"Built for the playoffs"

All you are saying is that everyone of these players were flawed in one way or another. Now my point is what did JVG do to improve those flaws?

For example: V-Span can't shoot or run the offense but like you said he needed time to correct to fix such things. It's one thing if JVG gives V-Span the minutes and makes it painstaking effort to get the guy into the rotation. But JVG had already made up his mind about V-Span back in training camp. Trying hard and failing is one thing but JVG won't even try for a change. Look he feels like most players don't fit his philosophy then it's true not all players are born to play defense. Some are shooters others drive best to the lane and such but JVG never understood the speciality of each one of his players.

 

Will,

The other way of looking at it is an anomaly in the schedule with regard to when Yao was out for 30+ games.

 

Dear lord.

Those players were beyond Van Gundy's control. As rimbaud showed, some of them played their best ball for JVG before imploding.

I think the Rockets should sign me to play point guard -- provided they find a coach who can improve upon the fact I'm not even a D-1 caliber athlete. Hey, but the right coach can fix any inherent flaw, right?

 

But WHO were we playing....I mean not all playoff teams are equal.

DD

 

Your jokes aside, these are NBA player we are talking about not some scrubs from the streets. You just overlooked what I said, JVG never tried to play V-Span in the regular rotation and his mind was made up back in training camp. How can you say a player is no good if haven't even played him long enough to see?

 

What a shocker that somebody took a good post and tried to turn the thread into another Vasilis Spanoulis Dionysian ritual. Man love knows no bounds.

I think our record against good teams was profoundly affected by the fact that, for at least 40 games this season, we were quite literally playing at half strength (without Yao or McGrady). And not only that - even when they were healthy, neither of tem was playing well simultaneously Yao was good thru December, Tracy was crap until December. Tracy was awesome when Yao came back, but Yao wasn't as good as he was before.

Compare this to the jazz - a much deeper team whose big two (Boozer & williams) missed a combined like 12 games. Does anybody here think that if Boozer had missed 30+ games instead of 10 the Jazz would have had a hard time just qualifying for the playoffs? I sure don't.

Put it this way - if Yao is only out for 10 games and Tracy is out for 2 - I say we are a 60 win quality team and punishing Denver in 5 games in the first round.

 

Tell me what Dallas' record was against those teams. How built for the playoffs were they.

Fact of the matter is, it was a close series. If it was a best of 15 it would probably end up 8-7. Utah got the lucky bounces, even Sloan said so. A miss here or a make there and Hou could be in the WCF. It was very dissapointing but hardly anything to blow the team up over.

 

We did kill Utah the one game without Yao, where T-mac was unconcious (46 points or something like that).

We also beat the Spurs without Yao in San Antonio (but also beat them with Yao and no T-mac in San Antonio).

We also beat the Nuggets and Lakers without Yao.

We didn't beat Dallas. We didn't beat Phoenix.

 

Its just as naive to assume a player must be good if he hasn't had a chance to play yet and develop.

You have to look at the tangible aspects... shooting percentages (or overall ability to hit shots), size, speed, strength, etc. After judging all of those, a player may still bring the intangible (ie - can't be measured)... but its never a given.

 

Sigh. Once again it's about Spanoulis. Will creates a thread with legitimate discussion, and we're back to V-Spam.

Go rewatch the season then, specifically November 20 to December 14. He played like garbage when he was in the rotation and was replaced by Lucas. He played him, and he sucked. Maybe he should have gotten another chance, but he played him.

 

Those records indicate what is just the nature of the beast....

You see this with teams all the time across sports a team can be greatly consistent and win a bunch games, but struggle against good teams or have a lack success in the playoffs.

This could be several things:

1. Teams with worst records against poorer teams may show they don't take those games to serious.

Look at the Lakers with Shaq & Kobe after winning the two titles, almost every season after that, they kinda coasted until they got to playoffs, because they knew were better than most teams anyway and with a few good winning streak they would always be in playoff picture and were so good on road that HCA didn't really matter until they played the likes of S.A.

2. Their gameplan may depend on several different factors or several different strengths instead of one really strong advantage (ex. Suns- run & gun and Rockets is to play stifling defense with inside-out ball control).

Look at teams in the NFL, like the Colts (03-now) or the Rams (99-02), their offenses could pretty much win 65% of their games single handle it...if your team scores 30 points a game, you're not gonna lose alot games, but those teams tended to struggle when they got to playoffs and played against better offenses and more physical defenses.

Strongest advantages on offenses are so strong that most teams can't stop em. But in playoffs when they play against teams like Patriots or the Steelers, you have coaches who are more equip to slowing down or even shutting down the strengths.

Which brings me to another point which is balance, those teams didn't win championship every because they didn't have balance on off and def.

3. Some team play their best games during course of the season, and fade out in playoffs. Ex. Atlanta Braves, The Yankees (of late), The Mavs, or The Chargers, (might add the Suns (80s-now),) these teams will have a spectacular regular season, win their division, and even dominate at times in the season.

And will usually be the clear favorite to win it all until the 1st or 2nd round the playoffs, they will meet a team that is usually hungrier or peak late in the season, while the favorite has usually rested their players or don't really take their competition series until the championship rounds. Once a weaker team like Golden State or Diamondbacks come in win the 1st game or 2nd game that takes HCA away and you have to possibly play from 2-0 or 2-1, 3-1 and being road. That's why in most games it seems like to home team has all advantage, but they have the most pressure. Because, if they lose the series will usually go the other way. BUt if you are in football or NCAA Finals, you're season is all, but done for 6-8 mths. While in baseball (in the first round), you only have to win two out of the next four games to win series if you win game 1 with HCA taken away.




In the Rockets, we don't know how to win yet. We can take the advantage in series, but we can't win tight situations which are close games or road games. That is what seperates the great teams/players from the really good players and teams.

 

Yea all we need is Kevin Garnett and Baron Davis and JVG can coach us to a championship.

JVG benches a player and he sucks and deserves to be benched. Other teams play their bench and give them opportunities to be successful other than standing in the corner and shooting jumpers and we declare them better bench players.

When ppl start debating possible replacements its only accomplished and unattainable players that come up. I don't know what kind of super team ppl expect. You point to young cheap players that other teams have developed and capitalized on their strengths yet the coach you hail only wants accomplished vets.

 

Who's saying Garnett?

Harpring, Fisher, B. Barry, Diaw, Bell... these are just some of the role players playing for other playoff teams that would be total upgrades over our current 3-8.

 

For 2006-07...
Carlos Boozer played in 74 games.
Matt Harpring playing in 77 games.
Andrei Kirilenko played in 70 games.
Gordan Giricek played in 61 games.

Any WC team starting offensive liabilities (and Van Gundy favorites) like Chuck Hayes, Shane Battier and Rafer Alston, combined with a one-dimensional spotup shooter like Head and a 40+ year old backup Center isn't a 60 win team if the other starters are Hakeem and Glyde in their primes.

NO Jazz player....NOT A SINGLE ONE....averaged more than 36.9 mpg. 4 of 5 Rockets starters topped that amount. Call it lack of depth, call it lack of talent...but don't call it a 60 win team.

 

I was not trying to make this a V-Span thread but to point out that JVG is terrible in developing talent. Like you pointed out it took JVG less than a month into the season to decide V-Span is no good. What did he expect? A rookie from Greece to come in and play lights out?

It takes commitment and patience on the part of a coach to turn a talented raw player into a solid contributor. Unfortunately JVG is not that type of coach. End of story.

 

Rudy didn't turn a talented raw player in Nachbar into a solid contributor in year one... and there was even less pressure on the Rockets to win that season.

Maybe if he shows more signs his rookie year, he wouldn't have taken 5 years to find himself (then again, maybe not). But I guess Rudy is "not that type of coach" either.

You guys are turning an inexact science into fact. The bottom line is there is no right or wrong way to develop a player... if a player has something, it will eventually be found no matter how you handle them (just not neccesarily their rookie year).

 

But what you say casts doubt on what you just posted. Yes, the Jazz are deeper - and that means the Rockets losing a COMBINED 40 player-games from Yao and Tracy has FAR, FAR more implications for the Rockets than losing Gordon Giricek for 20 or Andre Regressenko for 10.

The only thing that's even close to arguable is Boozer - and despite missing eight games, the guy played more minutes this season than Yao has in any of the last 3 seasons - just a hundred minutes off Yao's career high where he played all 82 games. And I didn't even mention the time that Hayes missed early on. (while Hayes isn't much, the complementary effect he had on Yao was substantial)

The Rox needed 8 more wins to get to 60 - you don't think having a healthy Yao or Tracy for 80 and 74 rather than 72 and 50 would have gotten them a lot closer to that goal? Sorry but I think that's crazy talk.

 

Where did the Rudy argument come when I never even mentioned his name?

Look all I'm saying is that JVG has got to realize Rockets don't have many options in the offseason with trades and free agency so if he wants to win then at some point he is going to have to develop some of these players he hates to play so much.

 

If you're talking about the first round, the first sentence is false. If you're talking about the regular season, the second sentence is false.