Every rumor must be posted - Rockets good option for Van Gundy

if he doesnt want to move his family to the south, or coach in the west, or coach for a team that fires a coach with a winning tenure, that why the hell would he come to houston?

 

Rudy is going to be back next season. Doc Rocket has all but confirmed that. Wait, actually, he pretty much has confirmed that.

You guys are going to have to accept that and put your Van Gundy and Murphy rumors on the back burner until this time next season.

 

how come dallas and san antonio have head coach quality assistant coaches like PJ and del harris? is it ther owners or just their overall talent? why cant we get quality guys to assist rudy? its not like rudy and the organization arent well respected

also what denver is doing bringing in retired vets shows even awful teams can have top-level coaching

rudys awesome but why not more?

 

I'd like to know this too. I always hear the excuse that Rudy wants to surround himself with a bunch of "yes" men, but what possible motivation would he have for that?

Is he afraid of one of the assistants stealing his job, cuz that would never happen? If four straight lottery seasons are allegedly not enough to get him fired, there's no way one of his assistant coaches would be able to shove him out the door.

Is it because of loyalty and an unwillingness to look outside the organization for help? If that's the case, I can respect that, but it's a recipe for disaster. A lack of qualified coaches to help develop the talent on this team is what leads to everyone playing like a bunch of underachieving, disappointing malcontents. And that spells doom for Rudy, if not this year then definitely next year(one would think).

I have a hard time believing it's for budgetary reasons. Les Alexander is still paying Matt Maloney millions of dollars for God's sake. Plus he's about to make a lot more jack from this team once they've moved into the new arena, so I don't think he's telling Rudy that they can't afford any additional assistant coaches.

What's frustrating is that there are reportedly several qualified former NBA greats practically begging to help the Rockets and specifically Yao. If Rudy doesn't capitialize on this opportunity then I feel no sympathy for the dude if he gets canned next year.

 

Perhaps Clutch or Jeff or someone with more knowledge than I have can verify this or expose it as untrue...

It is my understanding that Rudy (as a coach) is somewhat of a "control freak". IOW, he doesn't not want someone on the staff who would challenge his authority. Consequently, you wind up with "yes" men.

 

What about Mike Fratello?

 

How many jobs has Fratello been fired from since Rudy was hired?
j

 

It's not always about the coach.

Sometimes it's about where the BEST PLAYERS end up going. It can be a crap shoot (draft picks, good players, but never good enough). I mean, do you honestly believe that Mike Fratello had ANY chance to win a title during the 90's? There are only so many rings (10) to go around and the Bulls, Rockets, Lakers and Spurs had a hammer lock on them.

So, this view point where, "if a coach has been on many teams, he sucks" is not telling the whole story.

If Phil Jackson never had Jordan, Shaq and Kobe, he wouldn't have won either (or there's a pretty good possibility he wouldn't have).

Rudy had the opportunity to coach the best player in the 90's not named Jordan!

Today, Rudy has more individual talent from 1 to 12 than he's ever had! And if he's not able to mesh them into a cohesive unit, then Rudy is accountable.

By the way, I said "Mike Fratello," because I was messing with codell from a previous post.

P.S. Correct me if I'm wrong, but the only team I remember Fratello as the head coach (since 92) on was the Cleveland Cavaliers. That's ONE team. Not sure about assistant jobs prior to 92.

 

I don't know if people consider Houston the "deep" South. I have a hard time thinking of New Orleans that way too. He just doesn't want to coach an eastern conference team that will be in the West because they will get their buts kicked, but he needed more excuses that didn't sound that bad.

 

My bad, I thought he was with Atlanta through '92, but he dparted the Hawks in '90.

"Sometimes it's about where the BEST PLAYERS end up going. It can be a crap shoot (draft picks, good players, but never good enough). I mean, do you honestly believe that Mike Fratello had ANY chance to win a title during the 90's? There are only so many rings (10) to go around and the Bulls, Rockets, Lakers and Spurs had a hammer lock on them. "

Can't the same be said about Rudy in the 2000's?

"So, this view point where, "if a coach has been on many teams, he sucks" is not telling the whole story. "

I didn't say he sucks, I just don't think he's the coach you fire Rudy to hire. There isn't a caoch that's available right now that you fire Rudy just to hire that guy. If Larry Brown, Phil Jackson, Pat Riley, even Jerry Sloan (I know but 18 winning seasons!!) were looking for a job, maybe, but nobody who's out there right now.
j

 

True. Given time. But time is running out on Rudy since he has more talent than Mike did. At least on the "superstar status."


Also, in my opinion, Mike designs better offensive sets than Rudy does.

Rudy has improved on the last 2 years, but still lacking.

 

If you read the post accurately I stated "It is my understanding" right after I asked for a more authoritative perspective (Clutch, Jeff, etc.).

The subject has been discussed frequently at various times but not recently. Since the search engine is in mothballs and I can't recall what the final conclusion was (I recall controlling but am not positive), I asked for another opinion.

 

Actually, I've always thought of Rudy as a "yes man."

Francis: "I'm going to do what I want."

Rudy" "Ok..." (Worried that if he disagrees with Francis, Francis might dislike Rudy).

Mobley: "Me too! I'm going to do what I want." (Wants to be liked by Mobley too).

Rudy: "Ok..."

 

I think it's not necessarily about Rudy but about Rudy and THIS team.

Rudy, when he was the national coach during the strike when the team had no NBA players, managed to get a bronze medal which nobody expected them to be able to get. Compare that with George Karl who didn't got 6th place with NBA talent. In the '94 Finals Rudy outcoached Riley. In '95 Rudy did a great job of adjusting the game plan when Sloan's Jazz looked like they would boot the Rockets from the playoffs early. And Rudy managed that turn around after Maxwell made his premature exit. Rudy's gotten more out of players like Ellie, Chucky Brown, Matt Bullard, Othella Harrington than other coaches that those guys played for. And certainly if you are going to blame Rudy when his players don't play well then he must be credited when they progress light years ahead of schedule like Yao Ming. I'm not claiming either is the case, but for those that say Francis hasn't improved and Mobely hasn't learned what he's doing so that's Rudy's fault, then it's only fair he gets credit when players develop quicker than expected.

Rudy can coach and has proven that he can get more out of his players than would be expected.

But for some reason this team hasn't performed up to expectations. Sometimes for some valid reasons and often for no apparent reason.

Somewhere between the coach and the players something isn't getting across. Is it that a few players players are too thick skulled and the other players see that and then don't do their part? Is it that Rudy doesn't communicate what he wants very well? Something isn't working, and hopefully that will be fixed. I think coming with a purely Francis and Yao centered two man type offense as Mac Beth suggested could be the answer provided the role players understand and fulfill their roles.

 

I like Van Gundy as a coach, he's a former PG, has coached a team without competent PG's, and his teams seem to overachieve regularly.

However, how well would he implement Yao Ming into a typical Van Gundy system? I think that, in his system, the C is mainly responsible for the power play, rebounds, blocks, putbacks. I don't know if that's all we want Yao to be.

One thing Rudy does well, is adjust the system to the players rather than force the players into a system. I'm not sure Van Gundy is that kind of coach.

However, if we have adequate assistants who are familiar with a low post/high post threat with Yao's qualities, I'm all for it. I think that, outside of Yao, all our players fit better ina Van Gundy system. Especially Mobley, Francis, Cato, and Griffin.

I'd love to see this team work as hard as the Kncks of 2 years ago.

 

Yeah, that's why I dislike Rudy's coaching philosophy!

The "system" has conformed to Francis's "one-on-one" style.

And that's why we are known around the league as the "ISO TEAM."

 

DavidS,

If we get another coach, and he's not like Rudy, you'll realize how spoilt we are.

Van Gundy had either Spree or Houston playing the point, was benching Ewing, and eventually had him traded.

What if Yao Ming doesn't fit into Van Gundy's game plan? Ready to trade him?

No, we need a coach who will slap the perfect system on a Francis/Yao combo.

 

On the issue of having multiple assistants who have been head coaches...

This is not a normal phenomenon. It is unique to Dallas. In the case of San Antonio, Calesimo is a friend of Poppovich and Popp basically gave him a job after the Golden State fiasco.

If you look around the league, only really Dallas loads its team with assistant coaches, many of whom are relatively high profile.

The reasoning behind NOT having all those coaches is simple: when you have a bench full of leaders all following someone, it invariably causes problems. It is why most feel like a team of all stars would get beaten by a great team even though the individual players on that team aren't as good as the individuals on the other side. It's the "too many cooks in the kitchen" rule.

I think having more experienced guys on the bench isn't an issue. Jim Boylen has been on the bench for something like 10 years. Larry Smith has been an assistant since he retired as a player.

I do agree that it would be adventageous to see some NEW faces on the bench just to shake things up and maybe a former head coach or former college coach just to see what happens. But, realize that this is not the normal way to do things in the NBA. As usual, Cuban is the oddball.