and I'm tired of people accepting an 0-8 record with tracy out. there is nothing acceptable about that.
6 of the 8 games were against Indy, Miami, Memphis, Detroit, Phoenix, and Dallas. Look at the records of those teams. Losing is never acceptable. But if you're going to tell me you expected this team to be anymore than say, 3-5 or 2-6 with McGrady out, well then we just need to trade Mac and get Francis back, right?
Yeah. But you got to understand how it happened and when it happened and who it happened against. Other than the first two games at home against Orlando and Hornets which they should have won, they had a chance to win in the fourth against the top teams in the league. 0-8 is 0-8. But don't act like Mcgrady being out shouldn't matter. It does. It did. If they would have been blown out in those losses without a chance to win then you could say Mcgrady's presence would not have made a difference. 0-8 is not acceptable but it's not the end of the world if you understand all that went into it, the circumstances, the timing, and all that.
I would just like to see this team win one game without Tracy, I know when I make a good point, all you guys can say is Francis, but this has nothing to do with francis. just win a game without tracy. they did it fine last season, even before all the changes.
I don't agree with this statement. I just don't know whether the author or JVG knows that zone defense has killed the simple IN-Out strategy. JVG just does not know to take advantage of his plaer's forte. One of the reasons why he cannot become a successful coach, I guess, is he never playered professional basketball.
IIRC, during the Celtics game there was a graphic displaying the strength of schedule thus far into the season. The Rox were either 1st or 2nd in difficulty of schedule.
Wow, I suppose the media types see no need to conduct any sort of credible research before spouting this sort of trash...unbelievable.
I saw that, but I would like to have seen the full list. the winning percentage of opponents was about .539. I can't imagine that it would fluctuate much between top and bottom.
I saw that too. Rockets were 1st. So to expect the Rockets to be playing 500 ball right now when their best player AND playMAKER was out, is expecting a lot. Granted, I didn't see them cratering THIS bad... There were threads about how bad our November schedule was during the offseason. Now folks are surprised we didn't pick up a couple of games w/out TMac?
I agree with him on his that once a team begins to tune a coach out there is no going back (at least most of the time), but I don't think that that is where this team is at all - at least not yet. I think that JVG has his players so concerned about not making mistakes, that they are paralyzed with fear and thus they don't take advantage of opportunities because they don't want to be yelled at. I was impressed with the difference in style of play in the last game vs. Boston. They slashed to the basket, went for steals and looked more aggressive than they have all season. I think they are on the right path. In almost all the other games this season the players have looked more passive than aggressive, much like the first part of last season. I'm not ready to give up on JVG. I know they aren't the Astros, but how many people we're ready to give up on them last year and again this year when they had a horrific start, before Garner got them in sync. We probably had the toughest schedule in the whole league in November and having T-mac out was devastating (similar to Berkman being out at the beginning of the season) not to mention that 33% of our current team was not even on the team last year (Alston, Swift, Head and Anderson). Sura probably our toughest player is still out. It takes time to adjust to a new team and I think we're in a good position to put together a few wins before the start of the new year - it's a tough road trip, but if they continue to play with the same intensity as the last game, I think we could surprise some teams on this road trip.
This guy is just so incredibly wrong. First of all, I'm convinced that Yao would average close to 25 under the old rules. He is capable of that. Second of all, the offense is not all throw it in to Yao, because of the fronting defenses. If it was, he would be shooting more than 14 times per game.
Sagarin ratings are quite debateable, but they're pretty close. There's another blog out there that has far more detailed strength of schedule ratings, but they're pretty close to Sagarin's findings and I don't feel like searching for them on this connection. Either way, the Rockets have had the hardest schedule so far, according to Sagarin. Those "up and coming" Warriors have had the easiest: http://www.usatoday.com/sports/sagarin/nba0506.htm
As always, I stop reading when someone compares Yao to Rick Smits. I wonder how many people who make these comparisons actually ever saw Smits play.
Smits had game! Yao is better, but it's not exactly a slap in the face. The real disrespect going on here is that most people lump Smits into the same lot as Muresan and Bol.
You are right, Smits had enough game to make one All-Star appearance, and should not be lumped in with Muresan and Bol. The only similarities between Yao and Smits is that they are both tall foreigners with a nice shooting touch. Yao is to Smits as Smits is to Muresan and Bol.
I don't know, I think people respect Smits's game... you don't hear anyone comparing Yao to Bradley anymore, ya know? It's just people think it's an insult to Yao because of the Shaq-like expectations...
And here I was, thinkin' Mannix was some goofus from TV, a PI or somethin'. Go figure. Well, he is a goofus, just a hack at a keyboard.
