This is being discussed some in time line thread but I thought it might be worthy of its own. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl...kn/4819398.html Does it all boil down to style of play rather than wins and losses? I thought this might of had more to to with things than people were realizing. If The Rockets lost in the first round but somehow we played more like the Suns and had better ratings does JVG still have a job?
Only 1 team wins the ring - every other team is a runner up, so you may as well play exciting and worth watching to most people. Les probably wanted more tv exposure and got sick of hearing how the Rockets played a "grinding" kind of basketball. So if the chances of you not winning the ring are very high, why not make fans while not winning it by playing more exciting basketball that will get you talked about more? Sound good?
My guess is that Les believes an uptempo offense would have gotten us out of the first round. The reality is that the most uptempo teams (GS and the Suns) are both out of the play offs now too. If anything we need to be modeling ourselves after the Spurs, but most of our roster is just too one dimensional right now. We have a bunch of specialists and most of them are not even dominate in their area of expertise. Hayes is no Rodman or Ben Wallace. Battier may be equal or better than Bruce Bowen, but Bowen isn't the Spurs third best player and Battier does fill that spot for the Rockets. Luther Head is our best scorer off the bench and he is basicly worthless if he shoots like he did vs Utah. Howard had a bad series and is well past his prime. There are no young players that are likely to develope into stars at this point unless you think Spanoulis is going to go from barely getting off the bench to emerging star in a season. Hopefully he can contribute, but it would be naive to expect him to be our savior that will push us over the top.
The Suns don't just have an entertaining offense, they have an extremely effective one. Just about all of their scores are off open jumpers or lay ups created by primary or secondary passes off pick and rolls - there are no dependencies on one-one match-ups like ours. Yao is so much more effective when he receives a pass off a primary or secondary pick and roll and has space to move, rather than receiving the predictable entry pass with one or two players collapsing on him, resulting in his high number of turnovers.
If we want to be a championship caliber team we have to be able to play up or down tempo. Just look at the Spurs. They don't get stomped by the Suns or Mavs when they play them just because those teams are up tempo. We have to be versitle like the Spurs or Pistons. Problem is that we need a good point guard for that. That's who can push the ball the most and effect the speed of the game, not just by running fast, but with slick assists you don't see coming, getting other open shots because teams are worried about your PG, and driving in the lane when the team is struggling from the field. Neither Head nor Alston will ever be a near All Star Calliber PG we need to be a starter. Not to mention the real contenders all have depth, where as we have none. Mobley was our last good draft pick that wasn't from the top of the lotto. Some better scouting might help, not just in the draft but for picking up free agents. I think Alexander knows what he's talking about, since it's obvious we can play slow and grindy when needed since we have Yao.
I like how posters make the issue black and white. Either the Rockets need to continueto grind it out...the ignored end result being continued first round exits as less-talented Spurs. Or, Rocket's management is portrayed as having totally lost focus and Adelman is the alleged next coming of D'Antoni. Who is deemed unsuccessful because so far the Suns haven't beaten the Spurs in the playoffs...playoffs w/o Amare and tainted by suspensions. The reality that some can't bear.... As Rockets' coach Van Gundy was never about walking the ball up court. He likes transition O. Or have you easily forgotten him waving his arms frantically at Steve Francis to get the ball upcourt? The problem that few (especially the VG only fans) want to admit or even acknowledge. It's not about style of offensive play. It's about over emphasis of one end of the court. When standing at the crossroads of risk and reward...easy points vs turnovers...player upside vs current constency and predictability...the defense of player A vs the offense of player B...the final decision for VG ALWAYS boils down to defense and predictability. Sure, the man is smart as hell and as hard working as the day is long. He leaves NOTHING to chance. And therein lies his biggest flaw. Truly great coaching is more than the instant recall of the opposing PG's 3pt% with less than 2 mInutes remaining in Q4. It's about vision and trust. Les is right...less predictability will put more butts in the seats.
I think the beauty of having Yao on your team is this: When he is in the game, you can run it down and pound it in the paint. When he is out, run like the wind! JVG he refused to do this. He continuned the "grind-it-out" style even after Yao would set down on the bench. With Aldeman(sp?) maybe this will change. Can you imagine? We would be like two different teams. With Yao we are like the Spurs.....With Yao out we could be like the Suns. Of course the grand vision will take some changes, but we have already made one change. I see more coming!
The up-tempo game has a lot of flash, and some people believe its gold. But the playoffs show that it is just iron pyrite.
Someone dig up the quote (on this bbs i think) about Yao wanting to concentrate more on offense. I think it was said after his injury comeback.
Whats the point of playing up-tempo if your team is the most unathletic team in the NBA? It only makes sense if you have athletes, and we have none. And uptempo isn't the "future" of the NBA. A balanced inside-out offense that is efficient in transition and half court will always prevail (see Spurs, Pistons)
Someoneshould dig up the quote(by JVG) that Yao should concentrate more on defense after coming back from his injury, and not to worry about offense
LA Lakers "Showtime" featured Abdul-Jabbar loping up and down the court behind Magic and Cooper and Worthy. Were they wasting Abdul-Jabbar? Nah, they just had a great offensive center for the half-court game. I think Yao can do likewise-- facing the basket. Now if we just find our Magic...
I totally agree. We would need to begin retooling the roster now in order to move to that. To win with the existing roster - balanced half court is the way.
magic is on the very very short list of candidates for the single greatest player of all-time so it wouldn't be wise to model after a team when we're missing the most important component. we're not going to be showtime but certainly a higher tempo offense can exist with yao ming. it's just not gonna happen without some other roster moves.
^^^^ This is the best post in all the discussions about JVG. Just one thing: JVG does trust SOME players. T-Mac, Yao, Battier, Rafer, and Juwan. It's a short list. But these guys seem to have JVG's unconditional trust no matter how bad they perform. BTW, T-Mac is the only one on the roster allowed to be creative on offense. Everyone else has a predetermined one or two (and no more) specific assignments. JVG should be a football coach. It suits his personality much better. He would be one of the greatest defensive coordinators of all time.
Maybe it has to do with Parcells being one of his mentors. Even Parcells wears out his welcome after four years.
This offense was what it was because there hasn't been a true point on the roster capable of running the offense since the big Tmac trade. Since the offense was deliberately designed to rely on the offensive contributions of two players, all the point guard was asked to do was to get the ball to them and take the occasional 3-point shot. Was that JVG's fault? Yes but the real issue is not that the head coach was incompetent offensively because I really don't buy that argument. No, the real issue is that the offensive philosophy of relying on the two players in question may not be enough to get this team into contention. That appears to be too much reality for Uncle Les to handle so we get what happened last week. Now you are voicing something I have felt ever since JVG came onboard. The Rockets knew that JVG was a defensive-minded coach when they hired him which at the time was touted as an "advantage". But his teams played a style of basketball that aside from the Spurs, hardly any of their Western Conference competitors played and the Spurs can do it because they have constructed a much more versatile team than the Rockets in terms of personnel and also because their offensive philosophy is not as one dimensional as is the one employed by Rockets. The interesting thing I see is that it was JVG's reliance on defense that kept them in the playoff hunt this year even with Yao missing 32 games. So will a puppet show, tumblers and hotter dancers but that won't necessarily translate into more wins. But more fannies in the seats translates to more dollars for Uncle Les (which is what it's really all about anyway) so JVG is out the door and we now get to see what Adelman can do with this roster.
This is probably dead on target. Imagine Les sitting through four seasons of Gundyball, wincing at the ugliness but being repeatedly assured that it will pay off. Then it fails to pay off for the fourth straight year, and he says, "Enough." If the medicine worked or at least tasted good, he'd still be taking it.
