ESPN - Possible Coaching Changes : Rudy among them?

Get yourself a depth chart for all WC teams this past season. By position, rate the productivity at that position.

IOW, at center the Mavs get X productivity from Y minutes of Bradley plus Z minutes of productivity from LaFrentz. Mavs PF productivity has a ratio of LaFrentz, Najera and Dirk.

Go over the list by position.

IMO, if you have been totally honest you will not be able to find the 48 minute productivity of the Rockets for any position to be less than the 8th ranked of the 14 WC team.

How can a team with no position productivity lower than 8th not make the playoffs? If the word "underachieving" pops into your mind then you are getting the picture. From there, it is an individual judgement whether it is the players, coaches or a ratio of each which is responsible.

 

I agree with you on this. I think our talent is over-hyped. Lets take a good look at our players (I consider myself to be objective):

Steve Francis: Legit starting PG. Great all-around game. Big-time talent here.

Yao Ming: Saying he is the 2nd best center in the league already is not saying a whole lot considering the lack of good 5s. Talent is here, yet is still somewhat untapped. Will take another couple of years to realize his full potential.

Cuttino Mobley: Talented scorer and shooter. However, should be considered an average to above average SG overall. Forces the action to much and his decision making is too indecisive to warrant as many touches as he gets.

Eddie Griffin: Raw talent, far from being refined. If we had made the playoffs, would have been the worst of all the starting PFs. His level of play this year warranted no more than 10-15 mins a game.

James Posey: Marginal talent. Good defender but below average shooter. Great on the break, however this is not a fast breaking team. IMO, his defense is not good enough to warrant a starting spot as long as his shooting hovers around 40%. Id place him in the bottom 3rd amoung SFs in the league.

Mo Taylor: Could get away as a starter at PF in the East, but not at all in the west. However, his contract notwithstanding, would be great as a backup 4 considering his low post scoring.

Glen Rice: Spot up shooter of the bench and provides leadership. Thats about all Glen has to offer anymore. Too slow to play D.

Moochie Norris: I still think Moochie brings something to the table. He gets after it and always plays hard. IMO, much better than Steve on D (although thats not saying much) mainly because he actually tries most of the time. Shouldn't shoot or dribble as much as he does. I don't think anyone, however, considers him a top notch backup PG.

Kelvin Cato: Lets forget about his contract. He is a solid backup big man. However, he has pretty much shown he is a below average starter. In short stretches, he provides mad energy, defense and rebounding. Loses focus I think when he has to play more than 20 mins a game. I think Cato is talented. But his talent is limited in scope.

Bostjan Nachbar: No comment here since none of us have seen him played. However, I will say this: If had shown any type of talent or feel for the game in practice, we would have seen more of him in games. Very well could be a bust and a draft mistake.

Jason Collier: 12th man. Thats the best it gets for him.

Tito Maddox: Ditto

Joaquin Hawkins: Great spot defender, but hardly what you would consider talented. Nice to have on your roster, but probably should be 10-12 in the rotation. A team always needs a hustler and defender like Hawkins.

Terrence Morris: Hard to figure this guy out. I think he has talent, but lacks passion and fire. Hes had a handful of very solid games and if he showed any type of consistency in any aspect of his game, he could garner legit playing time in an 8/9 man rotation.

So overall, we have 3 legit starters, and 3 backups who we should have no problem getting 20+ mins off the bench. We are not deep, which is why Francis and especially Mobley, play heavy mins. Same thing with Griffin. On a talented team, Griff is an off the bench guy playing no more than 15 mins.

At SF, we are thin offensively, save for the occasional Rice breakout game and solid defensively. At the 4, we might have one of the worst rotations in the league. We hardly get a great rebounding effort out of this position and are over-matches most games. At the 5, we are set. Cato and Yao compliment each other well. Yao brings the skills, and then Cato comes in and shows you the physicality that Yao lacks. At the 2, Cat plays alot cause we have absolutely no one else that deserves serious mins (if we had a legit starting 3, then JP could fill this role nicely). I like Cat, and wish we could find a role where he will end up staying. I think his game is too much like Steve's. At the 1, we are almost set. SF should be playing 35-40 mins. If Moochie can be limited to 8-10 mins a game as just a backup PG (i.e. no 3 guard lineups with him and no having him and Steve on the court at the same time), then I think he could be serviceable (note: I said serviceable, not great).

Rudy should stay. This is what I would like to see:

New starter at the 3
New starter at the 4 or a vastly improved EG at the 4
Yao at the 5
New starter at the 2
Steve at the 1

Backups:

Swing man 2/3 as a role for Posey
Cato at the backup 5
Taylor at the backup 4
Moo or someone else at the backup 1.

 

I don't know. It isn't really Les' style to hire people to look over the shoulder of the people he already has. My guess is that he will look at changes on the floor before making any on the bench, but who knows. He was really disappointed throughout the season, so anything could happen.

 

Did the Rockets lose games they should have won ?

Yes.

Did they lose to the dregs of the league.

Yes. Sometimes twice.

Did they fail in the clutch?

Yes.

Did they show direction, character, a developing game plan or player improvement, ala Warriors ?

No.

Ladies and Gents - you have an underachiever. This team, the marginally talented team from last year, could have won 50 games, and should have won 48. You can easily count the embarrassing losses to give you those numbers. Heads need to roll. Player heads and coaching heads.

I think some of you have never fired anyone. And trying to band-aid the thing back together with a vet is typical Rudy abnegation of responsibility. Dude will look for his band-aid to do his job for him - again. Unless Yao punches Francis in the grill and screams "You must give the Yao back his change!" this team isn't developing squat. We don't have an ass-kicker with authority. I'm afraid if they bring in Payton to do it - he's not going to be able to back it up. He's not a superior player anymore. He can't drop the hammer on an Arenas. So then its grumble Gramps in the corner and no one respects him. Francis starts skipping and tossing threes. Eddie fires up. Great. It's going to take more than that. We need a teacher. We need a taskmaster. We need someone with a plan, for each player and the team. We need Larry Brown.

 

I agree about Juaquin!

But uhh.....we still should have made the playoffs. We had TWO ALL STARS. And we still couldn't make it......by one game. We can win.....everyone knows that. It's just that they didn't win the easy games at Cleveland and Chicago and Atlanta.

A bunch of playoff teams aren't TALENTED. They just have good role players and a good system....and at least one good star who makes everyone better.

 

Thanks Doc... Perhaps this will squelch a few of the fire Rudy threads. I understand a lot of people hate Rudy on this board but can we at least acknowledge he is our coach for the immediate future and move on to some other topics... Probably not.

 

SAY WHAT!

Just keep it simple and dont' compare the Rockets to ever team in the League. Compare them to the one team who beat them out for the 8th spot by only 1 game.

You can argue this but most people would say hands down Stephon Marbury had a much better season than Francis. Marion is better than Any combination we have at small forward. Mobley may be more talented then Penny at this stage in their careers but he is too erratic, turns over the ball too much and plays 1 on 1 at the worst times and in the end I would much rather have Hardaway on this team then Mobley any day of the week. Hardaway knows his role on the Suns while Mobley still wants to be the Star! Our weak spot is power forward, Amare clearly gets the edge there and their weak spot is center Yao getting the edge over Tsakalidas. So those positions cancel out. We both had Star Rookies but the league thought there's was better. I don't agree but you can't deny that Amare had a good year and while Yao might be better Amare is only a shade under him.

And finally they are more experienced at almost every position.
So you see the last team that made the playoffs on paper looks better than we do and deserved to be in the playoffs more than we did! And yet they only beat us out of the playoffs by 1 game and I honestly believe that wouldn't have happened if Rudy had finished out the season.

 

Friends, in as much as firing RudyT does not make much sense as fairly pointed out by Jeff, Doc Rocket is NOT Les Alexander. Things change especially in the world we live in today. Assuming I am RudyT now, I still would not feel comfortable no matter what anyone tells me.

We live in an ever changing and fragile world - one line from Doc Rocket (with all due respect) is only trivial in the big picture. We can only sit and watch for now.

In all my hunch still tells me that Rudy will be back for various common sense reasons including lack of credible replacement, 30+ of service to the organization, money, etc.

 

Doc is only saying Rudy won't be fired. Nothing about him not resigning.

As for talent...unfortunately, look at Utah. Anyone want to compare a pair of 40 year olds, AK 47, Matt Harpring, and guys like Calbert Cheaney to our team?

 

We had 2 guys who were voted to the all-star team by the fans. Does anyone really think Francis was one of the two best guard in the conference this year? Does anyone think Yao was the best center?
Yao surely would have been selected regardless, but I don't think it's a lock that Francis would have if they decided to take only 4 guards on the team.
Being an all star starter is over rated because of the fan balloting, and I am going to pull my hair out the next time I hear someone being referred to as one of the "50 greatest players of all time". There are at least half a dozen guys in the league now who should bump a half dozen of those 50 greatest.
Okay, I'm through with my rant.
j

 

What are the people who realize games aren't won on paper supposed to do?

 

I will accept your challenge and say that Utah wins.

Replace Steve Francis with John Stockton this year, and the Rockets don't lose any ground. Karl Malone is still better than any player the Rockets have.

 

What reason do you have to suppose that fan-based All Stars were any more legitimate in the past? It means for us what it meant for others; a certain reflection of ability coupled with a certain amount of celebrity...to assume that we are the only ones to have players whose fame places unrealistic expectations on them is to look for an excuse for a team because it's yours.

 

Keep expressing their "tunnel vision" views?

Would me listing the NBA "Efficiency Ratings" help anyone?

 

I just want to weigh in here about underachieving. In my view, what really happened with this team is that it exceeded expectations early and then the wheels fell off. Check any publication early in the year and they all predicted about 41-45 wins and a POSSIBLE 8th seed for the Rockets. That is exactly what they did.

The real disappointment was their inability to adjust more quickly to the pieces of the puzzle they acquired before and during the season, the frustrating lack of concentration that led to bad losses and the fact that the team LOST cohesion as the team went along instead of getting better.

In some ways, the team seemed much worse than it really was simply because the "what have you done for me lately" mentality can kill you in basketball. Better to suck early than late and the Rockets sucked late. If they had a horrible first half and finished strong, going, say, 28-13 after the all-star break, and still finished with the same record, we'd all be talking about how much they had grown and how bright the future looked.

In reality, I think they overachieved in the first half and underachieved on the second half. To me, the real Rockets team was somewhere in between those two extremes.

 

As expected, perfectly said. Ditto.

 

Reasonable take, Jeff. Since I am a very open minded Rox fan, I can go along with this interpretation. However....

When the conversation degenerates to narrow focuses regarding "over/under" achieving...my vote goes to under...for more reasons than just this season.

 

i think this is a good, fair analysis.

 

You can't talk about over/under achieving without considering the Yao Ming factor, which had every team in the league getting up to play the Rockets like they were the defending champions of the NBA. This is an undeniable truth that manifests itself among other ways in the Rockets' road attendance numbers. What other lottery team is in the top 4 of road attendance? What players in the league actually marked on their calendar their chance to dunk on Greg Ostertag or Scott Williams?

 

I never said it was.
My point is, the fact that Francis and Ming were "all-stars" should have no bearing on whether or not we are a playoff team, despite what another poster was stating, because they were selected by popularity, not because they were the best at their position.
j