No - this analogy breaks down. First, you're essentially saying that from year to year, a non-linear chaotic theory applies. We can't compare 2008 to 2007 - an apple and an orange, you say - they just taste and are different. It's not a coin flip, you say, it's a coin and a 6 sided dice. But then you say, according to "the law of averages" - if you throw an apple and an orange and a banana and a grapefruit and 14 other fruit into a basket, and then throw pomengranates and persimmons and plums and such in another basket, and then, according to "the law of averages" the various tastes of each fruit will filter each other out. Sorry but that just doesn't work. If comparing seasons is so chaotic and non linear - then what is your basis for saying that they will ultimately offset anyway? Second - your theory kind of sinks itself. 3 seasons in and the superior offensive coach has yet to produce a superior (or even above average) offensive team... why has the trend reversed itself for 3, going on 4 years now? That is a very low probability event. And furthermore, why does your coinflip trend theory of coach offensive effectiveness seem to exhibit vast swings that turn probability on its head ? Let's go back to Riley - obviously the greatest coach of offense in the modern era by the year 1990 with an unprecedented decade long run of offensive brilliance. According to your theory, there's something about Riley. THen all of a sudden he goes on a 10 year streak of tails. Are you sure there's something about Riley at this point?
Okay, I stand corrected about Artest. I guess all I could remember was his awkward "playmaking" attempts that got me pulling my hair out. And then there was Ariza!! We did have more scoring options in 08/09 then in the JVG days. But we still did not have a good creator. Rafer was it. Later we found out that Brooks and Lowry could do it better. That's why I doubt that JVG could make this group as productive as Adelman could. The biggest value of TMac was not his scoring. He was not that efficient after all. His biggest value was his ability to create for the whole team. Few players in the league could do it as well as he did. It was relatively easy to replace his scoring. It was very difficult to replace his play making. This is where Adelman comes in. Adelman is able to generate offense without a guy like TMac. Of course, he still would have preferred a healthy McGrady over any of the players we have now. But the loss of McGrady was not as damaging to Adelman as it would have been with JVG.
If we could combine the twos strengths? We would have the ultimate coach. I think Adelman is a better coach though since he got us past the first round and that counts for something.
It really doesn't matter how many sides the coin or dice has. The principle is the same. If a dice always turns up at 1, or always turns up at 1 or 2, or always turns up at odd number, etc., then there something fishy. "Orange and apple" is just a colloquial way of saying "cannot compare." Basketball teams are not like fruit. They essentially do the same things with different degrees of competence. We are going into semantics and it is not really relevant. It is non-linear in the sense that it has more than one factors at work. It doesn't mean that these factors are non-linear in themselves. For example, health is a factor. You can compare how many games missed from one team to another. These factors do tend to offset themselves in the long run (although we Rockets fans feel very differently in the past decade). Normally, 3 seasons is a good time period for seeing a trend. But what happened was not "normal." If you lost one of the top offensive players in the league half way through this 3-season period, and lost another top offensive player 2/3 of the way, that's not normal. Let's wait and see how the coming season unfold. I am crossing my fingers that if Yao and Martin stay fairly healthy, then we do have a play some great offense. This is actually a fair point. In general, a team do not change drastically from year to year. The roster changes gradually. Sometimes there are drastic changes, such as season ending injuries, or losing a franchise player like Cleveland did. So the talent level tends to stay relatively similar over a stretch. That's why I gave you the benefit of the doubt that perhaps JVG was just unfortunate enough to have ridden two bad stretches. I don't think you can say the same thing about Adelman. He went through 4 franchises in 18 seasons. When he got to Sacramento, they were a horrible offensive team. Peja was a rookie. Jason Williams was erratic. Divac was already over the hill. Only Webber was good and in his prime, but he was injury prone too. The next best offensive player was Corliss Williamson. He still managed to get them to play an average offense and continue to improve in the next few years. Riley on the other hand, inherited Magic, Kareem, and Worthy and had all of them intact for all of his years with the Lakers (except for the last one, without Kareem). Same thing with Sloan, who rode the Stockton-Malone combo for so long.
Well, then if two dies that were made in the same factory, at the exact same time, of the exact same materials - come out with the same average result over a comparative sample of hundreds of throws (games) each, under similar conditions - Does that evidence lead you to believe that one guy is particularly adept at rolling such dice and the other is not?
:grin: :grin: :grin: As painful it was to watch Gundy system, losing out on Brandon Roy because of his idiocy hurt even more. Glad he and his ego are gone.
Adelman has Morey. JVG did not. It's as simple as that. Even JVG's "vanilla" offense would be successful with the current roster. As far as comparing JVG vs Adelman, it's practically a tossup.
the highest offense jeff van gundy has ever had in his career is 17/31 teams. i looked it up on nba pro reference. he is a pendulum. he adds up to 31. if he has the 3rd best defense he has the 28th best offense. if he has the 6th best defense he has the 25th best offense. he was always convinced that if you tried hard on defense the offense would come later. that results in a lot of regular season wins, but nothing in the playoffs. the whole time he was in houston we could not score. he shortens the game like a college team without as much talent. in the nba you have to run an offense and score. if morey was here, they would have never gotten van gundy, because all van gundy wanted was former 1998 knicks players. he would never play young talent. van gundy is an alright coach for a weak team. but once you have talent, he is a ****ty coach, as seen by us never getting out of the first round. during the whole van gundy era, anytime mcgrady went out we would lose 10 of our next 11 games. we could not win a game without mcgrady. the guy was a joke of an nba coach, as is his brother stan. the only thing holding back the magic is stan. van gundy was a joke
i guess since van gundy has made it to 1 finals and got out of the first round 3 times with the knicks in the late 90s is the same as adelman. all adelman has done is take the blazers to 2 finals, and get out of the first round 3 times, with every team he has coached. he turned the kings with webber about as good as you can. even if they did lose that game 7 in the wcf. he has been successful with 3 teams, where van gundy is still living off taking the 8 seeded knicks in 1998 to the finals. that was a long time ago. adelman is an instant hall of fame coach, where van gundy is no more than average at best
i meant adelman has been out of the first round 7 times, and to the conference finals 3 times. outside of the fluke strike year knicks that got their ass beat in the finals anyways. van gundy has never been out of the 2nd round. adelman is a winner. he took the lakers to game 7 with 6 guys and a 6 ft 5 center. his first year here, with no yao after the first 10 games, he won 22 games in a row. adelman is the best coach houston has ever had
I think JVG allowed gifted offensive players freedom to create, defense was great, the guy was a hardass and I don't know if he could've led a contender to a ring.
he allowed tslack to dribble around the top like magic johnson and then kick it into yao. while we had old washed up players/shooters lined up around the perimeter with no movement. that is a terrible offense. in the playoffs we were always getting 24 second shot clock violations. our offense was disgusting
JVG indeed had Morey. But JVG's style wasnt suited for the type of players Morey wanted to bring in. MOVES JVG WOULDNT HAVE NEVER MADE: 1.Drafting Aaron Brooks 2.Trading Rafter & starting Brooks 3Playing Landry big minutes his rookie year 4.Signing Von Wafer 5.Playing Von Wafer in the playoffs 6.Drafting Chase 7.Allowing Chase to play more than 5 minutes without making one mistake JVG had zero tolerance for young players NOT named Luther Head. As good as Aaron Brooks is, he had to learn by making mistakes in which Adelman allowed him too. Could you imagine JVG's face after Aaron missed a 3?
JVG acheived a similar result as RA with far less talent. If JVG had guys like Brooks, Lowry, Landry, Scola, etc....he'd have done a lot more damage in the playoffs.
Of course all this is false. Chuck Hayes and Luther Head got significant PT despite being rookies. Not named Luther Head? Chuck Hayes and Luther Head were the ONLY rookies who were in the NBA rotation...apart from Vspan. Also Rafer Alston took and missed a lot 3's. JVG didn't seem to mind
So out of all the 5 years JVG was here, the only young players you can say JVG played are Chuck Hayes and Luther Head. That's 2 players in FIVE years of coaching. Adelman is the better coach by far. The only people who say JVG is the better coach are the ones who liked his personality. Basketball wise, Adelman was a more flexible to young players and all around a better coach.
Exactly. I mean, look at how all those players JVG was sticking on the end of the Rockets bench are tearing up the league now that he is not there to keep them down. Spanoulis, Nachbar, Novak, Lucas III, Ford, Braggs, Wilks, Barret, Knight, Bogans, Davis, Frahm, Graham, and Lampe; you could just get all of those guys together on a team and you would be a lock for the #1 seed. I think four of them are still playing in the NBA.
How is Azubuike doing? Nachbar was a good 6th man once he got to New Jersey and got consistent playing time. Come on, you can not honestly say that Jeff Van Gundy and Rick Adelman are equal in their developing young players. I can agree that Morey has given Adelman more to work with, but Adelman is involved in the acquisition side, just like JVG was..... And Easy is right, JVG had two Top 10 players.....Adelman has never had that...... It is a no brainer, Rick Adelman is the better coach for this team, doesn't mean JVG sucks, though I think he is seriously overated by some.....but IMO, Adelman wins hands down. DD
Azubuike is not doing much nowadays. Been injured since early last season. Before then he was a fairly average player on bad teams and/or Nelly teams. Boki "peaked" years after leaving the Rockets (and having not done anything as a Hornet) as a 20 mpg player in the NBA. What great waste of talent!!!!
Kelena was cut by JVG, and became a pretty decent reserve player, Boki fought with JVG over playing time and was shipped out where he found his game and flourished as a 6th man. Why play either of them minutes when you can simply continue to run Ryan Bowen out there...lol. Whether or not they are all star players, they were NBA players, who could have been developed under JVG. The entire argument that some of you are making that JVG develops rookies or trusts young players as much as Adelman is simply insanse. Adelman let's players find their way a lot more than Van Gundy who tried to micromanage every single possession. Well, except for TMac of course, JVG had his lips firmly glued to Tmac's arse.....enabling him more than an afterhours AA party with free booze. All the New Yorkers in here defending their boy JVG.....it's ok, I understand liking certain players or coaches..... DD
