Hey everyone! This is from ESPN Insider---Bill Walton's chat from yesterday.... JP (Auburn): Early Merry Christmas Bill, What's up with T-Mac? At Orlando he was primetime. Since the trade to Houston you never hear about him anymore and Houston is playing awful. The Magic would be a contender for their division if Shaq had not gone to the Heat. So I ask again what has happened to T-Mac? Bill Walton: This is one of the sad stories of this NBA season. Something is just not right in Houston. The blame has to be shared equally by Yao Ming. He has not become the dominant force I expected. McGrady has not been overwhelmingly brilliant as we expected. Van Gundy just hasn't built a cohesive team from what appears to be a legit roster. Tracy is a player who is as gifted as any player ever possibly. Tracy is finding out the hard facts of the NBA. You are only as good as your teammates. I think the biggest problem in Houston is the things McGrady does best, he isn't getting the opportunity to do. He likes to go to the rack. In Houston, the set offense, Yao Ming is in the post. Because they don't fast break much, the creativeness of McGrady's game gets lost in the overanalyzing and overthinking that this is all about effort and they just need to try harder. Basketball is like rock music. It's about creating a flow and experimenting. The slower the game, the harder that is and the more consequece each error creates. Bill Walton: With that, I want to wish everyone a happy holiday and happy new year. I'll try not to play the drum set to loud! I'm on my way to the Staples Center .. can't wait till the big games on Saturday! Take care, everyone!
Bill Walton is RIGHT ON regarding Yao, Van Grumpy, and TMac's getting caught up in a system that minimizes his talents. Seems to me that it's the coach's job is to design a system to maximize their best players' abilities.....not to stifle them. I don't think any coach can win big time with our existing makeup. On the other hand, I'm losing confidence that JVG can take us where we want to go no matter how many moves we make. And a "legit lineup" doesn't connote anything other than the fact that we should be competetive.......which we are not D R
Man I cannot believing I am saying this... But I agree with Bill on this one. We have a very deep team with veterans, the problem is they are not playing as a team. We can go out and get a roster of allstars on this team, but if the coach doesn't play to their strength they will still lose. Last year Detroit won everything with a solid defensive player and a so called trouble maker. They won the championship by knowing their roles and playing as a team. When the Rockets won their second championship they had 2 superstars and a team of role players, that knew their roles. They also had 1 position that was played by several people with the starting player being Chucky Brown. So to sum it up in the words of Bill Walton " " It all starts from the top and JVG has to make adjustments or this team will self destruct after the All Star Break.
I agree with Walton to the extent that there is not a single cause for the ultra-slow start. And I agree we have a legit roster. Totally ignoring the trip to China and Sura's injury, it is inexplicable where Jackson's, Taylor's and Howard's shot have vanished. They are getting wide open looks. Most teams are doubling Yao and McGrady leaving the other 3 players wide open. Where I disagree is "tempo". The Rockets are not the Suns or Nets but they are a very good transition offensive team. (Which I think will improve with Jon Barry and the hopes that Barrett gets Lue's PT). I'm making what I think is a fair assumption in that Walton watches alot of games but does not do a super amount of critical analysis. Otherwise, he would have noticed the Rox run a double high post set with TMac and Yao both weakside. As the ball moves strongside, TMac surveys the floor and can use multiple screens from Yao, the PF or the PG at the baseline. (They can only run this with Sura PG because he is the only PG capable of setting a solid baseline screen). This play is a setup to take Yao away from the basket and allow McGrady to freelance. IMVHO, any good critical analysis of the current team includes Yao, McGrady, and Van Gundy. But it also has to include vanished shooting skills and bringing your "A" game every night. OK...getting long-winded...but I am responding to Walton.
exactly. that's the most important fact makes me wonder if jvg is actually a good coach for the rockets, or for anyone for that matter. being a good coach you need to utilize your players' talents and strength them. more often than not, especially in the season, our key players weakness are exposed and magnified and taken advantage by the opponents. you can say it's the player's lacking. it's true. but, a good coach should be able to help the player to adjust and minimize his weakness.
I wonder about that also. JVG seems fairly effective getting this team to play good defense (much of the time), but there is *zero* flow on the offense. We get isolated stretches where Yao or TMac will score seemingly at will, then it's over and we sputter (at best) until the last moments of the game when a more natural flow has to take over (when we're playing catch-up). When down, the players will feel that they have more freedom to try and score, i.e. win the game at all costs. That's often when we seem most effective, when the players feel the freedom to play their ball. Hmmm.
It's been on my mind for loooog time. Why cant Yao develop his shooting range to 3-pt line so that T-mac can have a clear driving lane. I dont want him to shoot all over the court. I just want him to pick 2 spots and shoot any wide open shots there. He's a good set shooter and if he can make 39% (about half of his FT%) of these shots, then he's better than any of our regular 3-pt threat. Of course the problem is Yao has lost his jumpers, to the extent I expect from "it's going to be nothing but net" last 2 years to "is it going to be air ball again?" this year. Actually I read somewhere that Yao's FT was 85% in china. It's 81.1%, 80.9% and 78.3% for 2002, 03, 04, respectively. I dont know what they are doing in the practices, I just hope except to improve our "defense", they would spend some time to improve something else such as "shooting", which is our biggest problem. By the way, where's Mo's 3-pter? It's gone after the first few game. I just hope Jon barry is not our new Piat.
Amen brother! Alot of people want to talk about the offense and why T-mac and Yao aren't playing well, and I think the bottom line is we have guys that have historically been good shooters missing every open shot they get.
I think most of us thought we did going into the season seeing as how most thought we would be a playoff contender and possibly going after a mid-seeding. It has baffled me how, on paper, the roster doesn't look bad at all yet they can't put it together on the court. Whether it be coaching and/or chemistry, this team just hasn't gelled like most thought they would by now.
And this is just it. No shooting out of the double teams = losses. Everybody we play has the exact same defensive plan. Double T-Mac and Yao and make the others hit the outside J. As long as we're not hitting the J, we don't have a chance. God forbid one of the big two go to the bench, the defense's job is that much easier.
you have to admit, at the beginning of the season. Our team looked pretty solid, we had a veteran PF in Howard and we thought we had the point guard situation handled by getting Ward.
I'm assuming this is a serious question so I will give a serious answer. NEVER. The Rockets pay Van Gundy easily less than $5m/yr. Rudy T's last contract year netted him $6m. Phil Jackson was making $10m in his last year with the Laker$ and was disappointed they didn't up him for more with an extension. Regarding Jackson....don't hold your breath.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/24/s...2f5b76e45a06e91 Jackson Would Listen to a Knicks Offer December 24, 2004 By HOWARD BECK Don't think he's gonna go to Knicks, all he wants is Ring, He just opened the door ----->
Yesterday's Timberwolves vs. Spurs game proved how important a jumper is for a big man these days. Tim Duncan couldn't get going against KG and Minesota's defense, so he stepped out of the post and took many jumpers. That's was the main way he contributed on scoring. Even a superstar like Duncan can't be dominant every night but he has the mid to long range face up jumpers to fall back on, instead Yao is chained in the low post and is expected to be Shaq every night, if he can't be Shaq he is reduced to a blue collar role player working around the basket. There's no other plays for him to score. They never look to pass back when Yao set picks. I've never seen someone's game is so crippled and scarificed for the myth of tall players must only work under the basket.
Yao used to have a good jumper. He's a bricker now. He needs to get that jumper back or else he is dead meat on the road.
