because if he did he wouldnt have written the article since JVg benches alot of the starters the first 4 games. If the rox were 6-0 this preseason do you honestly thiink he would have written this???

    now wheres his email?
     
    #11 sweetie, Oct 20, 2003
  12. Deuce

    Deuce Context & Nuance

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    For the most part, I like Chad Ford, but this article is ridiculous. He went into this article with an "agenda" and pulled quotes from all over the place to forge his article. Many of them are out of context and some of the information is just plain false.

    Taylor out for the season? Totally bogus. Ford laughs at the idea of Cato at PF but looking at his production the last few games and it is clear that Cato can man the 4 spot. Ford makes it seem like Francis and Yao are fighting over the basketball.

    The only thing that article represents well is the injury situation. No question that has been a problem, but other than that and the Griffin situation camp has gone just fine.

    Lame article. :(
     
    #12 Deuce, Oct 20, 2003
  13. Deuce

    Deuce Context & Nuance

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    FYI, I don't normally post email addresses but if you want to email Chad Ford and set him straight on this article, the email address I have for him is chad.m.ford@espn3.com
     
    #13 Deuce, Oct 20, 2003
  14. munco

    munco Member

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    Is it me or does it sound like the journalists are expecting the Rox to self-destruct and have a horrible year? The articles almost sound like they want the Rockets to suck or self-destruct. Incredibly negative.
     
    #14 munco, Oct 20, 2003
  15. Loco Gringo

    Loco Gringo Member

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    This article sounds like a hatchet job from comments in other articles with over dramatizing a couple of problems, sounds like a pretty stock standard 'Espn Insider' article.. Just on the Francis thing I think if he does change his style of basketball to suit JVG, I think the rockets are going to lose some games in the short term
     
    #15 Loco Gringo, Oct 20, 2003
  16. SamFisher

    SamFisher Contributing Member

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    that was pathetic. I know its hyperbole, but Chad Ford may be the worst basketball writer ever. Crap, that is "premium" analysis? Mo Taylor out for the season? Garbage.
     
    #16 SamFisher, Oct 20, 2003
  17. Yetti

    Yetti Contributing Member

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    Chad Ford who is he? Obviously he dislikes JVG!
    It looks like JVG and the Media arn't getting along during the preseason.This article is a poor effort to use other writers materials to paint JVG in a bad light.
     
    #17 Yetti, Oct 20, 2003
  18. zaam

    zaam Contributing Member

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    I think this clown would be better informed if he simply read this board now and then.

    BTW, I didn't know Griffin had a "confidant" — I thought all his boys were called colleagues.
     
    #18 zaam, Oct 20, 2003
  19. Htown4life

    Htown4life Contributing Member

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    This is chad ford's way of saying what he thinks of MO Taylors playing ability and the dollars we pay for him, saying having him out of the season might be a better use of him :p :p :p


    OK we know hes over paid, that was a cheap shot...cheap unlike Mo T :D .
     
    #19 Htown4life, Oct 20, 2003
  20. pippendagimp

    pippendagimp Member

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    This dude's even worse than Carleton
     
    #20 pippendagimp, Oct 20, 2003
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