JVG never had Scola, an in shape Bonzi Wells or Aaron Brooks, not to mention Rafer shooting close to 50% while Tmac was out before. Rafer's performance may be due to Adelman's offense/coaching, or Rick's offense may look good because Rafer is playing so well. Either way we have more talent this year than we ever did with JVG. Besides it's doubtful this team could duplicate what they did with Yao out last year if it happened again. I think both are good coaches, but play off victories will be the real measuring stick. Just like last season I think it is player performance more than coaching that will determine the Rocket's fate.
Carl, It's very basic. Adelman would have Spanoulis creating off the PnR like mad. Spanoulis is a PnR and fast break distributing/finishing point guard. Adelman would play to his OBVIOUS strengths. Just like Rafer. He's not having Rafer park out at the 3 point line anymore. We shot way too many 3s last year and relied on those shots as a product of 111. It got us a first round exit in the playoffs. Spanoulis made it very clear that Adelman called and tried to recruit him, telling him he would definitely have played him. Adelman wanted him back.
.............and he would not have had them either. There is no way Francis, nor Brooks, nor Scola, nor Bonzi is here if Van Gundy is coach. Bonzi would have left. Brooks draft position would have been traded for somebody like Kurt Thomas, and IF the Scola trade was made, he would be riding the pine until he made the Van Gundy committment to defense. Francis would never have considered coming back. There is no way Van Gundy is going to run 2 rookies out there, much less one being a Euro with no defensive reputation. Can't you see that? And do you really think Rafer's hot streak, if it does continue, would have happened under Van Gundy? There is not one shred of evidence that Rafer wouldn't be shooting those percentages I've got in my signature below. In fact, there's still no evidence Rafer won't revert to that again, although he has been better this year under Adelman than he ever was under Van Gundy.
Bottom line is we have more talent this year than last and so far we have performed worse than last year. Any speculation about who would have signed here or who wouldn't have been drafted or traded for is just speculation. Even if your guesses were right it doesn't mean that other trades or signings might not have been just as good or better. Certainly it seems extremely unlikely that we will have a better record than last year or home court in the play offs this season. In the end the Rockets either get to the second round or beyond this year, or they failed in comparison to even last year. Even with our recent drastically improved play we are still alot closer to being in the lottery than being a top 4 seed.
Damn jopatmc - unbelievable post about the differences in Van Gundy and Adelman. You hit the nail on the head better than I could have ever posted on why I was so frustrated with Van Gundy and his style of coaching. I mean we all knew that he was a hard worker and wanted to win but his outright stubbornness of not wanting to work with players drove me nuts. That might work in high school or even in college but it sure as hell does not work in the NBA (just ask P.J. Carlesimo when he was at GS). And I still feel that if Van Gundy hadn't been the coach, we probably would have drafted Rudy Gay if he came available to us (which he did). Yea, yea, I know that there were others in the Rockets mgmt that did not want Gay (the typical denniscd spiel) but I think people are severely kidding themselves if they don't think that Van Gundy played the biggest role on passing on Gay. All because of his stupid philosophy of playing over the hill veterans who are offensively challenged.
When Adelman takes over.... Rafer won't be the starting PG any more and Chuck Hayes will hit the bench and Battier... Oh wait, we have the same starting 5 this year. Scoring will go up... maybe eventually it will, but so far we average less points per game than last year... We will win 60+ games... Not this season... Yao in the high post will get him better oportunities to score... not so much... Offense will be easier to come by... yet up til about 2 weeks ago everyone was shooting worse than last year. I didn't call for Rick's head for the struggles to this point, but to say he has been this huge upgrade is up to this point simply not true. In fact we have gone backwords significantly to this point. Things have looked significantly better the past 2 weeks, but we haven't played any contenders over that stretch either. I certainly hope Rick can continue to build towards a winner and have more playoff success than the Rockets did under JVG. But to suggest JVG was the reason the Rockets have not won more than they have is silly.
