I wish they would can him, but if that was their intention, it would've happened within days of that Lillard 3-pointer. What concerns me is that not only didn't they fire McHale, but we're a month and a half removed from the postseason and we're still short 2 assistant coaches. The only thing worse than the prospect of McHale coaching this team in the 2014-15 season is not even having any decent assistants to make up for his shortcomings. Imagine the entire year playing out like those last few weeks after Sampson left(i.e. scrubs like Corey Brewer dropping 51 points without breaking a sweat).
What was wrong with Miami's offense than???? Could it be stagnant offense??? Not getting back on Defense (Wade was the worst offender)? How many times did you see Lebron Iso with the other 4 guys standing around watching? Is Spolstra on the McHale level as far as coaching goes than? Or maybe does the finals say more about the Spurs than it does about the Rockets. I'm not saying that McHale is a great coach.... he's far from it, but when you have the same faults in your offense & defense as the 2nd best team in the league with probably the 2nd best coach in the league, I think that says more about the Spurs than anything. Pop & what the Spurs do is an anomaly. Its not something you can hold any other team up to as a standard for what can be achieved easily.... ESPECIALLY BY JUST A COACHING CHANGE with any other old run of the mill coach you think is slightly better or more popular. Its very unfair to use the Spurs as a barometer for where your team should be especially from a coaching perspective. It would be great if the Rockets could develop chemistry like the Spurs have, but we have to be a little more realistic in what we expect. They aren't going to be the Spurs, but they can definitely get better.
That's another flawed Morey philosophy that you can get by with having good assistant coaches to cover for your inept, clueless, head coach. It just doesn't work that way. McHale lacks any tactical nous, doesn't know how to call timeouts, make the right substitutions, call a play or two when needed which are the primary duties of in game coaching. Another point is coach Pop has had several assistants come by and go and yet his assistants have not had a fraction of the success that coach Pop has had despite taking up other coaching gigs while Pop remains and sees through 17 years and counting of Spurs domination.
You use the Spurs as the barometer because when you aim to be the best, you have to look at the best there is and see how you can get there. Honestly, there is not that much of a talent difference between Spurs and Rockets. In fact we have better top end talent than them. We have the 2 best players at their respective positions who are by all accounts top 10 players in the NBA and better than any Spurs player. Granted, Spurs have a better bench but that bench once again seems better than it actually is because of the system in place. What makes the Spurs tick season after season is the right coach and the right system implemented by that coach. What is your reasoning for losing to a clearly inferior Portland team? They have less overall talent and one of the worst benches in the league. If you say partly because of Harden, fair enough but the main reason we lost to a clearly inferior team was because of a pathetic coach who got thoroughly outcoached by a novice. That much I think cannot be argued. I believe McHale is one of the worst coaches in the NBA and a championship capable roster like the Rockets deserves a much much better head coach.
Oh, I'm not disagreeing with you at all. But if you're not going to hire a decent head coach, the least you can do is get some quality assistants to cover for him. And so far, the Rockets haven't even done that. They still have time, but this is not the kind of move you wanna make late in the summer with training camp rearing its ugly head.
The key to the spurs offense is similar to what Jeff preaches with the suns it's BALL MOVEMENT. if you listen to every player on the spurs that's all they talk about. It's all about making that extra pass. Honestly I think mchale preaches it. But we have are a totally different team we have HOWARD & HARDEN who are superstars and have made a career off ISOs. You will live and die by them. I don't think we will ever see this team move the ball consistently. Nothing's wrong with harden and Howard ISOs. Most fans love it. But don't get upset when all of a sudden in the forth defenses adapt because they know what we are doing. And expect harden to do something different and all of a sudden all the players start moving. It's what the team is accustomed to. People here love to say HARDEN is best SG we'll how you think he gets that label? Moreys best bet is to get players who compliment them and play D in this starting lineup. I'm sure mchale was wanting a stretch 4 all season he DID NOT HAVE IT. We were the only team in the playoffs who didn't have it. Do these to things, and we will have more playoff success even with mchale here. I'm willing to bet with anybody. 1. That goes for a 3 & D starting wing. D first guy. 2. A stretch 4 that can open lanes up for harden and pick and pop.
A good coach doesn't preach ball movement. He institutes a system where it happens. And if the problem is the players, then he and the GM find ones who will work in the system. But I'm sorry. If you're seriously trying to sell me on the notion that Howard and Harden are uncoachable and can only play ISO-ball on offense, you're nutz. Don't tell me for one second that if you handed this roster as is to a decent head coach(it doesn't even have to be someone on Pop's level) that they couldn't have at least gotten past the Blazers.
The Rockets swept the Spurs during the regular season, and lost to the Blazers during the playoffs. How do you explain that? Look.... I'm not saying that McHale doesn't suck... he is most likely a bottom 8 coach in the NBA. What I am saying is that what Houston does from a coaching/gameplay perspective vs. what Miami does vs. what San Antonio does isn't all that different. What is different is the buy-in from the players to truly play unselfish team basketball, to the commitment on the defensive end. Oh... and probably most importantly... having a bench with so much diversity in skill, effort, and shooting. The Rockets and the Heat really suffered this year when their top players came out of the game. Coaching in the NBA is very much overblown at times, and at the same time is underrated. What is overblown is the actual gameplay. NBA basketball is simple. College and sometimes high school schemes can be more complex than some NBA offenses. Pretty much all NBA teams do the exact same thing. What is underrated is the intangible ability to get your players to buy in, play unselfishly, and give 100% of their effort on the defensive end. However the intangible ability that a coach like Popovich and to lesser extent a Doc Rivers, or whoever has is only going to come to fruition if the players on the team decide they want to give in to what the coach is selling. McHale could be every bit as skilled on the chalkboard as Pop, and could be every bit as convincing to give effort as Pop is, and we'd never know it if the star players he has on the team don't respond the coaching the same way that a Duncan, Parker, or Ginobili would. All this being said.... my point is.... There is little point in arguing what marginal upgrade (x's and O's wise) the Rockets would get just in swapping McHale out for another worn out overblown veteran coach like a George Karl, etc. What should be discussed is how the Rockets are going to get better chemistry on the court, share the ball better, deepen the talent & effort off the bench, add veteran leadership, and get better effort on the defensive end. Some of that involves coaching, but the impact is WAAAYYYY Overblown.
We probably care more about preseason games than they do about regular season games. We lost in the first round. Either McHale is overrated or Howard/Harden is overrated.
I hope Morey reconsiders his position on coaching and it's importance - I think it matters a whole lot. DD
I think the coaching will have more impact if the GM commits to a vision LONG TERM. I agree that there are certain types of players who will respond more positively to coaching but this happened for the Spurs because the exact guys you mentioned were subjected to this vision and principle very early on in their careers when ego wasn't such a big issue for them still. However, if the GM takes players already with bloated egos from free agency bidding wars, the chances of them being responsive will diminish considerably. If the GM takes the right coach, gets one star with the proper mindset (Curry? CP3?), builds around him through the draft emphasizing character and skill rather than just skill, takes lesser known free agents who fit the system (Diaw, Mills), then who knows how long this team can stay good and stay together? Maybe the Spurs are an aberration, or maybe not enough GMs have committed themselves to this kind of foundation building, opting instead to take the quick fixes of luring star free agents. I think it's just simply awesome to see Manu Ginboli at age 36, in the post game interview, being giddy with excitement and proudly praising his coach and the system he has played in for the past decade plus.
Doesn't this fall on the coach then? Isn't it the coaches absolute requirement to institute a system and get the PLAYERS to BUY into it, play unselfish team basketball and move the ball? Either McHale doesn't have such a system or he doesn't have the authority or the cojones to get the players to buy into it and listen to him. This is where an experienced respected coach would do well IMO. McHale may be a great player but I doubt the players think much about his coaching abilities and rightly so. It's kind of a free for all system where you can do whatever you want with no modicum of accountability. Force ISO's? Fine. Don't play D? Fine. Here is where a respected coach would yank the player out if that certain player does not buy into the system. McHale has not achieved much in his coaching career to demand such respect from the players. It is overblown during the regular season because you can get by on talent and over a sample of 82 games, talent will eventually prevail. It is an absolute necessity in the post season irrespective of talent levels since very possession eveyr minute matters a lot. Again, this falls on the coach. You don't have to be a Pop or Rivers to get players to buy into your system IMO. You just have to be well respected and tough with the guys when required instead of giving them a free pass all the time. Stotts or Hornacek are no Pop or Doc but they have a system in place and the players buy into it.
I couldn't agree with you more....What makes McHale even worse is that as a player you don't realize he's horrible until your prime years are wasted.
Breaking news: LBJ and CP3 Did Not Win the Title Anyway. Having three HOF's play together for 12 years might have something to do with it. All right! He's on the record. He thinks Stotts and Hornacek would be better for the Rockets. . . . Excuse me if I'm not impressed. If you're a player on the Rockets and you understand the coach less than the posters in this thread, you gotta give up trying to think or make plans: you're too stupid.
I don't really understand what you are trying to argue about. Only point I'm making is that while coaching is important, it's not the end all be all that folks on here make it out to be. The Rockets have many different cultural differences that separates them from the Spurs but what angry fans this morning are failing to acknowledge is that so do 28 other teams. The problems that the Rockets have from a coaching/cultural perspective are more of an NBA problem than a Rockets problem. Oh and your point about the regular season not mattering is hogwash. If the regular season didn't matter than the Spurs wouldn't consistently win 60 games to ensure the path of least resistance to the finals every year. The regular season matters as much as it matters for actors to rehearse their lines and students to study for final exams. It definitely matters.
Mavs had a shirt season because of meh talent. Come playoffs the gave the spurs a run for their money. Heat get almost swept with phenomenal talent because of coaching. Coaching matters more than you think.
When it became apparent that McHale was staying at least one more year after the disappointing first round exit, that's when my interest in the Rox decreased. As long as McHale is coach, I have no real expectations for this team. I don't care who they try to sign or bring in, its hard to overcome that idiot of a coach.
Au contraire..... The Rockets' "system" is "Moreyball".... And the stats show that the Rockets have BY FAR shot the fewest midrange shots of any team in the NBA.... So the players have DEFINITELY bought into the system via Coach McHale. Now the system may totally disregard the "plays" that lead up to the layups and three-point shots by our team.... But apparently, to the front office, this is not a concern. Because McHale has been awarded yet another season, seemingly without any question.... In addition to the players buying into the "Moreyball" system, there have even been instances where McHale has either benched a player for shooting too many midrange shots (mostly with Lin or Parsons) or put a stop to the midrange shooting by a player the next game. The head coach may be a big problem with the Rockets, but the front office philosophy is in my opinion a bigger problem.
