An interim head coach, maybe, if McFail were fired mid-season. But if McFail were to get fired after the season, then odds are good the entire coaching staff would be let go. Who wants to come here as an assistant only to have that happen to them? Certainly not anyone respectable with prior head coaching experience. Yeah, Morey's brilliant idea was to pursue former head coaches who'd achieved far more success than McFail ever did to accept a demotion and come here to be one of his assistants. Not surprisingly, they all turned down the offer. It would've been far more productive to fire McFail and then pursue these guys with an offer to actually coach this team. The failure(or refusal) to replace Sampson has gotten overlooked in all the chaos of the Bosh/Melo/Parsons disaster, but it actually terrifies me far more than the roster turnover. This team was awful down the stretch on the defensive end and it wasn't due entirely to the injuries to Dwight and Bev. I was at that game at Toyota Center against the Pelicans and the Rockets were getting absolutely torched by scrubs that night. And right before that game, they gave up 51 points to Corey Brewer. And of course let's not forget the play that ended their season when they surrendered a wide open 3-pointer to the only guy on the floor they needed to bother guarding. If they don't straighten this situation out soon(if it's even possible at this point), we're in for an ugly start to the season.
I tend to believe that defense starts when the players commit to the defensive side of the ball. Coaching defense goes hand in hand with player commitment. Let's see who they hire.
I guess you need to wait for a few more years. Mchale did nothing after game 1 loss after a guy who you know exposed our defensive weakness. The scapegoat is gone. Who is the new one? Make your best guess?
And bench does not matter to Mchale. He essentially played a 6 man rotation... If you take a look at Minutes Played in either playoff or regular season. Rocket definitively rely more heavily on the starters than other team. You can not really have a useful bench unless you let them have meaningful and consistent minutes in the regular season. Stop blaming players when it is so obvious Mchale has no long term plan on how to prepare a team for playoff wins. How many playoff series has Mchale won???
I'm still getting over the fact that the guy who actually knew something about defense left for U of H, and for all the talk this offseason about defense, we haven't done anything to address that at the coaching level. And I hate the way McHale seems to get away with scapegoating others about the lack of defense. I'll give McHale one last year but if we don't legitimately contend and do well in the playoffs he needs to go! We don't have a contending roster btw
This is one of the more astute posts I've read in a while. Very well said. Actually getting a solid defensive coach could throw this team over the top now that their aquiring players that can actually play defense. Getting a good defensive coach could be the biggest move of the off season.
Fran is a ****ing idiot. He isn't a scapegoat. You don't use Mchale to recruit Dwight and fire him after he was part of getting us to the playoffs. The right move was always to keep him on and upgrade the assistant coaches around him.
Getting us to the playoffs was not the goal last season. We got to the playoffs without Dwight a year earlier. The Rockets 2013-14 season was a failure. They lost in the first round in 6 games again, despite having home court advantage over a weaker opponent. And BTW, we haven't upgraded the assistant coaches. We've still got two vacancies.
Don't be delusional. McHale was just a gimmick in recruiting Dwight. Dwight came here because of two guys: To play with the best SG in the league in Harden and because of his ties with the Dream. Only reason McHale was retained was probably because of media if we fired him saying Dwight was responsible for getting rid of yet another coach. I doubt Morey wanted to deal with that. This is why I said that this joker McHale, possible worst coach in the NBA should have long been gone perhaps even before we signed Dwight because at that point we had a championship roster with a scrub coach in McHale who is not fit enough to lead a YMCA women's team let alone the Rockets.
Cooper a scapegoat, classless act. Mchale now as parachute for Morey in case things go bad this season. If Morey hire a new coach and things still go bad, himself is on hotseat, so keep Mchale is a smart move for him, typical office politics, too bad for Rocket fans.
So who will replace Cooper? JVG? QUOTE=sutton;9186501]Cooper a scapegoat, classless act. Mchale now as parachute for Morey in case things go bad this season. If Morey hire a new coach and things still go bad, himself is on hotseat, so keep Mchale is a smart move for him, typical office politics, too bad for Rocket fans.[/QUOTE]
