Is it me or JVG teams always have players getting severly hurt. Remember the Knicks ?? Ewing=hurt Marcus Camby=hurt Larry Johnson=hurt Allan Houston=setting the standard for being hurt I dont remember Rudy T's guys getting that decimated. They always have something strange like Steve's migranes Hakeem's enemia
JVG's games so lacking of offense.. his players can't execute offense with good ballmovement or strategy, so they do it physical. then next thing you know they get hurt.
You're kidding right? Effort does not equal injury. If JVG is to be blamed for anything, it's for having a stale game plan.
This is simply the work of the basketball gods evening things out since last year we had a relatively injury-free season. Injuries are crazy... most of the time when they come, they come in bunches.. its almost as if its an epidemic. It can also keep a truly great team from reaching their ultimate goal... I still maintain that the 1997 Rockets could have been one of the best of all-time if Hakeem, Clyde and Charles didn't have those constant injury problems (which, albeit, comes with age). They had a RIDICULOUS record when all three were healthy at the same time.
It's not JVG's fault. Gimme a break! Everything wrong is always JVG's fault. My radiator busted, so it's JVG's fault. My dog bit me; it's JVG's fault.
Mr. Van Gundy's preference for older players, and filling his roster(s) with them are a big part of the reason his players get hurt.
I just think the injuries might reflect the age of this team. Yeah, I know Yao and T-Mac are young, but as Indiana Jones once said, it's not the age but the mileage.
If McGrady and Yao get hurt? Not his fault. If Barry, Deke, Wesley, etc do? Sure, it is, to an extent.
Exactly what I was thinking at the beginning of the year when I saw the makeup of their roster. While it's a fact that older players tend to wear down and get hurt more than younger players, this season it's been the younger players - Yao, TMac & Alston whose injuries have hurt this team the most. Now the older players have indeed gotten injured as well - Sura, Anderson, Barry & Mutumbo so JVG can't be held responsible for what's happened. If you want to point fingers, point them at Dawson, JVG & the rest of the coaches and scouts who knowingly went into this season with an aging unathletic lineup that even under the best of circumstances would have been ill-equipped to compete in the West. This was the natural consequence of years of poor drafts and bad personnel decisions. You'd think that after all those years in the lottery they'd at least have a solid core of young players to build around but with Dawson at the helm, that has not been the case. Yao is the only player still on the team from all those long dismal losing years. While this has been going on here, the competition has been busy adding better players. Their competition is younger, faster and much more athletic. What's truly telling is that as the Rockets have been basically spinning their wheels all these years drafting poorly while taking in an assortment of veteran players, the competition has been finding good young players in the draft and in free agency. There's a lot of hate here for the Dallas', San Antonios and so on because they have been smart where we have been stupid but the results on the court that speak for themselves. And, at the end of the season, that will be the only result that will matter the most.
The basketball gods are setting us up for success. Lets hit the lottery this year,and add a young star to T- Mac and Yao, and make sure all the important parts are healthy for next year. Lets follow the Spurs recipe for success. We have a good team, injuries ruin the season, draft a stud. Also, come February we good trade (if we get good young value or good draft picks) Howard, and/or Wesely. and add to to a young base of talant to go with the stars.
Nope. There is no player in this draft that will help us as much as an established 2nd tier star such as Lamar or Wally. Artest would be a dream. We need to trade the pick for an established player that is still in his mid 20's. Fatigue and age are the two main factors that cause injury as someone said earlier. I don't blame Van Gundy for the randomness of injuries. But I do think that his style of grinding guys down from the first day of training camp makes player more susceptible to injury because they are fatigued. And when you play fatigued, your angles are looser, your knees are loooser, and when you jump and land on those pegs, you are more likely to twist or bend something in a way it is not meant to go or you are likely to fall on your keester because your legs give out. And players wind up throwing their weight around because they have less muscle control when they are fatigued. The season is a long season, 82 games plus the playoffs. I think it would be smarter to start the season with some easier practices and maybe work the younger players harder or players that are out of shape harder. Players like TMac and Yao don't come to training camp out of shape. Those players should be conserved in practice and training camp. Let the Lonny Baxters of the team do the running and the grunt and grind work. As the season winds down then the coaches can wind up the practice work to get everybody geared up for the playoffs. And even then how necessary is that? As the season winds down, teams are fighting harder for playoff positioning or to just make the playoffs. The intensity goes up just for the games. They've played 70 games plus the preseason so they should know what they are doing. Witness the Mavs last year. There was a noticeable difference in the intensity and play of that team at the end of the season from the beginning of the season. Players that come to camp out of shape should have to work their butts off. The superstars that come to training camp in shape should be coddled just a little bit.
The old Miami team under Riley also broke down by the time the playoffs rolled around. Mourning, PJ Brown and Hardaway were a pretty good group. The sludge-like bruiser ball takes its toll. JVG's defense has a lot of chasing. It doesn't have a lot of attacking. That grinds his players down. You can't play back on your heels all the time. Even on offense his teams play back on their heels. That goes against instinct. If you put players in sets where their instincts work, they will thrive. JVG forces players into akward sets. A grind culture will also wear players mentally. With no fun, unconsciously, players are more apt to injury. When players are always looking over their shoulder, they are likely to damage themselves.
Did JVG cause the record breaking hurricane season? We need to start a thread in April/May about the bad mosquitos. Did JVG cause the very warm winter that didn't kill them off. He's too hard in training camp. He's too hard in practice. His tough defense wears players down. (For some reason, this doesn't apply to the Spurs and Pistons). He doesn't nurture Stromile enough, which is why Stro's numbers this year are about the same as prior years. He's not good with rookies (Luther anyone?). He doesn't want to run. He's too negative to the press. He's a control freak who just needs to turn everything over to Tracy on offense. He's an "idiot" because we don't have enough 3 point shooters on our team. He must be the sorriest coach in the NBA.
