New Jersey Article on Van Gundy/Francis Relationship

I'm a Rockets fan in NYC and read an article this weekend in the Newark Star-Ledger:

D'Alessandro: Van Gundy, young Rockets on different timetable

Sunday, October 19, 2003


BY DAVE D'ALESSANDRO
Star-Ledger Staff

The preseason is half done, which means that Jeff Van Gundy has graduated from merely loopy to a full-scale basket case.

This how it usual is with him. He has always set the treadmill speed at a faster rate than most humans care to move, and then grouses when said humans lose their balance and collapse in a cartoonish pratfall. It's part of what makes him a superb coach. It's also part of what makes him impossible to deal with this time of year.

So the Houston Rockets' preseason isn't exactly what their new coach had hoped it would be, in every conceivable area -- conditioning, execution, learning curve, cooperation, blood pressure. This surprises no one, except perhaps for Van Gundy himself. It is also predictable that he is finding himself at odds with a brilliant but undisciplined player, Steve Francis.

Van Gundy has never had a player like this, and now he's finding out what he's missed all these years. We still say it's a matter of time that coach convinces player that the wise approach is to post the ball to Yao Ming more frequently, but until that happens, it is entertaining to hear Van Gundy's reaction to Stevie's notoriously inflexible style.

"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."

In other words, Stevie is doing what he wants, and his coach is sick of it. Come to think of it, the entire team is following an agenda that Van Gundy can't quite grasp. We'll try to clarify it for him: They're young, they're clueless, and at times just plain clay-brained. The latest evidence was Eddie Griffin's decision to blow off a team flight and disappear for 24 hours, which earned him a two-game suspension.

Meanwhile, "There's not one area that's even close to good enough," Van Gundy said the other night, after getting drilled at home by 18 to New Orleans, the Rockets' fourth straight loss. "It starts with our effort. We don't play hard enough to win. We got our butts kicked once again because we deserved to.

"I have a lot of things I have to get our team better at. (Their) resistance to changing, practice habits, game habits, stuff that every coach says -- play hard, play right, pass the ball to the open man. I've always been a believer you play well in the preseason to start the season right, particularly when you haven't won in a long time. You can start getting very comfortable losing, and you can get very comfortable winning."

Nothing as comfortable as a good rant. The problem is, the kids on his roster, well-schooled in the laid-back style of Rudy Tomjanovich, look at this guy and wonder if he's nuts. It's mid-October. They've been together for two weeks. Just ask Francis if he believes change comes that quickly.

"I've been playing the same way for five years," Stevie 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 seven-foot guy on the 3-point line if I can do something at the end of the shot clock. If that's what it is, that's what it is."

Safe to say the honeymoon is over. We still say they'll figure it out eventually, and probably sooner rather than later. Only now, it seems, does the coach understand that everyone is on a different timetable than his own.

"We should all be on the clock," Van Gundy said. "Really, the clock is ticking for us to win and to show progress and improvement. I don't want to hear how long it will take to jell. Those are excuses. Those are for people not ready to win. I don't want the guys to be given that excuse or to take it."


THE GREAT WHITE NOWHERE

The NBA gave the go-ahead for the realignment committee to start working on seating arrangements for 2004-05, when Charlotte rejoins the league, forcing a switch to six five-team divisions.

Figure on the Nets and Knicks to be in a Northeast Division, along with Philly, Toronto and Boston. The other Eastern Conference divisions will also be easy to sort out, with groupings in the Central (Chicago, Cleveland, Detroit, Indiana and Milwaukee) and Southeast (Atlanta, Charlotte, Miami, Orlando and Washington).

The Western Conference will be a logistical nightmare, as usual, for one reason: Minnesota isn't located near anything. The Wolves figure to get stuck in a Midwest Division that also comprises Denver, Utah, Portland and Seattle. Nice, huh? The Nets can drive to some of their road division games; the Wolves have to fly 900 miles, minimum.

The other divisions, probably known as the Southwest (Dallas, Houston, Memphis, New Orleans, San Antonio) and Pacific (Golden State, Sacramento, Phoenix, and both L.A.'s) are more geographically friendly. The playoff formats will remain similar, with three division winners and the next five best records making the postseason