Don Cheaney really built the championship team- Rudy gets no credit at all for assembling that talent. Rudy really did contribute to improving that team defensively, and helping them gel. with that particular group of egos - he had to be very gentle. This is a mixed bag- Patterson drafted Hakeem Olajuwon-we would not have won anything without him. If this team improves- Van Gundy gets the credit - even with the same players.
van gundy has had nothing but praise and admiration for what rudy has done. im sure he would be the first one to give rudy t. his props when the rockets become successful.
It's like was it Steve Pattersons team that won the Championship or Les Alexanders team? Charlie Thomas and Steve is what I meant.
Well if we totally change...and look much better..then JVG gets all the credit! Players should get the credit! Owner too for paying them all the money! Rudy...well he's gone. I guess he made a good foundation... If JVG succeeds....then JVG should get the credit!! And his coaching staff and family and the city of Houston. What would be sad is if we don't succeed.... Succeed should be to at least make the playoffs. Basically..I am undecided...but leaning towards NO.
Why don't you rename this thread... Will I ever stop hating on Rudy... Move on, let go... Rudy is gone and the players he hand picked or still here and that's just the way it is. Just for the record most people would agree winning is 90% players and 10% coach and of that 10% most of the NBA coaches are around the same level of good to mediocre, a handful are terrible, and only another handful are above average to great. What determines a great coach is difficult to say but being part of a championship certainly helps. Alot of good coaches have had great players but never won the big one. Nelson for example, everyone raves about him but he has coached many teams with great players and never made it to the finals. I will give JVG his due for even making it to th finals. But at the same time with all the money in the world to spend the nucleus of his team got worst while he was coaching. So to answer your question if you you consider winning 90% players, and the Rockets win it all with most of the nucleus of Yao, Francis, CAT, Posey, EG, then YES Rudy and CD should get a bulk of the credit. But give JVG his due too.
If the Rockets win, you'd give JVG 10% of the credit. The players get 90%. CD & Rudy get the bulk of the 90% for building the team? That is very generous of you but it's allright, no problems. BTW, how much credit did Rudy get for the 2 rings again? As I recall, the bulk of that team were built before he became coach! The 1 big piece was Drexler and I believe Les was directly responsible for getting him. How much credit did u give him again?
wasn't rudy here when we drafted cassell and horry, brought in elie and traded for drexler? that's a minor role player in elie, our 6th man, and starting sf for 94. that's our starting sg, starting sf, starting pf, and 6th man for 95. that seems pretty significant in terms of getting all the right pieces. as for this thread. if people are of the opinion that we underachieved this year, then i assume that they expected say 46-48 wins instead. and i'll also assume you expect yao to get better from year 1 to year 2 for a variety of non-basketball reasons (not always tired, better conditioned, more used to the nba) and in terms of skill like most big-time rookies do. combine that with the team being more used to each other, eg/cat/steve all being a year older and i would think everyone would expect at least another 3-4 wins next year to not underachieve right? so i'm thinking if jvg gets us 50 wins he'll just be doing his job (49-51 range). if he gives us 46-48, has he done anymore than rudy would have just given the natural progression of players? if he gets 53+ then he has overachieved. that's what i expect people's feelings to be regarding our W/L record based on the consensus feeling of how rudy did. myself, i think we'd win 48-49 next year with rudy anyway so if van gundy gives us that, i'll say he's done nothing special, regardless of the style of play. if we win 51-52, i'll say it was good we brought him in. 54+ wins and i might build a golden statue of him in my front yard and worship it. if we win 46 or less then it was a waste of time. and van gundy simply making the playoffs means nothing to me. this team was making the playoffs next year anyway.
TheFreak: get with the program. everyone knows that the players are primarily responsible for the victories. but it is ignorant to believe that the coaches play no part in it. the question is does rudy or JVG get the credit for it...be it 10% or whatever. answer the question and shove that sarcasm... OldManRock: maybe you should have a signature with muffled sounds. "mffffmpphh mfffphhhttllppp" would work. after you remove rudy's **** from your mouth, you can replace it. why is it "hating on rudy" if you give the present coach credit? or is it hating when i stated that rudy spent 4 consecutive years in lottoland? oh, that's right, ignore all the facts, right? whatever. OldManRock: president of the R.O.C. (Rudy Only Club).
Just on an unrelated sidebar, I'm predicting we'll see more Iso under Van Gundy than we did last season under Rudy. However, I also predict that people will think the Iso has gone down because the spacing game that most posters mistook for Iso will go down. On the question at hand, I think Rudy has to get some credit. He will be responsible in large part for the personnel we have. Just as Dawson gets some credit, so would Rudy. But, obviously he won't get credit for coaching the team since that's not what he'll be doing.
JuanValdez: most people equate "lack of movement" with "iso". really it doesn't matter. the point is that they want more movement on the court.
If the team improves next year, the players and JVG will get the credit. It's almost unheard of to credit the prior coach. I'm not saying it's right, but that's how it usually goes. Did the coach prior to Phil Jackson with the Lakers get any credit? I think it was Del Harris but I could be wrong. I can't think of any instances when a team makes an improvement and credit is given to the prior coach.
Feigen made the recent observation that the difference is player movement vs ball movement. they don't necessarily go hand in hand. for instance, Detroit (Rip's sets) Philly (AI), NY (Spree) and the old Indiana (Reggie) try to free stars with player movement, but they tend to do ball control with the dribble. The ball movement is *to* the star, not *from* the star. The classic example of this are the picket fence weakside picks for a curling Spree, Rip and Reggie, or AI giving up the ball and curling around to weakside. They then either shoot or playmake from there no differently than what Francis does from the start of the possession. Difference is that Francis has to make himself free for a shot (via PnRs usually); whereas the team tries to free Spree and Hamilton for their shot. The "spacing game" that is very popular throughout the league, as well, which JuanValdez (correctly, imo) called Rudy's offense, is championed by Dallas. The half court sets of Dallas are based on the same philosophy of Rudy. This is starting with the ball in the stars hands, forcing the defense to react, and that then starts the ball movement. People who call that ISO are mistaken, imo, as it starts with PnRs more often than anything else. When the star runs it poorly, the ball movement often never starts, or starts too late. And when the role players use the ball movement poorly, it just looks like spot up shooting. Mobley and Posey do not just take a pass and shoot or swing, for instance. Neither does Ginobili. Neither does Finley. Dallas runs the "spacing game" to a high level, with heavy PnRs and weakside staying largely at bay until the ball movement starts. Is the Dallas spacing game my favorite offense?...not by a long shot. But this team would have made sophisticated motion look pretty bad, too (lots of busted plays from having to make 3x more decisions in perfect timing).
Yep, just like everytime they mention the Lakers 3 wins in a row, they mention Del Harris. No one ever mentioned that every yr he coached there they increased the win total from 48,53,56,to 61 wins before he was fired in the strike season. If this team wins 50 games and the record for the rockets in close games are the deciding factor, it will show about Rudy's lack of x's and o's.
I guarantee we will rarely see our guards wave off, the other 4 players, to run ISO's. I bet we rarely see Moochie wave everybody off to dribble 20 sec's out of the clock. JVG preaches unselfish team oriented play, and I would be SHOCKED to see this crap back next year.
I too was mad at the guards for waiving off our low post players when they held good positions. For sure u don't want to wave off Yao, MoT and EG. Poor Cato fought for low post too (don't know why he bothered ) and got waved off every single time (which is the right choice ). I think the 1st option has to be inside. If nothing develops , then work something outside, not the other way around.
Actually....I think they always waved off Griffin...except for maybe the beginning of the game. But sometimes, they passed it to Cato! WTF! He just throws the ball up.....sometimes he gets lucky. I will be pissed if we still waste the entire shotclock this season....and don't score. I think there will still be some ISO for Cat and Francis and Yao and MoT and maybe Glen Rice. Maybe Moochie too.
heypee & JuanValdez: two examples of what people call "iso" but really isn't, but really doesn't matter because it's truly ugly and has no movement... 1) entry pass into yao ming, followed by the passer cutting through the lane. - after the passer cuts through the lane, there is absolutely no movement on the weakside for the rockets. you have yao ming on the block going one on one (which was his weakest asset offensively, imo) with no chance to pass to a moving teammate (which was his strongest asset offensively, imo). 2) cat curling through to the elbow, or FT line extended. - cat will curl through the paint (or break out from the low right block) to the FT line elbow or FT line extended for a one on one opportunity. once again, there is no movement from anyone other than cat. *********** is that iso? technically, no. but anytime you have one man with the ball and teammates not moving, the casual fan refers to it in general terms as "iso". i'm not saying it's "correct", because it isn't. but there's no point in avoiding their complaints because they used incorrect terms. everyone knows what they are talking about... and under JVG, i expect to still see the cuttino "iso" , but i do not expect to see as much of the yao ming "iso" . it makes zero sense to only have one cutter on a yao ming left block post up. rudy never got past that point. i am optimistic that JVG will.
