[Houston Chron] Healthy Heavy Hitters Gain Respect

great read. thanks rob for sharing.

i like this quote and hope they can actually do it...

"... Now David (Wesley) and I have to start knocking down some shots."

 

Wow, JVG being downright effusive (for him) in his praise of Yao...

"I still think he's a long way away from the type of shape he was in prior to his injury," said Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy. "But the kind of shape that he is in is a direct result of his incredible dedication. He's got a level of dedication to his craft and profession that very few have."

"Yao's lateral quickness is better than people think and better than he thinks it is," Van Gundy said. "He can move his feet. He can do more than one thing on defense.

"He can go from one responsibility to the next. I think he's improved in that area."

 

It will be interesting
JVG will be a coaching genius when the Rockets make the playoffs

He gets no blame because of injuries for the loses
but
will get all the glory for the wins . . . when it is more about healthy players

Rocket River
told ya'll . . .we will make the playoffs . . PERIOD.

 

I hope you are bieng sarcastic, because otherwise you haven't been paying much attention.

 

Rightly so? Why should he get blamed for our bad record. Sure, you can make a case for a issues here and there, but it's not solely on JVG.

When praises come, and I hope and believe they will, the whole team will get credit.

 

To me JVG's results without Yao and TMAC speak more about his coaching ability than anything. He can't win without them and shouldn't be commended for winning with them. He himself has been quoted as saying it is not about the players that makes a winning team it's about the coaching and the system. Yet he has proven his coaching is lacking and he has no ability to motivate a team with out his stars. Look at Jerry Sloan when the Jazz lost Malone and Stockton. they were by far the worst team in the league after those losses and yet they were still winning. Not enough to be a playoff team but alot more than we were without TMAC.

Hell look at the Rockets after losing Olajuwon and Barkelys injury and Franchise's headaches and the Rockets won 44 games that year and almost made the playoffs. Now that's coaching. Of course all the JVG lovers will not acknowledge that and make excuse for their man but their is no excuse. He has 2 of the 10 best players in the league and he can't even win at high enough rate when they are both healthy much less if 1 is injured. And if they are both injured forget it we are by far the worst team in the NBA.

 

You realize Yao and TMac weren't the only ones injured, right? At one point, our only starter on the active roster was Juwon Howard!

Oh forget it. This is becoming quite the tired argument. In any case, it's sure good to see the "Special Two" back in action. If the team can recapture even a fraction of last season's magic, we should be in for a fun ride to the finish.

 

you're kidding, right? when 5-6 players were out, we still hung in close games, even after having to resort to nbdl players....

when during this entire season were only the big 2 injured???

 

Yeah, and Juwon's got the worst +/- numbers on this team....bar none. Yao played a lot of games without McGrady and his +/- is still good. TMac played a lot of games without Yao and his +/- is still good. Juwon was on the floor with at least one of them for most of the season and his +/- numbers are the worst.

I think the Yao Juwon combination does not work. They need to be split up. We need to have either Hayes or Swift (at this point preferrably Hayes) teamed up with Yao and then put the other one on the second team with Howard. Howard is a good team player but he's just not effective with Yao. It puts 2 slow flooted players on the court and we need the quickness that Hayes and Swift bring to play alongside the big dude.

Bench Howard. Start Hayes. Bring in Howard and Swift for Yao and Hayes. Or start Swift with Yao and bring in Hayes and Howard behind them. I think Howard should be getting most of his minutes backing up Yao.

 

In other words, you're saying that the great coaches don't require good players for the team to do well? Larry Brown is one of the top 3 coaches in the league and look at how far he's taken the Knicks. You cannot place the blame soley on JVG's shoulders. Coaching does matter yes, but the players make much more of a difference, regardless of what JVG might have said.

 

JVG coached the Rockets to the playoffs for the first time in 5 years. Was that coaching?

 

We'll be the story of the year for the NBA when we turn it around and make it to the playoffs, then to the WCF.

 

Name me one "genius" coach that won without talent?

 

Yet JVG took the same Rockets team that Rudy couldn't get to the playoffs with and got them there. That's not a slight against Rudy at all, it's just a way to show you that saying that JVG can't coach ia ridiculous. I mean seriously, name me one coach that could have won without Yao, McGrady, Swift, Anderson, Sura, Barry and Alston in the line-up at various points, sometimes at the same freaking time? And with a near 40 year old center starting no less! And running two points guards in the freaking backcourt all the while your frontline consists of Howard, an aging Mutombo and Lonnie Baxter!?

 

Barkley and Olajuwon weren't on the team the year of Francis' headaches and they finished with one of the worst records in the league.

 

That team was mostly healthy, the 45 win squad. Minus Hakeem that team averaged starting about 78 games, Hakeem started 58. I guarantee that if this team had did that they would have won more then 55 games. The next year that team was hit by injuries (Francis' headaches, etc.) and only won 28 games. So does that make Rudy T a bad coach? Because you just said JVG is a bad coach while coaching through the same problems Rudy T. did in 2002, yet this year's team should win more then 28 games.

 

JVG hasn't proved anything yet. OMR is spot on. So far he's proven his system is terribly inefficient in obtaining wins in terms of player / team talent. The jury is still out on JVG.

(1) 2002-2003 season - 43-29 record - just missing playoff's under Rudy T - bear in mind the Rockets imploded the last 15 or so games with Rudy dealing with cancer. In 2003-2005 45-27 record with JVG with the same crew making it into the playoff's as the 7th seed. 2 wins separated the seasons. I'd say that the results were the same between the seasons so anyone who claims that JVG was a better coach with the same crew is deluding themselves.

(2) 2001-2002 vs. 2005-2006 rosters talent per talent I'd say the 2005 Rockets have more depth than the 2001 team did by far. If the 28 win 01-02 injury situation is a measuring stick of the current season with JVG then I'd say that all that proves is he's done nothing more than what Rudy did. Infact with more depth with the 2005 team I'd expect more in the similar situation.

 

I wonder where all the people claiming that JVG's system is terribly inefficient were when they were regularly scoring 110+ in the second half of last season with a healthy Bobby Sura and Juwon Howard.

 

Who gets the credit for that? JVG's system or the players? I'd say that it appears to be the players because pull one of them out of the system and it goes south like when Sura or JH were out last year.

Is JVG a terrible coach? No. However I think it's equally a myth to believe that he has been able to prove that he's anything more than average at best.