I will preface this with the fact that I am not a JVG Fan. However these are my thoughts on the man. He is a GOOD Coach. I think he has all the skills of a GOOD Coach. I do not think he is a GREAT Coach. Here are my reasons: JVG’s Values: I have found JVG values 2 things more than all else. LOYALTY and HUSTLE. If you do/have these two qualities you have a place on his team. You do what he says, when he says and he will love you and you will love him. The DOWNSIDE of this is he values them FAR more than TALENT. He will take a Loyal and Hustling player over a talented one. Part of me feels that he values them to a detriment. He will play a Ryan Bowen when a better player is available. DA may not hustle but at times a half *ssed DA is better than a Ryan Bowen. Sometimes you have to make those type sacrifices and JVG will not do this. It is a mark to his character and conviction [a good mark] but not to winning. This is why some of his trades seem . . .odd. JVG’s Peopleskills Should all players have a thick skin? Yes! Do all players have a thick skin? No! Coaches need to DEAL with people’s personality. Coaches need to be able to work with multiple personalities. You dump on a guy and say well he a millionaire. He should be able to take it. Well even if I concede that . . if it ain’t winning or making the player better . . YOU NEED TO DO SOMETHING THAT WILL! After a while you cannot keep blaming the player for being himself. Why is people says well . .JVG is gruff and grumpy. . that is his style. However, we do not allow for the players to be the same. IT IS A POOR ARTIST THAT BLAMES HIS TOOLS! JVG has to learn to INSPIRE and MOTIVATE even the Unmotivated and Uninspired. If you know a player’s limitations . . you should 1. try to eliminate them and 2. Coach to them. Don’t as a poor shooter to hit 3s. You work with him on it. As he progresses you may ask more of him but AFTER the coaching. AFTER he has shown the ability and will. I don’t think you ask a person to do something until he shows that he can do it. Coach to their limitations as their limitations change the coaching changes. I don’t think JVG is good at change. He seems to ram people into a peg until they fit. While they may become what he wants. . .the growing pains are painful to watch. If they don’t fit. . not matter how talented. . they are on their way out. I am tired of seeing out players look like beaten dogs rather than ravenous wolves ready to chomp. He does not seem IMO to inspire/motivae. JVG’s System JVG goes with what he knows. That is it. He is not an effective thinker outside the box. His system is what it is. And It will never be anything else. I think his offense is unimaginative and do not utilize the players are their best. He does not know how to utilize players’ strengths but rather tries to make them utilize the strength of his system. Too many times I see T-Mac becoming. . . . ALAN HOUSTON [Jump shooter extraodinare]. YAO is Patrick Ewing 2.0. They are so much better than those guys but the intricate a beautiful parts of their games is been sawed off and knawed away to make them fit those molds. YAO is playing GREAT. But He is playing like Patrick Ewing. He can do that BETTER THAN PATRICK. . but can do so much more. JVG has made those elements of YAO’s game better BUT the other parts are whithering from neglect and non-use. JVG has a system. He either WILL NOT or CANNOT adapt to the players. Either way is not good. JVG needs JVG-Type players to succeed. Non JVG-Type players no matter how talents will find no purchase in his system. I think SLOAN is a good comparison. Sloan has a system. HE works his system. IMO Sloan is not a championship caliber Coach. The issue with him and JVG IMO is that they coach to a normal line. If a player is mediocre they can coach them up. If a player is extraordinary they will coach them down. GREAT PLAYERS WILL BE GREAT. Sloan looks like a master coach when he has Stockton and Malone. Now he is coaching up a bunch of scrubs [AK47 being an exception]. I think the Stockton Malone era was the best his system will ever be. And it will not net a championship. THE 5th Gear. The playoffs require a 5th gear. System Clubs do not have it. This is why they can win 50~60 games every year and then not make it to thru the playoffs. [ala old Jazz] They get through the 1st or even 2nd round beating teams with the system. Then they run into a team that has that 5th gear and they fizzle. Utah and the Bulls championship series. All the other years other teams STEP UP to take them out b4 the championship round that or a bear hug on drexler by Malone. . but I digress] People will point to the Pistons as a system club. I will tell them the Pistons have the most talented starting lineup in the NBA. Other will point to the spurs. I will say their system is not a ridged as the Sloan/JVG system. THIS IS NOT TO BASH JVG I think he has made some bad decisions. I ain’t calling for his head yet. NEXT YEAR THOUGH! He will officially be on the clock. Rocket River Let's try something new. . . . Let's not bash but just a honest evalutation of YOU view
I posted this in another thread, but I think this thought is better suited for this thread: First, JVG was not my first choice to coach the Rockets. Second, I changed my opinion and have discovered he is a very good coach on the x's and o's level. For example, almost everyone seems to think he prefers a slow-down offense, but somehow only a handfull of posters ever notices that he is constantly signaling the team to push the ball. Third, I am very concerned that he is negative and growing more negative by the day. This is not healthy for himself or for the team. If a person yells and screams all the time, people tend to ignore the latest bout. Yelling and screaming is like salt: a little adds flavor and makes a meal more tasty but a lot of salt makes that same meal impossible to eat. Fourth, we need heady players but we need players with a collective heart. Despite their physical and mental shortcomings, that's why we still love players like Calvin (too small), Mad Max (unstable), Sura (gimpy), Elie (slow release), etc. etc. IMO JVG will find the "fire" in younger, hungry players -- not worn out veterans. Draft well when the time comes, JVG, for that may well be your last chance for glory with the Rockets.
JVG's approach to the TMac/YM tandem is purely short term crisis management. the emphasis to win already fuels the high personnel turnover, challenges chemistry and frustrates long term planning. does anyone think he has a plan for the long haul? not bashing but i really hope he aint here for the long haul ...
evaluating is important. but in the end the most important evaluation is the in W column and playoff success. we have had neither under JVG. we have gotten to the playoffs and loss in the 1st round both times. and now we will probably not make the playoffs this season. the trend isn't looking very good. we are not gettig better as a team, just worse. and as far as CD is concerned, trading older players for younger players who aren't worth a crap doesn't help either. neither fitch nor bogans will make an impact on this team. i don't see either one playing here next year. we might as well have traded baxter and anderson for a couple of cases of beer and some burgers. we'd get more uses out of them. i think owernship this offseason needs to take a long hard look at the direction of the rockets. both JVG and dawson need to have their tenures re-evaluted and see if they are the right people to be running this team.
Interesting. I would probably have to agree with this statement. Despite my constant defending of him in this forum, I'm not a big JVG fan and I don't think he is the long term answer. I thought we should have hired Dunleavy a few years ago. He has experience taking a team deep into the playoffs, he's an ex-Rocket and he really wanted to be here. I don't think JVG is a bad coach, I just don't think he's right for this organization or our current team. He seems to try to adapt players to his system instead of adapting his system to our players. The teams that are doing well right now (Dallas, Phoenix, San Antonio, Detroit) are the teams that are adapting the system to their rosters.
And an even smaller handful of posters recognizes that JVG does run a slow-down offense, AND wants to push the ball. You can have it both ways, and JVG does. That's because all of the offensive sets are slow-developing. Lots of passing it around the perimeter, off-ball screens, and setting Yao up on one block, then swinging the ball around so he can set up on the other block. Does JVG want some easy scores in transition? I'm sure he does. But if they push the ball, but don't get a shot up, that means there is more time to run those shot-clock consuming sets. So what do I think about JVG. I'm kind of ambivalent about him. His offensive gameplan isn't so bad even if it does take a lot of time. But I sort of wonder if he's maximizing Yao and Tracy's abilities. Defensively, I have a love/hate relationship with JVG. I like the fact that we protect the paint and can crush teams that go into a shooting funk from the perimeter. But I hate the way he's so set in his ways in sticking with a defensive system that he doesn't have the personel to implement. This collapse/rotate style will get us killed against quality perimeter shooting teams because Yao and Howard are both slow rotaters. If we had the Wallaces down there, it would be a different story, but you've got to adapt to your strengths, not play to your weaknesses. And playing time is probably the biggest thing I have a problem with. JVG can be quite maddening with how he doles out PT. Chuck Hayes is an absolute terror out there, and could possibly really complement Yao's game. But he gets 5 minutes one game or 10 minutes in another. He's playing well in his short time on the court, so why not give him some more PT. Juwan has gotten the lion's share of the PF minutes since Stro went down, and he's doing okay, but it's not like he's setting the world on fire. So what does all of that mean? I guess I just wonder if JVG has the vision and flexiblity to lead us to the promised land. He's just so stubburn and set in his ways sometimes.
In JVG's eyes, anyone can play good basketball if he has intensity and discipline. If you give him a gun, he will only wield it as a rock to smash his enemy's head, and he will complain the "rock " is too light,soft , lack of intensity.... He does not need a future plan. He can find Bowen-like body and meat anywhere and use them to play "defense".
Good post, dude. I fogot to add this part to mine. I don't like our defensive rotations either. We seem to do so much switching/trapping/rotating on defense that any good shooting team with proper halfcourt spacing that makes one extra pass is going to end up with a WIDE OPEN jumper on every posession. If those shots are falling, we're toast. And all that running around on defense is wasted. A good argument can be made that all the running around on defense is why our offense can be so stagnant at times.
What I've noticed about Van Gundy is that he is almost a master gameplanner, as we've noticed in the playoffs(going into Dallas and stealing 2 wins) The thing I really dont like about him is that he has such a negative disposition. I think that can really wear down a team when it seems like the coach is almost never satisfied. Van Gundy gives his players props from time to time but it dosent seem like enough. Sometimes just a simple pat on the back and saying "good job" can do wonders for a persons mind set. I always wondered what kind of game the Rockets would have to play to make Van Gundy happy with no complaints.
OFFENSE: C philosophy: i give him an average rating because he wants to push the ball and get easy baskets. just because the players don't allways do it isn't his fault. he is allways waving his arms from the sideline telling them to push it. system: in half court we usually execute well. yao and tmac get plenty of touches. wea re able to exploit mismatches and find open guys when someone is doubled. poor shooting isn't his fault. the system is working but we can't hit the open shots it creates. i didn't give him a high grade because the system is so structured that any mistake seems to break it down. DEFENSE: A philosophy: keep teams out of the paint to severely reduse thier % of making shots. great idea. with the right players he could hold teams under 90 every game by "packing it in." system: packing it in means you have to rotate out to guard an open perimeter player a lot. when this happens everyone else has to rotate to pick up the next pass. it's not easy. you have to be quick, you have to understand whats going on, and you have to be in shape. not all of our players are a good fit for this system and so it breaks down a lot. if we had a second shot blocker on the court who is quick enough to rotate out and back we would be very tough. swift was supposed to fit that bill but rarely understands whats going on during the game. perimeter defense is a huge deal when trying to protects the basket. our guards get beat like an adopted half brother. not the systems fault. with one or two more pieces we will be a force on D. PREPARATION: A simply, only a few other coaches know more about the other team than he does. every time we are defending an inbounds play he calls out what the other team is going to do and our players are able to prevent it. it's pretty funny when you catch it. MOTIVATION: C i'm not convinced that these guys want to play for him at all. i'm not going to fail him because the team allways plays hard. some players in his career have just tuned him out because of the negativity. that doesn't happen to a players coach like rudy. it happens to task masters like JVG and larry brown. the players that don't tune them out are able to understand the point of the message instead of the negativity and thus play hard. so i give him a middle-of-the-road grade. OVERALL: B taking into account all that was said above, JVG is a pretty good coach. with an extra piece here and there the offense and defense will look much better.
IF- what a word If TMac was playing all season at the level of say Lebron or Kobe (he should) If Yao had not been injured If Sura was the starting point guard If Rafer was coming off the bench If our team didn't have the above issues and had time to develop chemistry/rotation/identity If I had to evaluate JVG I would want to do it with a team that has not had a train wreck of a season because of things beyond his control. Right now I think he is losing it a little, taking the losses too hard... considering all that happened this season. But his personality can become a big problem in a hurry because he is too caustic too often IMHO
OFFENSE: D DEFENSE: B+ For the first couple years he deserved an A. This season has brought it down. PREPARATION: A- MOTIVATION: D ADJUSTMENTS: D- OVERALL: C As I said from the beginning, Mr. Van Gundy is ADEQUATE. No more, no less. The Steve Francis Rockets deserved better, and the Tracy McGrday Rockets should DEMAND better.
I've been saying for a long time now. The Yao Juwan combination is just TERRIBLE to try and play the scrambling, rotating defense Jeff wants to play. It is a bad fit. It seems like most of us agree. JVG is a good coach and a pretty good strategist at drawing up plays to get us a good shot. But he is mediocre in motivating his players and in putting the right players on the floor at the right time.
I like this comment (even though I'd like to nitpick about starting Sura over Alston, that's just wrong). I think the combination of our trainwreck season and JVG's apparently surly personality is what's wearing on everyone here. A lot of people seem to think it's wearing on the players too, but I don't really believe that. Our players have always heaped praise on the coach even when he gets down on them, and nothing has really changed in this regard (even the recently released JB still had an excellent relationship with JVG). His personality and statements do seem to wear on us and so we assume it's the same internally. But overall what seems to be happening is a combination of pent-up frustration at not being able to get anything going for such a long time and a few miscellaneous factors, and few fans have enough farsight to not lose it and call for his head on a platter.
I'd give him an A in defense and an A in preparation. He is a very dedicated coach who can really put together defense...if he has the right players. All the other grades are dead on, though.
This has been an excellent thread, and I have to say that I've agreed with just about all of your posts recently. But the Mav's series last year is enough to make all our heads explode right now. After game 1, Avery screamed that his team refused to penetrate. After game 2 he repeated himself and was getting crucified more in Dallas than he was here. Then his guys took us on one on one and ground our team to bits in four of five games. Interior defense was the absolute killer even before the game 7 fiasco. But what "adjustment" could JVG have made? Sura and Wesley were injured and they were still the best defensive options JVG had, it's hard to argue JVG could have done anything to change the eventual outcome. This year our perimeter defense has been the killer even when we've been healthy. So I can argue that JVG's made adjustments, just not the right ones. But I won't. I'll assume JVG assured us that there will be no knuckleheads on this team and somehow finds himself miraculously surrounded by them - except for Juwan and RyBo of course. Swift fans rejoice, he's no worse off than TMac or Yao here and that's not bad company.
JVG is an excellent defensive minded coach his teams are always tops in the league but it is on the offensive end we struggle. J
