There is a thing so called -tactic, you can let your rookie play when you can use his advantages. You can't just put anybody in your doghouse just because he has some weakness, especially the players having potential. No player is perfect like a superman. In some cases, your men do be able to show their strength. You should let them play and improve!!
Not neccessary a downslide. Basically, JVG showed our players how to help each other on defensive end and that's it. I think our players now know how to defence. The pistons play good defence even without Larry Brown.
You are free to ignore the posts if you like Sherlock. And this is more a compilation of all the events over the course of the year, and whether or not JVG followed the plan that was clearly laid out for him by the GM. Some of us came to this conclusion BEFORE the season ever began, and it is the primary crux of the matter. Good analysis, but Memphis did not want Swift, he was included because JVG did not want him on the team anymore, he was a poison pill. Also, CD got what he thought was talent or the best available options and JVG simply did not agree and did not play them. I did not say that V-Span would magically develop, my whole point is that we don't know until we give him some consistent playing time. Enough to decide if he is or isn't and go from there. One thing we do know is that Rafer and Luther are not good enough....so try plan B for crying out loud. Agree totally, we need pit bulls....again CD brought in Bonzie, V-Span and Synder all pit bull types.....did JVG utililze them? I never liked the JVG hiring, I don't think micromanagers are great leaders. Again, V-Span is not the answer, but because he never played he remains a question. Yao will get better and better, I am not worried about him, but I would like a coach that will make him less predictable by playing him in different spots and sets. I don't think McGrady will ever toughen up, I think he has some major character issues. I think he WANTS to win, but doesn't want to pay the price to make it happen. He coasts a LOT, and came out in game 7 passive...GAME FRICKEN 7......if we have to rely on his leadership we are doomed to fail for the duration of his contract, this team needs an on the court general. On this we agree. Sorry if my posts are nausiating to you, I just can't believe that the GM could put a plan together and the head coach so blatently ignore it. And yes....I have NEVER wanted JVG as the coach......it was obvious to me that this would eventually happen. Defense does not win championships - balance does. DD
I wouldn't really call V-Span, Snyder and Bonzi a plan. V-Span was signed because we failed at plan A. Bonzi fell into our laps because he was a bone head and didn't accept Sacramento's contract. Snyder was a cheap pickup that wasn't wanted by his last two teams. So I don't see those as brilliant offseason moves by CD.
Battier's a career 4.7 RPG guy, and 4.1 this year. Game 1 (Utah): Battier gets 1 rebound, Boozer gets 19, Rockets outrebounded 47-36 and lose. Game 2 (Dallas): Battier gets 2 boards, Dirk 4, Rockets outrebound Dallas 35-34 and win. Game 3 (NOK): Battier moved to SF and Hayes inserted, Battier gets 7 rebounds, David West 6, Rockets outrebound Hornets 51-35 and lose. You jump on JVG for being stubborn and not adjusting, but also get on him for this? With Battier at the 4, we gave up serious rebounding. JVG adjusted and the results worked. We tried it, it didn't work well, he adjusted. Battier at the 4 does not work. I'm trying to piece out whom you're referring to where, but when V-Span choked like Nick Anderson each and every time he got on the floor, when do you pull the plug? He was hesitant on his shot and couldn't find his range, he consistently got to the hole and blew layups. I see a lot of potential in him and see him as a John Starks for us - but the burden is on HIM to demonstrate that he can translate his abilities into game time situations. He's so far shown us that he absolutely can not. Last year, Luther Head showed that he could, and he stayed on the floor. Bonzi was a complete mess each time JVG gave him stretches of 20 mpg, and deserves 97% of the blame for that. Novak did bring his shot into the games, but never learned how to hit the boards or play passable defense. Hopefully he improves and does better next year. Snyder is a puzzle to me, and part of it depends on what happened behind closed doors. Jerry Sloan and Byron Scott both ended their team with him with little positive to say about him as a professional. I thought he'd be more, but who knows. Why would sacrificing wins in order to develop young players be preferable? This BBS would riot with torches and pitchforks if he were to give us a 45-win season and waste McGrady's and Yao's prime doing that. If you can't go out and show something, you get yanked in preference of someone who can. Period. Unless you're a Charlotte or Memphis or Boston with nothing to play for, you put the guys on the floor that give you the best opportunity to win. Now. Today. In order: I believe so, but more likely as a SG (John Starks idea); it's up to him; I highly doubt it. a) Larry Brown. b) none. JVG will be gone and his discrepancies with mgmt will play a large role in that. He had a plan and vision, it didn't produce, mgmt took away much of his personnel influence. He took the team a little further but not much, and that'll likely be the end of his tenure. It's like all of the above - if you don't produce, you get pulled.
Built what? A team that can't get out the first round. You need to get off CD's bandwagon and face the facts. This guy doesn't know how to put a championship team together. That's bottomline.
He built the team that won 2 championships and then after the first one revamped it for the 2nd one. Also, he kept the Rockets very competitive as Hakeem started to decline. And he got us Tmac and Yao. I think CD did a fine job under the constraints that he had, I think JVG was not on board with the plan and went his own direction. That is what I think. DO I think CD built a championship team this year? No, not yet...but I think we have assembled some of the pieces for a run in 2 or 3 years. DD
Steve Patterson built the first championship team, except for the addition of Mario Elie whom I believe Rudy wanted. The 2nd championship team was pretty much assembled by Rudy, with major parts that Steve Patterson aquired. CD was an assistant coach.
amen, We will see next year how the new GM Morey, Lyndsey. CD (advisor) and a certain white hair coach all do together.
I think Rudy and CD worked more closely together than JVG and CD. Yao has said that JVG would not let CD coach Yao, even though CD was instrumental in Hakeems development. That is mind blowing... DD
Where did you see Yao said JVG not allow CD to coach him? It seems all Yao said was that if Tom is not available in the summer (if JVG resignes, resulted in assistant coaches to leave too), then maybe he can go ask CD for help...
dont you know. JVG is the devil and he manipulates everything to single handedly ruin the rockets for his own personal power trip. duh
In this translated article Yao said this: "Yao Ming: I can ask CD (Carroll Dawson) to help me in my practice. During Jeff's tenure, he did not allow CD to help me on my practice. Now if he is out, then maybe CD will be allowed to help me on my practice" By the way Yao talked in past tense about JVG's tenure....I think Yao is tired of JVG now too. DD
I don't think JVG should take all of the blame, but I would like to see a new coach. I also think it is time to make major changes including Yao or/and T-Mac. It was proven that they are soft. Soft players would't bring rings.
I would keep em both and get a bulldog to play with them.....actually Yao is developing into a bulldog...but his speed was gone come playoff time... DD
Why people using VSpan's inexperience, or Bonzi's crazyness as an execuse for JVG. If you use magnify glass, you can find fault with any player in this league, and not to play him. You don't bench Yao because he is too slow, or TMac because he often takes ill-advised shots. The point is the Rockets knew full well before the season that VSpan needs playtime to grow, and Bonzi would be a headcase. I'm not saying both of them would have helped the Rockets because we will never know. But you signed them, so play them, take the good with the bad. For those who claim it's player's fault, please remember JVG has been billed as a coach who has a firm control of the players by your guys, those are his type of players. He should take all the balmes for the team's failure because the players were coached to play that way. It's laughable to use the argument "JVG didn't ask them to miss theose open shots". Doesn't it ring a bell to you when players consistenly shoot worse under JVG? Was that a conincidence that JVG coached teams were always low scoring teams? Both the Spurs and the Jazz are good defensive teams, but they both can score at a better shooting %. Don't bring this "we have no talent" garbage here, even JVG himself said that there isn't much talnet difference among teams in this league, it's all about the system the team uses, and how good they execute the system. It's so funny people even use "JVG waved his arm to ask the Rockets to push the ball" to prove that JVG wants to play a fast paced game. Are you kidding? How can the team be fast when they were not trained well enough to do that? It's one thing to ask for it, another thing to be able to coach your team to do it. Haven't the 6 years Knicks' and 5 years Rockets not proved he is incabable of coaching fast break, let along the entire offense? I have never liked that guy as Rockets coach, but always supported him since he IS the coach of the Rockets. Now, it's the time to look back at his system, and his coaching ability. Hard working, good intension are valuable, even you and I are willing to working hard and want the Rockects to win. But those are not the things you evaluate a coaches' qualification. It's his system and how he prepare his team to execute his system. We got beat badly THREE times at Salt Laker City, we barely won three home games. Throughout the series, he demonstrated again and again that he couldn't find a way to count Jazz's attack, neither could he come out with a plan to score enough point. A total failure.
We do know, and the answer is no. You might not know, but I direct you back to the first game of the season where Boozer destroyed Battier just as badly as he did to Yao in the last game of the season. But if you want numbers - he logged 16% of the Rockets PF minutes this season - over the course of 82 games that equates to about 630 minutes on th season - that's a lot. It is not "about three games or so" - rather it's the equivalent of playing about 13 full 48-minute games. And while his production goes up at PF, his opponents production (as we would expect, since he's giveing up a lot of size and weight) goes up more. This is pretty consistent with when he played PF in Memphis (which he did even more than in Houston). He was much better at the SF slot. I don't know but I do know that an NBA coach had to be willing to lose games to figure that out - he simply wasn't ready this year- and it was reflected in his performance, even with a mediocre player ahead of him in Alston. Why don't you ask Bonzi? I'm sure if he ate another 18 piece box of chicken mcnuggets he could have been bigger - but as far as a bigger role in the NBA - he obviously didn't want that this year judging from his actions. Yeah he hated Battier - At the end of the day he's playing with players that Dawson selected so I don't know what you're really talking about - I think you're more concerned because your favorites didn't get to play more.
DD...you have accumulated nearly 30 k posts, and about 15% of what I have run across is good stuff. This is some good stuff. I agree with you on our core. I agree with you on our 3 or 4 players that lack development. What do you think we need to do to get these players to where they need to be. Past players that deveoped into decent players, i.e. Mobely, played a lot of summer ball aside from the "summer leagues". Is this what they need?
