This is kind of unbelievable. Rafer was pretty bad, and I'm sick of him bricking wide open threes, but everyone seems to sort of ignore that Rafer posted the unequivocal best season of his career this year. Sure he was bad, but the fact is that Van Gundy made him look pretty much as good as he could. I seem to recall that he got some gamechanging steals off Deron Williams in the playoffs too, and played Deron to nearly a standstill a few games. You can't really ask for more from such a limited player. JLIII and VSpan on the other hand, were unequivocally awful. We could maybe have a little debate on the merits of bricking threes versus ignoring open teammates on fast breaks versus throwing no-look passes into the fifth row.
see, Rafer is a bad shooter, so what you want him is to not to shoot as much as he did, well JVG wanted him to shoot, even tho he sucked ass, I don't blame all on Alston for his shooting, its Jeff who forced him to do it I never understood why he just didn't want to adjust those little things, stuborness can cost you a job!
Les Alexander is the greatest owner in Houston pro sports history. Today is a perfect example. A change had to be made and Les pulled the trigger. Les wants to win. The Rockets were too talented to get embarassed on their home floor in Game 7. Thank you Les.
Blame it on players, how exactly do we do that. JVG has either cut or traded players repeatedly in his stint here (Yao the only player on roster since his arrival). I'll say it again, he had 3 different squads to work with here. The initial one w/ Steve, Cat, Yao, JJ etc. Then the WBPS......Then the current w/ Battier, Alston, Hayes etc........how many times do we keep retooling under this man??? Gundy lovers and defenders need to get up and smell the coffee, unless they refuse to believe that he had any consent as to the players were brought on. If you guys believe it was all CD and no Gundy as far as bringing new players go, its not even worth arguing the matter any further.....
This is basketball man. You shoot the best shots you can get every possession, and it's too bad but a lot of the time the best shot we had was an open Rafer 3. You can't tell me that you'd rather have JLIII or VSpan shooting that shot. I know, I know you're going to argue that VSpan could have drove the ball to the hoop but he's not going to do crap with it with Yao clogging the middle. And believe me, no coach in his right mind will take Yao out to the free throw line just to open up a lane for VSpan. A doubleteamed postup for Yao is still a better shot than a drive for Span, and I'd argue it's a better shot than an open 20 footer for Span too. Sorry, I don't see it.
Winning is the most important thing to him, even if it means sacrificing your reputation. Les lost a lot of respect in the way he dealt with this whole coaching situation, not because he fired JVG, but the MANNER in which he went about it.
Matchups man, playoffs are about MATCHUPS. You're going to honestly tell me the team with a 2nd year Yao who nobody passed to, Steve, and Cat was going to beat a Laker team with 4 Hall of Famers? Remember when Kobe was matched up on Francis and actually smiled? You're going to tell me that a team with Ryan Bowen starting is going to beat an incredibly balanced Dallas team that went to the Finals with an unchanged roster the very next year? You're telling me Yao can guard Boozer? I agree, some of it has to do with Van Gundy but the fact is he did his best with the roster given. You're going to argue that he brought "his guys" in but nobody was complaining when Sura, Barry, and Wesley were lights out and Battier played as well as anyone this year. Besides, who's the GM anyway?
Whatever man. You are the one that's crazy. Bonzi was ready to show his greatness and JVG held him back. Then Bonzi got frustrated with JVG so he started eating pies as a part of his depression. The whole situation could have been avoided by JVG. And btw, Vspan would have DOMINATED.
Funny you should mention Phoenix. Phoenix only got better 3 years ago after they blamed their coach by firing him, added D'Antoni as the new coach and add 1 player...Steve Nash. Up until then the ownership of the Suns was about on par as the Rockets. The Suns were not even on Par with the Rockets the year before they made D'Antoni their coach. Now the Suns are an elite team.
we needed changes and we got it. Van Gundy was a good coach but had his limits that could not get us pass the first round. Lets hope the new coach will bring us the offense we needed.
Van Gundy put the ball in Les' court. Les fired him. I don't know what happened behind the scenes. All I know is Van Gundy was publically very nonchalant about coaching the Rockets next year. If I wanted to coach the Rockets, I would not be covering the playoffs for ABC but rather talking to Les and Morey every day, and telling the Chronicle about how much I want to coach and how things would be different next year.
You forgot the maturation of Stoudemire, emergence of Joe Johnson, and the Quentin Richardson trade. Steve and Mike are obviously brilliant in their own ways, but not as much as Bryan Colangelo imo.
so all the rockets need is nash. sweet! and then they need snyder to become JJ and luther become barbosa...soooo close!!!
