Chron: McGrady endorses offense, Adleman still believes in duo

So are you one of Rick's children also? Why don't you guys identify yourselves so that I can handle you with care.

Are you able to answer any of the questions that I asked about Rick? If so, please do so instead of making excuses about why I shouldn't ask the questions.

The fact is that sometimes the game, whether it be football, basketball, baseball or whatever; sometimes they pass the great coaches by. My questions was simply if that has happened to Rick. Or maybe these just aren't the type of players that respond to his style of coaching.

The bottom line is that he has a better team on paper than JVG had last year, yet in reality the teams is tremendously worse. You can't blame it on adjustments because there have been no adjustments defensively. HE SIMPLY TOLD THEM TO DO WHAT THEY DID LAST YEAR! How much coaching is that?

Offensively, what he is asking them to do is not so difficult as the commentators like to make it. He simply asks them to move without the ball by cutting and setting screens. That's why there are not many set plays. It's just the will to do it that makes it successful. So when you see the team sit there and not do what the coach asks them to do, that says that they don't have much confidence in that coach.

It's one thing to try to do what a coach asks you to do but to not do it well, verses not even attempting to do what a coach asks you to do. One says you are learning a system, the other says you don't have much confidence or respect in the coach. For the most part, much of the time this team just isn't trying to implent Adelman's system.

This is why he said they are NOW starting to buy into his system, when in fact I don't think they are, but hope they try to. In fact, it appears clear that they just don't have confidence in him and his decision making. We only have to continue to lose for this to eventually start to come out of the mouths of the players. Let's watch and see what happens.

By the way, Im not negative...I want the Rockets to win. Being negative is saying that we can't win under any circumstances. I am saying we can win if this coach gets his head out of his ass and changes things for the positive with the players that we have; or that we need to trade players or get a better coach..either way, whatever we can do to make the team better, IM ALL FOR IT!

 

To me, rofflesaurus emphasized that AD is a more valuable asset than T-mac and Yao for the Rox. But I dont see it in that way. AD's reputation is not good enough for the Rox to give up on T-mac and Yao, but choose him. Any coach who steps in has to realize that and deal with it.

 

Yeah, let's rebuild around Adelman, if not working out.

 

Okay, thanks for that clarification. I am in 100% agreement with you!

 

Now that's a plan that he seems to be endorsing...go figure!

 

I think things are coming together. I've been seeing some very positive trends the last few games:

1. Rocket shooters looking much more comfortable and confident
2. Better passing and more open looks
3. Brooks contributing well in the rotation
4. Scola continued improvement
5. Tmac taking shots towards the end of the shoot clock after everyone else touches the ball, instead of early on as the first option

Now, considering that Yao hasn't been in top form, I think we'll be just fine. At the end of the day, what will make the difference is if Yao can deal with the double teams a bit more effectively, and control the refs.

 

I agree with these assessments...and that's encouraging. But can this current team and coach turn this season around to be a championship contender? Or have we given up on that and just want to make the playoffs and second round hopefully?

 

Rick is being flexible he is a players coach,They wern't buying into the system because they were having a difficult time to adjust to the change. They never ran rick's system until the denver game,that is why he was saying they are slowly buying into how he wants to play.



You can't keep talking about last season and the 52 wins because those circumstances don't apply this season. I think the 2 on 5 basketball style has caught up to the rockets and teams are preparing better this year to combat the way the team plays,at the same time it's hard to just change overnight when you have beeen drilled and programmed to do something for 4 years. The team has been constantly fluctuating adjusting to the change because the two coaches and their philosophies are like NIGHT and DAY.




What's happennning now is a weeding out process. The team is starting to accpet the fact that 2 on 5 low scoring non movement basketball isn't what the trend is and isn't what is going to work and the only reason that they regresssed point per game wise was the fact that they are were having a tug of war in their minds battling the two didferent philosphies and out of habit and condition of doing something for 4 seasons they just did what was confortable to them.




I think the players need to hold some responsibility. Rick has had this team for 3 months but the core has been here 4 years together and they still haven't won 1 playoff series. Experience is everything and Tracy and Yao haven't even expereiced winning a playoff series. You can blame rick all you want but maybe you need to look at the players, rick has been here 25 games and he get's all the blame for the rockets ineptitude of winning a playoiff series in over 10 seasons.





The players need more confidence in themselves,You can bring riley in here,popovich any DREAM coach you wanna get but if the players don't have confidence in themselves yo uwill still struggle very year to get out of teh first round.



You can make your anti adelman post and Fire adelman chants until he get's fired but the bottomline you will be saying this next season if you get you pre-mature wish.You'll be the first dude on here talking about we need fire rick carlisle or whoever you want in here. At this time with Tracy and Yao together 4 seasons the coach isn't going to be the difference. It's on them to have confidence and get their acts together,You on here crying and whining evreyday looking for a coach to be the savior when the answer has to come from teh so called super stars.



You want carlisle wacth how every player on teh team will want to be traded and openly complain after a month.You think they don't have confidence in adelman watch how ballistic they get when everytime down the floor the coach is calling the play.His whole team hated playing for him




You want larry brown watch how the players,GM and owner will want him gone in a week.Larry brown is never satisfied with player and will want to trade a player a week after he got em through a trade.




Who else is on your wish list taht isn't alreadt taken

 

I find the notion ridiculous that Yao or TMac or any of the players doesn't respect RA. RA has achieved a lot except for a championship, but the players have only failures over the year. How could they NOT respect him? It's not about respect, but as RA stated - BUY IN. It's not just lip service, but truely buying in, and make a huge effort to adjust.

Players are human beings, even for the almost workholic like Yao, or hardworking guys like Battier and Hayes, they are all mentally lazy. Motion offense works, for any player, even for a team consists of 5 Yao Ming. But a lot of change has to be made comparing to their old habits. It takes you away from your comfort zone, and you have to change your mentality. Working hard is not easy, but working hard on working smart is a lot more difficult. TMac has all the talent in the world, it's easy for him to dominate the ball, and make decision whether to shoot or drive or pass to teammates. Yao has a mismatch downlow almost against any team, it's physically hard to fight for position downlow, but mentally it's easy and mechanical, to get closer to the basket, catch the pass and make a move. Shane is great defensively and has a 3 pointer shooting, normally. The list goes on and on.

However, in the new system, TMac has to learn to trust his teammates, not just trust them by passing the ball to him, but rather really trust them as basketball players to make a play. He has to move without the ball, cut and run, even in vain. He has to be willing to be the receiving end of the play making from Rafer or AB. It's a different and difficult change of mind. Yao has to make a lot more decisions in the new offensive schema, by choosing and picking whether go high or low post, when to go, when to pass, what play to develop, and when to attack or shoot a mid-range. A lot more judgement has to be made by the big man. It's very demanding, more mentally than physically. The big man has to get used to it. Same thing goes for the so-called role players. Shane can't just play defense and park behind the 3 pointer line to wait for a pass. He also has to attack and involve more mid-range plays.

RA's system is always about 5 x 1 > 5. Fans, especially players, believe they were very close. One rebound or one missed FT away from a deeper run in the playoffs. But JVG's system is about your stars, RA's system is about the team, a winning basketball team. To me, system is a lot more reliable than individuals. If you have 2 very talented players to truly BUY IN that good system, how can you not succeed? I really like JVG, everything about him. Even people call him stubborn or lacking of flexibility and adjustment in games. Putting Bowen and then Tracy on Dirk were great moves. Lots of small plays or fouls on end game situations etc were also evidence for his in game tricks. However, with extreme hard working, we barely made it from time to time that Yao + TMac = 2 very good players. By default, the system is not going to make Yao and TMac helping each other to output results greater than 2 great individuals. We were not a rebound away, but rather a solid successful system away.

I really hope and truely believe the players are starting to buy into the system. There will be growing pains, but they have to trust themselves, trust their ability to change, from a seemingly almost working system to a better system. It's more mental work than physical.

 

Like i said quite a while back, the Rockets needed to just run the system no matter the circumstances from the beginning. If they screw up and lose a lot thats ok. It takes time to learn. Take your losses early and be ready in the second half of the season. Because they relied on JVG's offensive sets for so long when it mattered its taking longer to learn the offense than it should have.

The Rox have effectively lost a lot of games just to learn one thing: its time to leave the old offense behind. They should have been ready to do that the moment the coach was changed. They have wasted a lot of time. Its time to get serious now.

To be fair, things may play out better this way if just because they now believe in the need for change rather than it being forced upon them. Time will tell.

 

Boy, you really got your underwear all tangled up didn't you? Okay...let's address your points:

A players coach huh? I haven't heard the players going around talking about how great he is to work for. That's how a coach becomes known as a players coach. Just because he is not a disciplinarian, doesn't mean he is a players coach.

So let's hold the judgment out on this one.

Also, in case you didn't see the preseason, they were running his system fine with only a turnover problem. But there was no problem running "the system".

It's the regular season. Rick was not brought here with an upgraded bench to say the least with the expectation to spend a couple of years trying to get back to where we already were. He was brought in to take us to the next level, not go backwards. You can only judge by results. The results so far suck; not just in our record, but in how we are playing overall.

Speaking of adjusting overnight...I don't see any problems with Boston or Orlando adjusting to their offseason changes. Why such a big problem with Houston that was expected to be a contender for the title?

Saying that the coaches were like NIGHT AND DAY only makes RA look like the gloominess of darkness.

Weeding out what? Coaching style? You seem to have an insight into the teams mental thoughts. I think their actions of not running RA's system when they did before shows that they don't trust in him, no confidence in what he is preaching. Maybe that will change. I hope so.

All of these players were not under JVG's system for four years. i.e. Scola, Bonzi, AB, MJ, Steve, etc. Some may have been partially under it for a year or two, but they were also in other systems. So to say that JVG's system is stuck in their head is incorrect. Maybe it is stuck in Yao's and Tmac's; so to say that they have not bought into Adelman's system says something about a coach that can't get his two star players to buy into his philisophy.

Of course players have to hold LOTS of the responsibility. They are the ones on the court after all. Now you are going back to not winning in the previous years as your proof, something you told me to forget about. At least be consistent and not just pick and choose a rule when it suits your argument.

Rick hasn't gotten all the blame. But he is the one that is still starting the players that we are blaming, Wafer, Chuck and Battier. Most here don't think these three are starters in the NBA, and especially not ALL THREE STARTING ON THE SAME TEAM! But RA does. He thinks that is the best he can do with this team obviously. So while we blame those players for bad play and decisions in many other threads, they are starting and playing huge minutes because RA decides that they do.

No one blamed Rick for the Rockets last 10 seasons. Stop exaggerating in order to win sympathy for your not well thought out points of view.

Of course the players need confidence in themselves. They also need confidence that their coach knows what he is doing to guide them. That is after all the coach's only job!

These types of "anti-adelman" posts are about vision..not just the record. It's like when we were 6-1 and I was saying: "Houston, we have a problem!" And the bandwagoners were saying: "We are doing great, stop complaining...we are 6-1 after all, what more do you expect!"

The point was that the team was still not playing the way they were supposed to be playing then. RA was still starting the same starting lineup that we already know can't win in the post season. All the offseason moves were made to change that, not just upgrade the bench. Rick obviously didn't get that message.

Just like Rick said Steve came into camp out of shape...Rick came into camp out of shape by not knowing this team and why the moves were made. The claim that he expected Steve to be his starter is rubbish. How much did he see Steve in the offseason after he was hired? How much did he see Steve play last year in New York? Why did Wafer start with the starting group in practices from the very beginning if he expected Steve to be the starter? Why did he have to earn the job instead of Rafer losing it if what RA says is true?

The bottom line is that RA came in here unprepared, didn't study this team enough, and intended to live easily off of what JVG had built. That's why he didn't know any of his player's strenght and didn't have any plays until like the 10th game of the regular season. That's why he told them to just do defensively what they did last year. He had no clue and is using his time to learn his players on the job.

I don't want Rick Carlisle, never said that I did. I want CALVIN MURPHY! dude

I specifically said in another thread that I wouldn't hire Larry Brown with someone else's money. He is old and just trying to get richer at this point! No matter what his history, as a coach he sucks to me now. He needs to stay in upper management.

Duh, need I say it again.....CALVIN MURPHY! Now what's your beef about him? He's a Hall of Famer that would have more respect than Rick Adelman from this team. He knows the team better than Adelman does. He knows basketball better than Adelman does. Just listen to the two of them describe the same things about what is wrong with the Rockets. Calvin offers in depth analysis and solutions. Adelman says he doesn't know why they are playing that way and that they must change it in order to win. duh....

So give me your critiques of why CALVIN wouldn't be a better coach for this team than Adelman!

 

I agree 100%. JVG was the real deal too and he couldn't bring out any fire or passion in this Rockets team either. A lot of people have rose colored glasses on when they think of JVG but I remember an awful lot of losses to mediocre teams where the Rockets looked like they couldn't care less.

If neither Adelman nor JVG can give this team any pride it's doubtful that anyone else could, outside of Pop and maybe Jackson--and they're not going anywhere.

 

Bingo

 

See your argument doesn't make any sense and the reason you already got your L and mailed in your ststs is this calvin murphy non-sense.What NBA organization is going to give CALVIN freakin MURPHY a NBA coaching gig let alone even consider giving him a job. CALVIN may have been a great player but coaching and playing are two totally different mind states,just because he knows the game doesn't in any way shape or form say that he can coach.




CALVIN MURPHIES coaching resume and credentials speak for itself. Which is nothing, he has no head coaching experiences in managing systems,players anything related to professional coaching.I am not going to be naegative with the subject CALVIN MURPHY but to say he would be better head coach than rick adelman is completley delusional and psycho. Rick is a proven NBA head coach, he has dealt with some of the most imposing personalties through out his career adn I am mean taming headcases such as ron artest,bonzi wells,vernon maxwell,jason williams,chris webber who was a coach killer before adelman got him,Chris webber killed don nelson in golden state. CALVIN MURPHY would have a difficult time with his ego with these modern palyers,he wouldn't last a week.Rick has 700 wins,17th on the all time list,2 NBA finals.

It's easy to run your mouth on the sidelines saying what's wrong,It's total different when you are in charge of huge repsonsibilities being a real NBA coach.

 

I can't believe we have people here who still buy into this rhetoric.

 

Not really a meaningful message... hell, Ben Wallace said some nice things bout Skiles even after he got fired. Players typically don't want to sound like coach killers.

 

surprised nobody caught the mistake in this article...

we played orlando before the road trip, not dallas...

he made this mistake 3 times in the article

 

This thread gets my Official Seal Of Approval

Jeff Van Gundy had... 4 full years to get the team where he wanted them... Adelman has had... 2 months!

Think alot of you praising our 52 win season aren't looking at the big picture.

Adelman will end up taking this team MUCH farther than Gundy could have. Tmac and Yao loved Gundy cause they depended on him to be the team's leader and he was their backbone. You can look at that as being a good thing, or you can think outside the 1st-round exiting box.

Again, Gundy had this team 4 seasons with no advancement...

Tracy and Yao are beginning to realize that they cannot rely on their coach to hold their hands anymore. Adelman will treat these boys like men, and they are starting to realize that they have to do things for themselves.

This learning process has been said over and over, to take the majority of a season to start working to it's potential. The mere 2 months into the season thus far, are just that. All this time, the player reaction and so forth, has been natural. It's like you living a certain lifestyle for so long and then moving to a different country over night. it will take awhile for you to get use to all the changes and only time will help you feel more at home.

As time goes by, The players will become more comfortable with this whole new system and start running it in their sleep! Then, everything Rick expands into the system, will be soaked up from the players like a sponge.

just be a little patient people.

 

Why can't Tracy just admit he sucks?