Rick Adelman is great but his sudden Motion offense that he brought to Houston really started a problem early in the season. Ever since then we have been red hot. Even so, we really need to shape up the offense. Get more players scoring other than just Yao or Tmac.
Either I misread or you had this post waiting to enter a month ago. The story of the Rockets winning streak is players not named Yao or T-Mac stepping up and giving nice contributions.
I disagree with the first part the west was much tougher, because the teams at top where much better than are now. Lakers: Shaq and Kobe (3x defending champion).....what team in the west now could beat them in series? Kings: Adelman and Co. S.A.: Duncan and still capable David Robinson Dallas: Nowitzki, Finley, and Nash Jailblazers: Wallace, Wells, Davis, Pippen, Smith, Sabonis, and etc. Minnesota: KG and whoever I agree with you on the second post, but Webber, Divac, and Christie were gamers....but couldn't get to that next level. Also, like you said neither of them effect the game, like Ming does. They weren't as dominate or physical or capable of getting rebounds like that and playing that type of defense. If the Kings had Yao instead of Divac, I bet the win at least 2 titles in that time period. With that being said Adelman has never managed a big center capable of dominating the paint like Yao has ..... this guy before his injuries last year was at 26 ppg and 10 rebs and probably an MVP winner. He has a given him to last longer, but at same time, he needs to be destroying people in that lower circle (3 - 5 ft from the basket), especially in the playoffs. Also, the Kings or Blazers never had any players as talented as T-Mac, maybe Drexler that's it. Even with the injuries, T-Mac can still be all-star caliber player....if you don't treat him as such. If he gets hot, he could easily go for 40 or 50 pts. The Kings didn't have any other dynamic players like that, if they did....I imagine that would've got past LA. Also, T-Mac, I think is still the 2nd best SG in the league.....even with his injuries and rumored disinterest....he is still better than every other SG in the west, except Kobe. That's advantage against every team, except LA.
Drexler is one of the 50 greatest players of all time. I don't think they are gonna bump him out for Tmac. Drexler was a much better slasher. and Rick is the Ruler
Outside of Drexler (forgot about him), but he was the only superstar in Portland. But, they did have really good players around him..... But as far as the Kings, the only player that could really be considered a heavyweight was Chris Webber....and I think both of our superstars are better than Webber, while our supporting cast is somewhat lacking....
That Portland team was good because it was deep. kinda like the blueprint of the Rockets team now. we are much deeper than we were before. Rick the Ruler's teams weren't good because of individual performances, they were good cause they played well in his system. look at our wins, yao and tmac aren't the reasons why we are winning. its Rick's slick coaching.
Rick Adelman forced this team to discover it's own identity and leadership. Instead of leading from the bench, he let the team figure it out. And apparently it was a very good decision. DD
You're right DD! Bumping this cause I know the suckers don't appreciate Rick the Ruler and his hip hop.
Screw player of the week, Coach of the year is Rick the Ruler for putting up all these injuries and meshing the personalities of overpaid players and not being afraid to play hard workers like Wafer. My vote is Rick the Ruler... like EVERY DAYYY!
And not a true leader. JVG? Now that's a true leader. We wouldn't be in this mess if he was here, and we would've had a better record. JVG knows how to reach T-Mac, and the value of that can't even be measured.
I would never want a player on the Rockets who would even think to pull the crap that McGrady did. He leaked it to the media before he told his coach, GM, and owner. That is absolutely ridiculous. This cannot be Adelman's fault at all, he has said time and again he will wait for McGrady to be healthy but wants to move forward. Adelman has led this team to a decent record without having most of his key guys on the court at the same time, not to mention the drama following McGrady. Give the guy some credit.
Yea, JVG was never around during any messes. Like McGrady going on TV saying he was tired of basketball and wanted to play baseball as soon as his contract expired DURING A SEASON WHEN WE WERE SUPPOSED TO BE CONTENDERS. And how about not being able to control Francis on or off the court? Francis missed a team flight under JVG's watch and was visibly frustrated throughout JVG's tenure until he got traded. He couldn't get with JVG's game plan no matter how much JVG tried. How about the Bonzi situation? Sure, JVG was harder on him than Adelman was. And how did that work out? No better than Adelman's approach. In fact, Bonzi was much more productive under Adelman until we finally traded him. I think Adelman's attitude is to get whatever you can out of a guy while he's on the team. If he's a trouble maker, let management deal with it behind the scenes. So all those things never happened, right? Or is it just selective memory? JVG wasn't hard on McGrady. In fact, all he ever did was coddle him and praise him. He realized the same thing Adelman does. You can't get tough with McGrady. You have to rub his ego and encourage him or things just get worse. If JVG had been coach with McGrady's current knee situation, you would likely get the exact same results. You can't teach a 30-year-old to be tougher. At that point, they are what they are. The fact is that the way JVG handled McGrady was very similar to the way Adelman has done it. Saying things like "we need McGrady to succeed", never confronting him, always encouraging him, etc... The only difference is McGrady is totally breaking down physically now. JVG couldn't have done any better. This isn't a knock on JVG, who I also liked. It just shows that there are certain players that nobody can get through to.
Because of Alexander's obsession with big names. That reminds me how low class Les was to interview Adelman before firing him. It's sad all JVG had to do was re-new his contract during the year...
