Couldn't the exact same thing be said about Doc Rivers, who had a serious losing record until he lucked into the 2007-2008 Celtics?
Did Adelman have a "open mind"? He had little need for or desire to be enlightened by metrics. As far as not being the brightest bulb... people said the same thing about Tibs. Asik is not getting minutes because he told McHale he was not ready to play after being told he would be coming off the bench. Beverley started not because he was a better player than Lin, but because his style of play and defense fits better with Harden. If you think that McHale is the end all and be all on whom starts, then you don't understand the style of leadership and culture the Rockets front office has. The complaint of "slow to change" has been used to describe Adelman, Van Gundy and virtually every other NBA coach. Please enighten us as to what better options are out there.
Whoever is the Rockets head coach will have to make serious accommodations for Morey. So there really is no better possible coach for the Rockets.
Kerr speaks da troof. While he may not have been great as a GM, he's actually a very good commentator. I don't think he hates on the Rockets. I just think inherently as a team we have many flaws that are very easy to see and easy to call out. Once we gel (mid-Feb imo) half of what the commentators are saying us about now will not apply
Spoelstra? His big coaching improvement came when someone said he was taking his talents to south beach and signed another one for good measure along with a D Wade.
Exactly, Joe Torre's record sucked until he became coach of the Yankees. Now? Considered one of the all-time greats. Will we ever know with Phil Jackson? He's flat-out said he would never go to a team as a "rebuilding" project. Translation: if it don't have Michael or Kobe or Shaq, I aint' goin'. Only thing I think we can say for sure is that some coaches can be ranked high b/c they've achieved success with different teams in different environments. Prime examples are Jim Leyland in baseball, Bill Parcells in football, and Larry Brown/Rick Carlisle in basketball. We can also say that it seems some coaches have problems almost everywhere they go, like P.J. Carlesimo and _______ (can't think of others right now) and if they always have a bad record, then maybe there's something there. But everyone else? Speculative. In the NBA, it's all about the players. Why else would every single champion since 1980, except 2004, have an all-time great, take-over-the-game type of player on their roster? McHale just needs to allot the right minutes to the right players (his one mistake this year was the TT experiment, and better to try early in the season, which he did. He learned, and that's what good coaches do).
Lol@spoelstra being a good coach, just like mike brown is a good coach right bc of his tenure in cleveland.
This. McHale wasn't hired to take us to championship. He was hired to develop young guys when we were ready to tank. He gets the nod for taking a young team to playoff, but he's not the one can bring us the trophy home
if our substitution is 5 in and 5 out, your point is valid. unfortunately, it is not the case. stop assuming lin played more minutes with backups when coming off the bench than when starting. go to record how McHale did sub in games we played. as far as I know, they are not much difference whether he starts or not.
I assume you're familiar with Manu out west on I-10? A guy called Hondo a generation earlier? This Lin off the bench is a positive outcome for this team. One in which the player is thriving, the team is thriving, and just because the name is not announced to the crowd before tip-off is no tip-off to any disrespect.
If you're a fan that only watches/reads espn without doing any of your own research (90% of fans), you would think they freakin SUCK! I mean, I get that Asik is unhappy and Dwight is a bad FT shooter.. but geez they're 8-4! Every day there is a new article on the front page of ESPN suggesting that things are tanking with the Rockets.
Spoel might be the wrong guy for some teams but he is perfectly situated where he is. His team wins with him, because of him and not in spite of him. I have great levels of disregard for Mr PJax as a human yet he can take certain athletes and make them perform better as a team than anyone else. What might the '12-'13 Lakers with Kobe and D12 have done if Brown had become Zen instead of Death'toni? Larry Brown's perfect year with Philly was perfect. But if he had been the Lakes' coach? Lakes do not win it all. It would not have worked. Remember how well it worked for Rudy in purple?
Cleveland never won a championship and is considered to have under-performed. Miami has won 2 championships. Spoelstra is a 2-time champion. You can say what you want about Spoelstra, but you could never prove he was a bad coach, unless you want to use the 2011 Finals as your sole criteria. Other than that, you have no basis at all whatsoever by any empirical data that exists which indicates Spoelstra is not a good coach. Zip, zero, zilch, nada, nadie, niente.
LOL, Pop was never a poor coach. He was still a top 5 coach at the time. He just turned into a top 2 or top 1 coach. See that mad to the left? He designed, implemented and coached that defense that won them all those games. He was the one leading and screaming in the huddles. I guess he's better the Reggie Miller. Kerr sucks balls at everything besides catching and shooting 3s.
There are a lot of factors that determine whether a coach is "good" or not. Xs and Os are one of them. Player management is another. Creating a "winning culture" is also one. When you see all those elements in a single person you get a Popovich. When you see just one element you get a D'Antoni. When you see none you get a McHale. I joke... sort of. We know McHale isn't an Xs and Os guy (see end of game play calls). He may be good at player management although there's evidence to the contrary (see fued with Lowry). I don't think he's good at creating a "winning culture" either (see Harden's lazy ass). Is he a good coach? I don't really care. All I know is I don't think he's the right coach for the Rockets as currently constructed.
yeah, great points. Doc Rivers was at least always cool with players. He got better with XnOs with Thibs as his assistant. I don't understand what McHale brings. Instead of calling people McHale haters, someone please feel free bring up what McHale brings to the table.
