[ClutchFans] Podcast: What in the world is wrong with the Houston Rockets?

Im really curious whats going on in the locker room? what is really happening? I dont hear any rumours of any friction between players or some unhappiness with any coach including with McHale when he was here. It seems they are just quiet even though they have been losing. This is the same group we had last year and they were gelling. Really strange.

I also wonder what other available coaches; who are interested in replacing, have in mind to change this situation. Im sure some coaches are looking at this as opportunity. And off course, who are they?

I think there are three options for the owner, change of coach, major trades or change of GM. One of them surely is going to happen in less then a week. I dont think the owner will just give up this season and tank this early.

 

All three were reliable shooting machines. I don't think they had long periods of scoreless shooting when they were winning. Scoring anytime you need it certainly effects the team confidence and energy. Besides defense it's the scoring droughts that are crushing the Rockets competitiveness.

 

If the players are not listening to the head coach, you get rid of the players, not the coach! If you insist to sack the coach, you dont promote his assistant and expect the players to listen to the interim coach! I dont know what Alexander is thinking.

 

wtf. So you think that Cleveland will get rid of Lebron because he doesn't listen to Blatt? Or if AD tunes out Gentry NO will get rid fo him?

 

Ben Simmons

 

Time to invest in other resources like Black Ops. It's time to look outside the box to get some wins.

 

The Sixers are 0-16. We aint gettin Ben Simmons.

 

First of all I agree with you 100%, this is exactly what the current state is.

But personally I feel this is what is wrong with the league at the moment.

When Mchale was here, majority of the board here agreed that the coach was the main problem, he should hold players responsible, set up plays etc...

The way I see it is how can we blame the coach if players are able to get coaches fired? how is a coach gonna run a team if players can choose to listen or not? Each player would have his own agenda, wanting to play in a certain way that is most beneficial/suited to his own style. Its like managing a company, no matter how great a sales person is, if he/she does not obey his/her superiors then that person is actually a negative to the overall management/success of the company, especially in the long run.

I am not saying that the players ran mchale out of the job, but I remember someone (can't remember who) said that the coach would set up a defensive/offensive plays and the players sometimes would not listen. To me it is a sign that the players are just immature.

 

Because those choices aren't arbitrary. They don't choose to/stop listening on a whim, it happens for a reason. It's the coach's responsibility to create an environment where it occurs.

 

Yeah but you can't win with EVERYONE being a one way player.

Look at our starting lineup.

Harden - Offense
Howard - Defense
Jones - Offense
Terry - Offense
Ariza - Defense

Not a single two way player among them. Now let's look at our bench players.

Capela - Two way
Lawson - Offensive (In so many ways..lol)
Bev - Defense
Thornton - offense
Brewer - Can't play either

We really need DMo back as he is a 2 way player.....to balance out the team a bit more.

DD

 

LOL Capela is not no two way players, dude does not have any freaking post moves, can't shoot from mid range and can't create offense for other players. He's only a defensive player.

Dmo will not turn this ship around or balance it out either.

Everything else I agree with DD.

 

It's true this team mostly has one way players (either offense or defense) but I don't necessarily see our competitors (Spurs, Cavs, Warriors) have very many two way players either.

 

A trade for a significant upgrade at the PF spot ...a two way player that can score between the paint and the 3 point line...coaching change (id like to give jb a chance until then) and our two best players taking responsibility and play better ,all around .

 

We miss Smith playmaking ability ....how do you loose him for nothing,smh. Lawson should become that minus the defense Smith gave us on the plethora of top tier PF in the west.shiiii ,SA has two! Lawson and Smith would be better than faried. And Lawson .ijs

 

it seems everything has been going wrong from the get go this season.

#1, expectations.
my perception is,,, from les and down to many many fans, all believed (and may still believe) that the team, as it is, should be a title contender and go beyond wfc - just because we made that far last yr., and now we've added a starting pg. they believe we have more than enough talent to achieve that. i think this now has been proven to be false. i'd argue that we kinda lucked out last yr in the playoffs. even if the lawson addition was working, it would still be questionable if we have enough talent to contend for a title. imo a lot of people over-estimate the talent level of this team, from harden, dwight and down.

#2, chemistry.
this goes back to previous seasons. outside of josh smith and d12 and at times terry and harden, my eyes barely saw any chemistry going on within the team. and aint nothing is more important than the right chemistry. this yr., with smith gone (very curious move by him in the off-season), the chemistry seems to get worse. i have some observations, but i dont want to get into the details, as i simply dont know the inside of the locker room and whats going on there. but the problem is so obvious.

#3, mchale lost his troops.
this is a head-scratcher. what did mchale do that made him went from a "player's coach" who seemed to be able to motivate the team last yr. to where he was this season? what happened in that span of merely a few months? as fans, we probably will never know.

#4, play style.
under mchale, esp. last yr., we relied heavily on harden's iso's. that type of structure (if you can call it one) will never get you far. it's a proven fact. also, is morey ball really superior to the conventional concept of bball? how does he quantify and evaluate the mental side of the ball? those questions remain unanswered.

#5, the mysterious drop of shooting %'s of almost all the players at the same time.
i thought back and found myself could never recall a team what had this kinda phenomenon for a long stretch of period. why that is, it's a myth to me. but it is indeed a big part of what's gone wrong.

#6, lack of leadership.
this is sort of a hot topic. it obviously starts w/ james harden, and mainly on him. i've said enough about this, so i am not gonna repeat myself. but the problem is certainly there.

these are the problems. where the solutions are is kinda beyond me (or i'd be interviewing for the hc job of this team~).

 

Steph Curry ain't Gary Payton on the defensive end but he's not a total liability that like Harden was two years ago or this year. If you can't see that then I don't know what else to say.

As for the contenders not having many two-way players, San Antonio's best player (Leonard) plays both ends and their former best player (Duncan) is still a two-way player. Curry might not be a clear-cut two way player but he's surrounded by players (Thompson, Green, Igoudala) that are. Much like how Dallas surrounded Dirk with two-way players when they won it all (Stevenson, Marion, Kidd, etc.)

Do I really want to trade Harden and/or Howard? No, in fact if you want to check yourself before you call me a Harden hater, do a search for my posts and you see I've defended him pretty much since Day 1.

The reason why I'm souring on him right now isn't because he's dating a Kardashian or because he didn't prepare hard in the offseason like those Curry YouTube videos or because he got $200 mill from Adidas. The reason why is because he hasn't shown that passion/hunger that great players get after they get eliminated so close to the championship. Maybe if he did then all of those other things wouldn't have occurred this summer but that's something I can't assume.

Is he passionate about winning? I'm sure he is but there's no excuse to let your team lose to crap teams this season when you were thisclose to getting them to the Finals.

Howard? If he was consistent in the paint even with just one move on the offensive end I wouldn't care. But we've already seen what peak Howard can do and I don't think he can reach that ever again. I can't fault the guy because he played his heart out in the past two postseasons but moving on from him isn't the worst thing ever.

There are two things that will save this season and both have nothing to do with our role players. One is for Howard to be even 85% healthy for the rest of the season and the other is for Harden to snap out of whatever spell he's in and make a decision on where he wants to take his career. He can either be the next all-time great or the next Gilbert Arenas, peak for a few seasons only to fade away.

 

BTW - this is a great lesson for Morey who has made comments about chemistry being overrated.

Chemistry is as important as talent.

DD

 

1993-94 Rockets had the best chemistry

that team ,

we call them CLUTCH CITY

 

We already know this sir.