Down the stretch run last season, everybody was saying that making the playoffs was imperative, that the Rockets needed playoff experience to get the winning attitude. Was missing the playoffs a blessing in disguise??
Last season, I and a few other posters were hoping that the Rockets would miss the playoffs in order to force long term change, mainly changing coaches. I remember getting blasted by many saying that real fans never wish their team to lose. Can you imagine if Rudy were still here? Imagine all of the countless b****ing that would be going on right now, ie. - guards dominating the ball, too much dribbling by Moochie, losing to Denver, substituting players when they are on a roll, complaining about Cato, Rudy's deer in the headlights stare when the Rockets opponents are on a 20-0 run. Its early, but JVG and his no nonsense attitude are some of the the best things that have happened to this franchise. Its better to have not made the playoffs last year and have JVG here than make the playoffs, get blasted in the first round and still have the same problems as last season.
This is not a knock on rudy, but it is obvious how much a change was needed, and that change was catalyzed by missing the playoffs. If Rudy was here, Terrence Morris or James Posey would be starting PF and it would be all small ball, all the time until Griffin and Taylor were all the way back. Cato and Yao together is/was a stroke of genius. The rockets just needed a new approach, and that wasn't possible with the ancien regime.
I think what everyone forgets is that Ming was an unproven talent last year. OK, by the middle of the season, Rudy should have changed up the offense, but then he goes down with the illness. I don't honestly think Mr. Tomjanovich received a fair opportunity to work with this team. That being said, there is the feeling that he may not have set this team up the way it is now positioned for success. JVG was fortunate to inherit a talented team, but he also is making smart moves (Cato, hounding Francis about D) that Rudy may or may not have made. Also, we should give the front office credit for signing Jackson and Pike. I truly think they will both be major contributors, both on the court and in the locker room. I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm just going to enjoy the present situation as it stands. If I read any posts praising JVG, I'll read them, but if they start to bash Rudy T., I'll just stop reading or respectfully disagree. The Rudy bashing is officially over, as far as I'm concerned. The JVG era is here, let's enjoy it just as we enjoyed the mid 1990s.
I think it depends. If last season convinces people we didn’t make the playoffs because we misused Yao then I don’t think it was a good thing. IMHO that is one of the biggest misconceptions about last year. I watched about 70 percent of the games last year, and most of the gripes I heard over and over again about how Yao was used just seemed bogus. For the last three years the Rockets had been rebuilding around a guard oriented team. In’00 they win 45 games and things look good, Then ’01 the wheels come off due to injuries and they fall apart. ’02 they set up to try what worked in ’00, but low and behold they get Yao Ming. So here you are as a coach with an offense you’ve been trying to build around SF and Mobley. An offense that has been effective when everyone is healthy, but now you have a 7-6 center. Some people act like it was a no brainer to shift the focus to Yao. But think about it this way. Prior to the beginning of the last season Yao Ming was a Rookie player from China with no real experience playing US ball. No one really knew how he would do against NBA competition. No one knew how he would deal with the long season. No one knew how he would deal with the pressure of the #1 pick. Not to mention the #1 pick form China. How do you as a coach totally change an offense for a guy whose game you or your players don’t know. Heck, Yao didn’t even know what kind of player he would be in the NBA. Rudy’s choice, stick with what had been successful, the guards and work Yao in gradually. Keep the pressure off him and use him for his defense. The problem was that Yao turned out to be real good real quick especially offensively. It seemed to me the team then tried to incorporate Yao more when they found out he could play,but they were learning to play together on the fly without training camp, without preseason ? It was OJT for everyone. For awhile it seemed like they got something going with hem, but Then, something I don’t here many people talk about, Yao started running out of gas towards the end of the season. Everyone was screaming throw it into Yao, but it looked to me he just couldn’t carry that load towards the end. He couldn’t get good position and he was out of gas quite a bit. So, the guards went away from him if he didn’t look strong. Sometimes they were right many times they were wrong. Last year was disappointing because the Rockets lost to weak teams, didn’t put away games they should have, and folded down the stretch. Those were things I don’t really think you learn, you just do. It’s an attitude. The other stuff having to do with X’s and O’s, techniques, and such you can learn. Attitude you just have to have. And even though I liked Rudy and thought he should have had one more season, a winning attitude is one of the things he was unable to instill in this group of players. Hopefully JVG will. If he does, then definitely something good will come out of last season.
I agree that one thing held against Rudy was not focusing 100% on Ming on offense. Well, we forget so quickly that Yao wasn't even a starter until Cato went down with an injury. We'll probably never know Rudy's original plan of working him into the offensive system, especially since Yao missed all of training camp and preseason. His explosion in the middle of the season was totally unexpected, even by Yao I suspect. Towards the end of the season, when the voices crying for Yao to become Point Center became loudest, Yao was exhausted and fading badly, and a vastly inferior coach was in place. It was a messed up season in which nothing went as planned. Mo went down, Kenny was traded, Eddie and Moochie fell off badly, and Yao Ming turned out to be everything our wildest dreams had dared imagine. The team and the coaches could have done a better job adjusting to these things. They didn't, and we have some new faces this year. I think it worked out in the end, but I wasn't opposed to giving Rudy one final crack at it.
I don't think it was the lack of focus on Yao that is the difference, I think there is a difference in the KIND of focus that is now on yao. Rather than the Hakeem-entry pass to left low block, stand around the 3 pt line offense), it is now entry pass much deeper, and cut to the basket and come off screens offense. Much better IMO.
Also, I cannot overstate the benefits of having Yao and Cato both out there. It makes stuff so much easier for both of them. It always drove me crazy how Rudy would not ever really do this.
Its called Mad Yao disease and it ran rampant last year. That was a really good analysis of the season last year, it really did surprise everyone including the team how quickly Yao adjusted last year. I remember that Lakers game when he went over 20 for the first time, it really brought some excitement back to this team, and then Yao couldn't handle it any more. He was too tired, and the team could adjust on the run again.
good points Sam. Rudy T never had a problem putting Francis, Mobley and Moochie on the court together yet wouldn't put the 7 footers out there together.
Fully agreed Sam regarding Yao-Cato playing together. Rudy was asked SEVERAL times why he did not use this tandem. He simply kept responding that the "spacing" was bad when Cato was on the floor. Umm ya, spacing really looked terrible last night when the Rockets shot 48% from the field and dished out 21 ast even with arguably their best perimeter shooter in Pike sidelined. I have a ton of respect for Rudy and his accomplishments but things like this drove me nuts. Also, JVG has been able to instill a mentality into the team to not dominate the ball, move w/o the ball, establish the low post, etc in a matter of weeks. Rudy could not do this the entire season. This team needed a change and imo JVG was a brilliant hire. It would not shock me in the least if the Rockets crack the top 5 this season.
Good point. That's what I was trying to get at, but was too lazy to articulate myself. I still believe the main factors in the unfocused season were the offense-altering changes (injuries, trades, EMERGENCES, wanings, coaches). True, the defense was also very bad for looooong stretches and true veterans probably could have battled through the setbacks, but for whatever reason the Rockets couldn't adjust. I like Jeff Van Gundy, though, and I think he's done AWESOME so far. Let's see how these next 80 games play out.
Ming and Cato on the floor together is being overrated. It's not like JVG had planned to do that going in even, he was forced to. The fact is Yao and ANYONE on the floor is going to look better this year, because he is a lot stronger and better.
Maybe it wasn't in his plans, but is something he was willing to try that Rudy had publically dismissed and likely would not have. Rudy's substitution patterns, as somebody noted above, tended to run towards small ball when things got hairy (in hopes of rekindling the success of the second half of 2001). In addition, it seems as if Cato has thrived with a fresh start under JVG and has seemingly been able to put his doghouse days behind him. But anyway, the ability of Cato to do musclework and lessen the load on Yao (ex. Cato grabbed more boards) when they are both out there brings the Rox a different quality on the floor than when Taylor or Braggs is out there with Yao, I thought that was noticeable, both last night and in the preseason game that I saw.
In the games I watched, small ball rode the streaks of Mobley and Francis. If they had the smarts of Isiah or Jordan this might work but they didn't so we were going to be mediocre till hell froze over.
We had so much iso play design by RT last season, unlike the JVG rule it's a team effort. I'm not ripping RT but that's just what it was!
I was one poster who felt it would be a blessing in disguise if the Rox didn't make the playoffs last year. It forced a move that this team sorely needed and that was a coaching change. It's still early, but you can't ignore the difference in the overall team concept this year. Van Gundy means business, and that's what this team needed, a swift kick in the butt. Steve has cut down his dribbling, but Cat and Moochie for the most part are playing the same way as they always have. If that continues, I wouldn't be suprised if both saw more of the bench.
Well, if we would have made the play-offs, and because of that Rudy was not released. Then, yes. It's a blessing. Because 4 or 5 more years of Rudy ball would have drove me crazy.
