You think every smart expert there would keep McHale just because they are smart like Morey? The concept of keeping McHale is so sacrosanct just because Morey deems him a great coach?
<br> I think you all severely discount the relationship between Dwight Howard (you know, our best player/best center in the league) and Kevin McHale. Dwight very publicly cited McHale as one of the key reasons for him signing here. This league is as much about keeping your stars happy as anything else. I don't think McHale is a great coach. But his ability to manage personalities is obviously a strong suit. We need a good assistant coach brought in to replace Kelvin Sampson. I'm not making any excuses here. I do agree that McHale did a subpar job in the playoffs. But, losing Sampson right before the playoffs was also not ideal. Let's see what the organization does this summer to address that since McHale is obviously being brought back.
If his chances at a championship are being hindered by McHale, don't fool yourself into thinking that Dwight would even bat an eyelash at making the correct decision.
Well, we as Rockets Fans are usually too close to the team on an emotional level that any objective analysis (including degree of role) of the coach is highly, highly skewed. Like how Pop is regarded as the de-facto standard here, while he gets slammed on SpursTalk far more than he should. I'll leave it to the GM to find someone that doesn't make him look incompetent. I'll trust that he's not off his rocker.
You could make the same exact argument for Morey who's arguably even more dependent on the coach doing his job correctly.
Ugh, really disappointed in his showering McHale with praise, even though I wouldn't expect him to say anything else in an interview like that. We need a defensive coach, and it shouldn't be "up to McHale" anyway. I doubt it really is. Just seeing our guys confused after TWO timeouts on that last play was just stunning.
as long as im not hearing "the ball got sticky" for the years in a row, ill be happy. maybe people shouldn't be blaming anyone, but there are some worrying flaws in the system.
So Morey is keeping McHale because it drew Dwight to this club? Morey is like the mechanic who can get all these top notch and exotic car parts, but somehow cannot build a decent car...........
Every structure, system, etc. has a flaw. People pick and choose their flaws in hopes that they will be as transparent as possible. Opinions on what is most resilient and transparent vary across a broad spectrum.
It takes time/trial-and-error to properly fine tune a machine designed to do great work. I've heard tuning the timing tables @ Ferrari is very labor intensive.
They give McHale the team option and it is only one year. Out of respect. I guess the best McHale can do is go to the 2nd round dependent on the overall picture in the West. That is not guaranteed. I don't think McHale can go from mediocre coach (which is pretty good for a inexperienced coach) to be the man on a championship contender in one year. That would be more than a miracle. And it is doubtful that we can get someone like Love. If we get Carmelo and/or Rondo this team will be improved but still would deal with chemistry issues. Easier to dispose of McHale however.
This is conjecture on your part. No one knows how Dwight feels right now. The only basis from which to draw a conclusion as to one of the reason's for McHale being kept is the factual information from the past year. The key focus for the Rockets this off-season is shoring up its role player issues as well as finding a competent assistant coach to fill in for Sampson. Let's see what they do.
The only way this makes sense is a) Les love McHale and Morey has to go along with it or b) Morey is going to completely deconstruct and rebuild the roster, which no real coach would sign on board for
Pop more than proved himself though very early on in his time with the Spurs. He did a fantastic job as GM his first season there by getting Sean Elliott back from the Pistons(for Bill Curley!), and adding Chuck Person and Doc Rivers. All the Spurs did was win 62 games and get to the Western Conference Finals. And had it not been for Dream playing the best basketball of his life, they win the title that year. His first year as coach was a disaster, but they were clearly tanking for a high draft pick once it was clear their team was not gonna be very healthy. I lived in San Antonio at the time and believe me, the fans there HATED Pop for running Bob Hill out of town. Had the Spurs not lucked into the #1 pick and Duncan, it's possible they would've fired him. But in his first full season on the job in 1997-98, he did a great job. The Spurs got to the 2nd round and even though they lost to Utah in I think 5 games, Duncan gave the Jazz all they could handle and you could already see this was a team on the rise(or a resurgence to be exact). The problem with McHale is that it's hard to point to the results of the 2013-14 season and view it as a success. Yes, they won 54 games in the regular season which is 9 more than a year earlier, but the postseason was a major disappointment. And the issues plaguing this team back in November continued all the way to late April/early May and cost them the series with Portland. So it's not like the Rockets came up a little short, but have laid a solid foundation going into 2014-15. There are major deficiencies that I don't believe Kevin McHale is capable of addressing. And a few additions to the roster or a new defensive specialist on the coaching staff won't cure all of that.
I guess this is going to be the talking point for Morey's minions all offseason, "it's all Les's fault!!!". How ironic whenever Morey makes a favorable move you guys give him all the credit and reference him as the best GM ever. But if the Rockets fail and one of Morey's move backfires, it's all the owner's fault. The cycle continues.......
