Jeff Van Gundy is a professional basketball coach and not in the party promotion business. It is his duty to coach the team and make sure they are prepared when they step on the court. Ego has nothing to do with this situation. Why in the world would JVG care about the superbowl when he has a task at hand which is getting this struggling team back on the right path to secure a playoff berth. I don't understand how some are saying that he NEEDED to accomodate his team by changing the flight itinerary so they could watch the superbowl. That just exposes a person's priorities. The bottom line is that Steve is a professional who is in a leadership position and has shown he is not ready to lead.
Let's see, so JVG's supposed to accommodate all players for their personal matters now? Let's see, Steve gets the Superbowl; MoT should get to visit the Crispy Cream Factory in the middle of the season; Yao should have half a season off so he can rest for the Chinese NT; MJ's in a legal battle with his former agent, he deserves some time to sort things out; Cato's cousin's 3rd aunt's half brother's brat son's girlfriend's ... is in town, hey that's family matters more than the Superbowl; JVG is losing hair fast, we should pay for him to go away on vacation for 2 weeks and get implants.
Excellent article, well written, hard-hitting, truthful, insightful. And the posts of DavidS and Hillboy were just as good!
Well done. What makes the scheduling of a flight during the SB an ego trip? They left Sun. night b/c VG obviously wanted them rested and prepared for game day. This coach cares about basketball, not parties and football. Thank God. Too bad some of our players don't have the same mindset.
So the Rockets and the rest of the NBA should schedule their arrangements AROUND the Super Bowl?? Doesn't make sense whatsoever. If ANY coach or organization have to make arrangements around another sporting event, then he/she is not doing her job. Super Bowl or not...you have a job to do. And to me, Jeff Van Gundy IS doing his job.
As much as I personally dislike and do not trust Francis, I would like to hear his side of the story. Unfortunately he or his agent have made any comments by SF suspect at this point. Someone needs to get this out in the open. Spin it one way or the other and let the chips fall where they may. If someone tries to sweep this under the carpet or "keep it in house" they are basically disrespecting the fans. We have a right to know what the truth is. What appears obvious needs to be made crystal clear.
He needs to be traded. This is inexcusable. He's been given PLENTY of time to prove himself. His game hasn't matured, nor has he matured enough mentally to EVER be a winner. Get what ya can for him. Ho hum, another season.
I feel like I understand why a lot of people are defending Stevie here (beyond simple addiction!). I think it's fair to say every single one of us has skipped something we "should" do in order to have a little fun. Whether that's partying the night before a big test, sleeping through an early morning class, deciding to take it easy and just BS a project presentation... So, on that side... yea, I'm sure an awful lot of us would have made the same choice that Francis did: party at the Super Bowl in your hometown. That's an absolutely ridiculous opportunity, and I wouldn't fault anyone here for missing work for making that happen. But the difference.. of course, is that Francis isn't one of us. He's not supposed to be. If he *was* like one of us, then he shouldn't be a professional basketball player; he should be sitting on a PC bull$hitting on a internet chat forum about basketball like we are. We want someone who's devoted, during the course of his NBA career at least, to winning (or at least improving for god's sake). We want people who're super-human on this squad; we want Batman and Daredevil rolled into one! But Francis has proven that he's only Bruce Wayne's nice, humble, fun, and very athletic cousin. It's kinda arrogant to bash on someone for being human, isn't it? A little ridiculous to insult someone for making the same poor decision that all of us would've made? But at the same time: that's the nature of professional basketball. If he wants to keep this job, if he wants to be known as "Franchise", he needs to start acting like a superhero.
If the NBA all-star game was on the night of the superbowl he surely would not have missed that flight. The dude should not be in a Houston Rockets uniform by the trading deadline. Its impossible to root for a player like that. I hope the fans boo him mercilessly everytime he touches the ball.
If I was getting paid 10 million a year I WOULD NOT BE SKIPPING WORK. Even if you put aside the irresponsibility of it, there's no way you can put aside the sheer stupidity of it. To have fun for a bit is warrant enough to get fired from your 10 mil a year job? Steve Francis is lucky that he works in a field where the CBA covers his ass.
I see where you are coming from, PSJ, but did you ever think that maybe Van Gundy felt that they needed to leave when they did because of their losing streak? You can make plans way ahead of time, but they should never be etched in stone. Things happen and the Rockets have not been playing well. Van Gundy was brought in by the organization to win basketball games; he is just doing his job. Francis, by his actions, has no respect for Van Gundy, his job, or his teammates. If I am Jimmy Jackson or Mo Taylor or Yao or some of the others, I would be highly PISSED at "The Franchise". Also, something else that always kills me about the Francis lovers - they never address the fact that the guy has been in the league for 4+ years and has yet to reach the playoffs. No one is arguing that he has athletic talent, but being a team captain, you have to have some leadership ability. I am taking a night class right now in "Leadership and Motivation"; too bad that Francis can't be in that class with me because he could sure use it.
That is a terrible arguement. People like you are always wanting to trade for people like this. You guys want SAR or Brand. They have never made the playoffs either. One guy cannot make the playoffs by themselves. MJ never did crap until he got a team around him. Look at T-Mac. Hes not leading the Magic anywhere near the playoffs in the East. Your arguement in flawed and not nearly as easy as it seems.
Uh, Jordan and McGrady had reached the playoffs by their 4th season in the league. Last time I checked, buddy, the Rockets are a little bit better of an organization than the Grizzlies (back when they had SAR) or the Hawks now or the Clippers. Unless you think that the Rockets now have a similar type of organization like the Clippers and Hawks, but you keep fighting the good fight for your hero.
The guy was getting punished by JVG plain and simple. He has already made his assesment public the guys on this team have no heart. Now he has really dropped a bomb on the team. He could of told him he was ill and lied like most of us here would tell our employers when we wanted to play hookey. He told him straight up he needed to make the super bowl...I bet he had a lot of potential business contacts that were going to be there that he needed to visit with. The game wasnt until the next F**king night for God's sake. This is turning into a pi*sin match between the coach and the highest payed player on the team. I'm not sure who to be mad at right now. Either way we will find out who is down with the rockets after the smoke clears. I'm well aware of team concept and all that everyone is equal blah blah blah. Hey they are all human beings and we dont know exactly why Francis said he needed to be at the Super bowl but he obviously didn't have a good enough reason by the coach's standards. To hell with all of em! I'm just torked we more than likely wont be seeing the playoffs this year...Again.
Uh, both of those guys took horrendous teams to the playoffs on their backs. It is true that T-Mac is not going to pull that off this year. But if I recall correctly, Jordan took the Bulls into the playoffs each of his first *eight* seasons (before the first retirement). That included some horrendous teams in his first three years. I'm sorry, but Francis just does not belong in the same post with Jordan, and I don't especially like or worship Jordan.
Wow. I make less than 1/100th of what Francis makes. If I start not teaching classes so that I can pursue "business contacts" outside my school, guess what happens to me? Yep. He can pursue business contacts outside of company time. Why do you want to defend this guy so much? He screwed up. Let's turn the page.
To those of you who keep insisting on defending what Francis did: Does it not bother you that the team has not been playing well? Does it not bother you that they were on a 3 game losing streak (terrible losses to the Heat and Nets)? Don't you want to see this team get better? Don't you want to see them in the playoffs? I honestly can't fathom how you can call yourself a fan of the team, the Houston Rockets, if you fail to answer yes to all 4 of those questions.
