Are the Rockets better than they supposed to be? e.g., is JVG making bigger impact?

Take a look at Rockets scoring per game month by month:

Nov. 86.3 points per game
Dec. 85.9
Jan. 87.9
Feb. 91.4
Mar. 94.5

They are getting better at offense.

 

You coach with what you have. Pat Riley stressed offense as the Lake Show Coach and defense as the Knicks headmaster. Why? Because the Lakers were a great offensive team and the Knicks stunk on offense. If JVG attempted to install a fast-break, West Coast offense in NY, do you really think it would have worked with the personnel they had?

I do believe that a coach makes a difference, but more in the subtle aspects of the game. Rick Adelman has done nothing different from when he first started coaching the Kings and they were first-round fodder. It's the subtle changes and adjustments, plus the motivational strengths, that make great coaches, IMO. Blaming our offensive woes on JVG is off.

 

The Rockets would have been the same under Rudy. But you have to take the good with the bad:

<b>Defense:</b> better under JVG
<b>Offense:</b> About the same. Maybe a little better under Rudy.
<b>Fast Break: </b>Better under Rudy
<b>Players:</b> Happier with Rudy
<b>Dicipline:</b> Better under JVG
<b>Steve:</b> Better under Rudy
<b>Yao:</b> About the same. More emphasis under JVG's inside/outside, but this actually hurts the team sometimes. When Yao is not in the game, we still run the inside/outside w/ Spoon and others.......under Rudy, it would have been iso, which would've helped Steve and Cat.
<b>Player rotations</b>Better under JVG. I could never understand why Mooch got so many minutes, or why Steve and Yao were both out of the game at the same time under Rudy. This drove me nuts!
<b>trades</b>So far betten under JVG, w/ the Mooch trade alone.
<b>Our Record</b> About the same.

All in all, we are better in some areas, and suffer w/ others. JVG has converted a very cocky and overrated defensive team from last year to a very diciplined and focused team on defense. His lows are his player relations, specifically w/ Steve (the Super Bowl incident should <b>NOT</b> have been made public). Also, while we look good in some games, we are utterly boring to watch in others. But like I said, its a wash in my opinion. But I did want Rudy to experience one year in the new arena and one more year w/ Yao Ming. It would have been something to see.......It would have been interesting to see a team of Rudy, Elie, and M.Maolone ......rather than JVG, Ewing, etc.....

 

No brainer... Rockets would have had a better record if Rudy were here. Give JVG credit. He is smart. Smart enough to realize after watching Yao for one season this kid was the real deal and he could ride the kid's coattails. Of course Rudy realized that long before then. Before most. back when everyone was saying what a mistake they should go with Jay williams. Rudy new better. And now JVG gets to benefit from Rudy's foresight.

 

Yoa would be terrific in the Kings' offense. There are two things that make Yoa very special: his passing and his outside J. Any offense scheme that neglects either will not be maximizing Yoa's potential.

 

Zone.

Let me first say, I absolutely respect Rudy T. He was, and still could be, a terrific coach. But just like any quality coach throughout history, he was great with the right players. I'm not so convinced he could've pushed our guards to evolve with the changing NBA game.

With various variations of zones being played and the end of illegal defense, an Isolation offense would have us in the lottery once again this year (Our championships were won with inside-out play or post isolation).

I tend to think Cat and Steve would still be determined to run the show under Rudy, and his relationship with those players would've held back the type of changes we see we've needed under JVG. They've had a hard enough time adjusting under new leadership. It seems it would've been even more difficult under someone who's allowed you to freelance so much already in the past.

That all being said, I think the Rox are night and day better. They've came a long long way in just this year. Even since the AS Break. For the most part, game to game it's neat to watch the evolution. Oh hell yeah, it's frustrating at times. But usually during those same games they crap out, the Rox at one point look like world beaters going up on everybody by double digits. It's obviously especially sweetest when they build the lead and still win.

Are they better than they're supposed to be? No ... The Rox should be better. We expect championship play here in Houston. We've been there before, and we wanna be there again. And let's face it, they beat themselves when they lose. And when beating yourself (turnovers, lack of execution) is the ringing truth of your team, you're not as good as you really could be ... as you're supposed to be.

 

I think you've made a bit of a straw-man of Rudy's offense. What he did in his last season wasn't technically an iso-offense in the first place. But, it's just a name. We can take whatever it is he did do and call it iso. Year-over-year, it has gotten better results than Van Gundy's current offense. Perhaps we are getting better over the course of the season and maybe the numbers will be better at season's end (btw, as our offensive numbers have gotten better, our defensive numbers seem to have gotten worse). So, I guess the first point is that you mischaracterize the Rudy offense to say it was not complex. Regardless, it got better results.

Second point would be that it seemed to me that Rudy was progressing toward the principal that Van Gundy now employs -- starting the offense with Yao inside. The main difference here is that Van Gundy had the luxury of Yao the sophomore while Rudy had Yao the rookie. Rudy was working with a guy with poor stamina who was still learning the league and his role with the team. So, I don't think Van Gundy has rejected Rudy T.'s scheme at all: I think he did generally what Rudy would have done. The only exception being -- and maybe this is just too partisan of me -- I'd have more confidence in Rudy making a more sophisticated version.

Which would bring me to my third point, which is I don't believe that an offensive scheme cannot integrate both a low-post threat like Yao and a driving threat like Francis. Don't ask me how that would work, I'm not a coach. But, there are historical examples of good low-post players co-existing with good penetrators. That Francis has been rendered ineffective means to me that Van Gundy has failed in making the right system. In this hypothetical alternative, I think Yao's role on the team would still have greatly expanded under Rudy, but Francis would have maintained more of his effectiveness. Again, it's all conjecture both ways. We won't ever really know.

 

More teams use help defenses more effectively this year.

All that aside though, I find that when the Rox offense is clicking at it's best (the way it should be all the time), it's a far better alternative in comparison to last year's Iso driven team.

It's actually quite a beautiful thing to watch them play at times (I could't feel that way last year) ... at both sides of the court. I like teams that pass the rock. I like high assists and low turnovers. I like lock down D. I tend to think points will take of themselves with the execution of those philosophies.

That's just my sincere opinion though.

 

Off by one. This is the third year for the zone. The first year of the ZONE was when Francis got hurt and the Rox went lotto getting Yoa in the draft.

 

Zone was legal last year. We had OTs last year too. That's not the reason for scoring increase through out this year. Even if you took out the OTs, scoring is still close to 90points per game in March. And our game this year is slower paced than last year.

So far, I don't see your stats shows Rudy's offense better JVG's and defense as good as JVG's.

 

I think an interesting point here thats overlooked is pt differential.. we have a bigger point differential than last year (our pts scored - our pts allowed) which show trends and ours is much better this year than last. Also our offensive output has gotten much better every month as have our players production.

Is this from the team starting to gel better? JVG making better adjustments? whatever the case the team is looking better overall. The team may have scored more last year but the offense wasnt that nice to look at last year either.

I think we lost some key elements this year (losing EG, losing JPosey) and added new elements (not better or worse just different) but still playing better than we did last year at this point and pulling out more close victories.

Everything happens for a reason and so far (overall) ive been quite satisfied with this team and the direction it is going.

J

 

On defense , it's a team game, you can't just give that to Yao alone. Team defense and help defense are a lot better this year.

On offence, you can't just assume we'll increast from 92.3 to 93.8 under Rudy just because Yao plays 3 more minutes a game.

First, Rudy's system is more ISO, I doubt Yao would get as much touch as he gets now under Rudy. That's the main reason Rudy didn't come back.
Second, before Yao came, it was Cato. That means we scored 1.5 points when we replaced Cato with Yao. this year, Yao is improved, but Steve lost his shooting touch. So their is no garentee we would score more under Rudy.

 

daoshi: THe Lakers *don't* maximize Kobe's potential. He's just so damned good that a better fitting replacement player wouldn't actually provide a net benefit. If they could get McGrady, he's a comparable star who would "fit" better. McGrady does have a better outside J than Kobe.

You're so wrong about this.

1. A big man on the outside has less effect than on the inside, because he doesn't command the double.
2. Yao doesn't seem to have 3 point range. Forcing him inside is of the greatest benefit, since he's always still going to have a higher efficiency inside than out unless he can hit the 3.
3. Yao isn't really that exceptional from the outside. He's good - but in an ordinary way that plenty of other big men are. Look at it this way: perhaps the best big man who does what you desecribe is Vlade Divac. Vlade Divac is less influential than Yao, already.

Playing inside-out with a dominant force not only maximizes efficiency for the post player, but also for those on the perimeter provided they can shoot the 3.

I usually agree with you... but you're flat out wrong on this one. Yao could play in an O geared toward Francis... and he'd actually play quite well. But it would minimize the greater part of his ability.

 

Rudy doesn't make players tough, he puts players in positions to succeed. He knows how to maximize an individuals talents - which is why we found so many CBA players and utilized them so well.

Francis and mobley needed discipline, and yao needed toughness. And those aren't thing Rudy T was good at instilling. Rudy could take players who were already tough and controled and bring them to a higher lever. He could take Hakeem to a higher level by building an offense around him. He could work with tough smart players like Barkeley and Clyde...even Horry and Cassell. He could find tough disciplined players like Mario Elie and make them into semi-stars.

But he never turned an undisciplined player into anything productive. Vernon Maxwell and Pippen both come to mind. Both are somewhat tough, but they are also undisciplined.

Francis, Mobley, and Yao lack either toughness or discipline.

So at the end of the day, I do think Van Gundy is doing better then Rudy could have.

But I think Rudy would do better on a team like San Antonio or Sacramento.

 

jvg is a good coach. while like most winning coaches he has decent to good players, he does win and seems to get his players to play.

jvg is not a great coach. he's great at D and terrible on offense.

under jvg, our defense is better, though it wasn't bad last year, and our offense is worse, though it wasn't great last year.

he's done things like play cato more that have probably helped both of those things.

he's destroyed francis which has hurt the offense. he came here talking of the great core of yao and steve, but really he's done everything to help yao become better and seems to just let steve fend for himself in the O. at least we brought back the cuttino to steve alley oop play that worked well last year. maybe more will be coming to help out a huge part of our offense.

the contention that him running the offense through yao is different than what rudy would have done is wrong, imo. rudy wasn't exactly shy about feeding the post when hakeem, and later hakeem and barkley, were here. i don't see why he would be with a capable and improving yao. it's just that yao was a rookie who started bad, ended bad, and could put up a 7 pt, 2 rebound game just as often as he could put up a 20/10 game. the difference in yao as a sophomore versus rookie is huge and shouldn't be underestimated.

i think rudy would've balanced the offense better between post and perimeter play.

jvg has given us a 1.1 point differential over last year. yeah, we were pretty much going to improve anyway. based on correlating wins to point differential the last 2 years, 1 point is worth 2.7 wins. so 1.1 points=2.97 wins meaning we should win about 46 games. somehow 46 wins doesn't impress me as anything rudy couldn't have done and makes me mad we fired him.

so in conclusion, jvg is a good coach, but so was rudy and jvg has accomplished nothing he wouldn't have, except now people get to say "defense wins championships" a lot more to support his methods and pretend it actually means something.

 

See... here's my problem:

Playing inside-out is a better basketball strategy for almost any team that's capable of playing it. Playing inside opens up the perimeter. Playing on the perimeter... well... doesn't do a whole lot, really, in terms of utilizing the entire court.

Playing inside more effectively forces the double. Playing inside creates open 3 point opportunities more often - which are more valuable than good 2 point opportunities.

And that's even ignoring the fact that Yao is almost certainly better than Francis independent of the strategic advantages of playing inside.

So, why precisely should we accomodate a guy who doesn't fit in with the best O for the team? So we can feel all warm and cuddly inside? So a guy making millions a year doesn't get his feelings hurt?

Even if you think that it wouldn't hurt too much to run a perimeter game a bit more... you're still hurting the team in terms of repetition. The more you run one type of O... the better and more flud the team gets with it. Why bother practicing a less advantagous offense when it restricts both?