I'm not disagreeing with you, all I'm saying is that Van Gundy is not Pat Riley in that Gundy has to prove he is right in his thinking. If Vspan played like 12 games at 20 minutes a game and his stats were lacking, then JVG actions would be justified. Now, whats happening is people are all looking back and trying to find the failure point, and unfortunately (or fortunately) for JVG, he can't go back and realistically state that he tried every single option. I know, we're asking a lot of him, but at the same time he's stuck. As for Luther and Chucky, I agree they did get a lot more minutes, but to JVG he saw himself more in a bind in those positions. He needed someone, anyone fit the role.
What you describe is exactly what happened in November and December. Spanoulis got to be in the rotation. Shockingly, despite the collective psychic energy of his massive BBS fan club, he pretty much sucked, and continued to be plagued with crappy shooting and high TO's. There should be a sticky thread about how Luther Head was part of the regular rotation prior to any injuries last year.
he averaged 14 min during that 12 game stretch 20 of his 44 shots were 3 pointers 16 turnovers in 12 games, with one game he had 5...so 11 in 11 games 18 assists in 12 games id say he got his fair shake at the rotation....lets get rid of him like boki and burke
In FIBA World Championship play, 42 of his 81 FGAs were 3 pointers....and even using your conditional stats, 1 turnover per 14 minutes isn't that great.
I agree with you 100%. Some might say that the injury of Yao forced JVG into playing veterans by reducing the minutes of young players in order to squeeze out every possible win. But the fact is that the young players were playing meaningless number of minutes even before Yao get injured.
I don't know if anyone has already mention this. But how come in the past jvg is content with playing scrubs such as rod stricklen(possible typo), ryan bowen, charlie ward, and is interested in players like big nose pippen. I don't get it. If hes willing to try out these garabage men, why won't he give these rookies a chance??? People keep on saying that he has given them a chance, but honestly he hasn't. He lets them play 1 or 2 games(limited mins), and if they mess up, he'll bench them for so long he forgot why he benched them in the 1st place.
That alone tells me this team is better now, than we were then. Again, this team is better than those teams, and JVG is not as desperate as he used to be. I know as fans, we want to see our young players develop, and the only way we have to see that is on the court. But there is a lot more going on, that we don't have an opportunity to see. Throughout the Utah series, we were competitive, very competitive at home. If we'd have got that last rebound, or made that last shot in Houston, we'd be playing Golden State right now, and nobody would be worried about Vspan's playing time. We're out of the playoffs, because we quit with 19.9 seconds on the clock, and failed to get a rebound. Not because JVG doesnt' trust rookies. The only rockets fans I can think of that should be upset today, calling for a re-vamped roster, or a coaching change, are the fans who got too far ahead of themselves, and expected to see the Red Rowdies(a JVG creation) at the Western Conference Finals. Was it possible?? Had we been able to get that last rebound, and push the ball.... it's very possible. And I liked our chances to get past Golden State. But it's not like we were dominated or swept in four games. We weren't the 8th seed. We weren't in position to get the 4th seed at the all-start break, and play our way out of the play-offs the remainder of the season. We're a much better team, than we've been in the past. Much better than the team that was lost 4 games in row to Dallas, or the team that disappeared after the All-Star break last year. We've got a solid foundation, with real NBA quality starters with Yao, McGrady & Battier. We've got nice young talent that will play grow into this league in Chucky Hayes, Luther Head, Steve Novack, VSpan, & Kirk Snyder. I predict we'll be in the play-offs as long as we keep JVG, and we allow him to keep doing what he does, and stop teams like Utah from scoring more than 88 points/game.
