Ime Udoka benches starters, criticizes lack of competitiveness in loss to Warriors 2/13/2025

Owned here and the D&D. Very nice.

 

What offense is going to work when you don’t have shooters and you don’t have a star that can get buckets efficiently? Please tell me.

 

I think Ime needs to put in some offense players over all defenders to balance the court.

DD

 

Not enough to move the needle which makes it negligible and not worth exploring.

 

Insane take considering Rockets half court offensive issues from day one.

 

Insane take is thinking Dantoni is going to take a bunch of guys who can't shoot and never have been able to shoot and running the type of offense he wants to run.

Either way, it's not happening.

 

I'm not the one getting paid millions of dollars to answer this question. Ime is. He should answer this question. He's literally getting paid to find an answer to this question.

 

This.

 

I agree.

We just need to acquire them first.

 

Dantoni was so disrespectfully treated by the front office after the season’s end, he would not even ride on the plane home with the team. That is how I remember it. I don’t think MDT is ever going to come back to the Rockets again.

 

Fried physically and mentally

 

Udoka is ahead of the so called imaginary schedule....

Playing Playoff or Play In games will increase competitiveness....by what amount remains to be seen.

 

That is the effect of getting paid...I hope they snap out of it and develop some sort of consistent drive.

 

Ha! You wish!

Your definition of owned is two people cussing at me? Hahahahaha ok sure then hahahaha

Genuinely honestly maybe you're a teenager and you're not realizing I'm a grown up dude. How old are you?

 

MDA, Morey and Harden all lied publicly in order to leave Tilman as fast as possible.

 

Bro do you think it's reasonable the you're attempting to convince people who watch games that there's no such thing as different offensive systems and plays that emphasize different shot types or areas?

Do you think there's any chance in the world you're going to convince someone that there's no difference between Rick Adelman and JVG on offense?

Do you think you're going to convince us that if you replaced Mazzulla with Udoka that the offense won't suffer when as a matter of fact Mazzulla took over Ime's team and improved the offense with the same roster? Just the offense, you REALLY don't think anything would change?

What about how Udoka HIMSELF is better offensively in every second half (post ASB) ever so far? Like HE is figuring something out super late and then with the same parts he's getting better offense for too long to be called a streak. How is he getting more offense mid season without any trades?

Further, are you going to convince is that this clanky couple of Princeton things we're running wouldn't be taught better by coaches who taught it everywhere faster and better?

I don't even understand how you could believe this, I'm being serious. I have SO MANY questions I'm trying not to ask like:

Then you must believe anyone can pick up the textbooks necessary and be as good as say MDA at coaching offense? Because Ime doesn't even have much head coaching experience. He's a young pup in this world.

And right now you actually believe in your mind that if you replaced Joe Mazzulla with JVG, the offense wouldn't worsen at all? They'd just keep chugging along?

I've NEVER heard this opinion expressed before except in defensiveness to Udoka. Not an any NBA board or here, I've never heard that the coach is irrelevant, the shots are just the shots. Just imagine if a coach even said that in a job interview lol.

It's such a weird sudden defensiveness going on. No one in the world believes this theory. For the same reason we call Ime an elite defensive coach, there are coaches who simply can do what Ime cannot on offense whether through tactics, instruction or selling the vision.

 

FG%: 44.6/25th (Only the Warriors (44.4), Nets (44.1), Wizards (43.9), Magic (43.9) & Hornets (43.0) are worse)
2P%: 51.2/28th (Only the Pelicans (51.1) & Hornets (49.7) are worse)
3P%: 33.9/28th (Only the Wizards (33.4) & Magic (30.6) are worse)
FT%: 74.9/27th (Only the Raptors (74.8), Bucks (73.9) & Warriors (73.1) are worse)
eFG%: 51.1/27th (Tied with Wizards; only the Hornets (50.6) & Magic (50.4) are worse)
TS%: 54.5/T-27th (Tied with Wizards; Only the Magic (54.2) & Hornets (54.0) are worse)

Ime’s favorite:
Off. Reb. %: 31.5/1st (Top 5: Grizzlies (29.9), Jazz (28.0), Blazers (28.0), Hornets (27.5))

So you’re saying our talent is only as good as the tanking Wizards, the terrible Hornets & the decimated Pelicans.

Spoiler

I defer back to the great @Mathloom

Our offensive talent is only as good as Silas rolling the ball out to KPJ and Christian Wood.
Wouldn’t accept it from Silas but do from Udoka because errm umm “He GoT DeM bOyZ pLaYiNG HaRd!”

If that’s the case, there is no core, there are no untouchables.

Udoka
2024-25: FG%: 44.6 (25th) | 2P%: 51.2 (28th) | 3P%: 33.9 (T-28th) | FT%: 74.9 (27th) | eFG%: 51.1 (27th) | TS%: 54.5 (27th)
2023-24: FG%: 45.9 (27th) | 2P%: 53.0 (23rd) | 3P%: 35.2 (T-23rd) | FT%: 77.3 (20th) | eFG%: 52.9 (T-26th) | TS%: 56.5 (24th)

Silas
2022-23: FG%: 45.7 (T-28th) | 2P%: 53.0 (T-24th) | 3P%: 32.7 (30th) | FT%: 75.4 (25th) | eFG%: 51.6 (T-29th) | TS%: 55.4 (T-28th)
2021-22: FG%: 45.6 (24th) | 2P%: 54.3 (T-9th) | 3P%: 34.9 (T-20th) | FT%: 71.3 (30th) | eFG%: 53.4 (T-16th) | TS%: 56.5 (18th)
2020-21: FG%: 44.4 (28th) | 2P%: 53.2 (15th) | 3P%: 33.9 (T-28th) | FT%: 74.0 (27th) | eFG%: 52.1 (24th) | TS%: 55.3 (27th)

D’Antoni
2019-20: FG%: 45.1 (22nd) | 2P%: 55.7 (2nd) | 3P%: 34.5 (24th) | FT%: 79.1 (T-8th) | eFG%: 53.7 (7th) | TS%: 57.8 (5th)
2018-19: FG%: 44.9 (T-24th) | 2P%: 55.1 (3rd) | 3P%: 35.6 (T-10th) | FT%: 79.1 (9th) | eFG%: 54.2 (4th) | TS%: 58.1 (3rd)
2017-18: FG%: 46.0 (15th) | 2P%: 55.8 (2nd) | 3P%: 36.2 (T-13th) | FT%: 78.1 (9th) | eFG%: 55.1 (2nd) | TS%: 59.0 (2nd)
2016-17: FG%: 46.2 (12th) | 2P%: 55.2 (2nd) | 3P%: 35.7 (15th) | FT%: 76.6 (20th) | eFG%: 54.5 (3rd) | TS%: 58.3 (2nd)

McHale
2015-16: FG%: 45.2 (14th) | 2P%: 51.4 (T-4th) | 3P%: 34.7 (19th) | FT%: 69.4 (T-27th) | eFG%: 51.6 (T-6th) | TS%: 55.3 (6th)
2014-15: FG%: 44.4 (20th) | 2P%: 50.6 (T-4th) | 3P%: 34.8 (14th) | FT%: 71.5 (27th) | eFG%: 51.2 (7th) | TS%: 54.8 (8th)
2013-14: FG%: 47.2 (5th) | 2P%: 52.9 (2nd) | 3P%: 35.8 (T-15th) | FT%: 71.2 (28th) | eFG%: 53.1 (3rd) | TS%: 57.1 (T-2nd)
2012-13: FG%: 46.1 (9th) | 2P%: 51.1 (6th) | 3P%: 36.6 (T-8th) | FT%: 75.4 (T-16th) | eFG%: 52.5 (5th) | TS%: 56.4 (4th)
2011-12: FG%: 44.9 (14th) | 2P%: 47.7 (T-14th) | 3P%: 35.9 (T-9th) | FT%: 78.2 (T-3rd) | eFG%: 49.2 (T-11th) | TS%: 52.9 (14th)

 

Does Dan Anthony even know how to spell his own name at this point? I don’t think a geriatric is going to come out of retirement (?) and save us.

 

F yeah thank you JR.

We're not asking for some miracle turnaround here.

It's way too much for people to be getting all defensive when hearing "do you think maybe our TS% can be a bit higher than the Wizards? You know the Wizards who let their kids play disorganized street ball just as we did under Silas?"

After everything we ALL agreed about with Silas - if I had told these people we're going to hire a coach and let him spend $80m per season on FA's without touching the core players and his team's offense would generate a Silas-level offense with a JB Bickerstaff-level defense would they have been happy to sign said coach? I know being in the playoff picture at 5th seed is such a big milestone for us, but were we ever expecting any less than a top 6 finish by our new coach's second season? Right now sitting at 5th are we actually above expectations or has Ime shat on this roster so much that you started believing we should be lucky to make the playoffs?

Sometimes I think maybe some of them are genuinely confusing what we're saying as though we're expecting Udoka to turn the Rockets into the Cavs when all we're saying is: I believe in our young players enough to not be one of the worst FG%/TS% teams in the league.

Maybe I should state it more clearly: I KNOW IT'S NOT POSSIBLE TO BE A GREAT OR VERY GOOD OFFENSIVE TEAM WITHOUT ADDING ROLE PLAYING SHOOTERS OR STARS, BUT OUR TALENT IS BETTER THAN OUR TS%.

 

To be fair, McHale and MDA had the prime Harden.

What's impressive was that in the first year of McHale's tenure, his best offensive players were Kevin Martin, Kyle Lowry, and Luis Scola. They still ended up being 12th ORtg. I think it might be the residual vibe from the Adelman era. Adelman took a team of Lowry, Martin, Battier, Scola, and Hayes to #4 offense.

You can't just blame lack of talent for offensive inaptitude.