here we go again. someone trying to paint everyone else as "bandwagon" fans because we are upset with the product put on the court. just because someone wants JVG fired, or criticizes the front office or our players doesn't mean they are bandwagon fans. did you ever think that they are upset that THEIR team sucks, and no one is doing a damn thing to fix it? what did the organization do to get help with all of the injuries this year? nothing. got players like gerald fitch, keith bogans, rick brunson, and stephen graham. sorry derrick that some of us DEMAND to be better than what we are now. and just because we criticize doesn't mean we don't support our team or that we aren't fans. when someone like myself shells out $160 for nba league pass to see the rockets play every game, i want a good product on the floor. and what do i see out there? a big stinking pile of crap. i see a coach who has no semblance of an offensive scheme whatsoever. if tracy and yao aren't out there together our offense looks like it is run by a middle school coach. i know the injuries have been difficult, but a really good coach knows how to adjust and still be effective and competitive. and as far as the guys playing hard, i do appreciate that because there are a lot of players in the league who don't play hard everynight. however, that is something that i expect from every nba player nonetheless. they are being paid extremely well, the least they could do is play hard. now for you calling ALL houston fans the worst fans in the world, i take great offense to that. yeah, there are a lot of bandwagon fans in houston, but in case you haven't noticed there are A LOT of bandwagon fans in EVERY SINGLE sports city across this country. there are A LOT of TRUE houston sports fans all over the city and all over the state. i still wear rockets red in a city that is all over the spurs nuts and i'm damn proud of it. i know we aren't good this year but they are still my team and i'm going to be a fan of the rockets till the day i die. there are a lot of people like me out there (hello, do you read this board?), but at the same point in time we want something that we can really be proud of on the floor. we want to be great, we want championships. those are REAL fans my friend. wake up.
Not only was the above post a good one, there is no way you will have change by keeping quiet and accepting what isnt even mediocre. You dont take steps backwards then expect everyone to smile no matter what
i can explain the whole season to you: the Rockets didn't give Calvin Murphy his job back after he was found not guilty. Imagine if someone falsely accused you of something and you were found not guilty, then your company disses you. 1. Calvin Murphy's jersey is hung on the rafters. 2. Rudy T is with the Lakers, no orginal Rocket legend is left on this team. This causes the entire season to be hexed. Also, giving #10 to Bogans isn't smart either. Now the Clippers are 13 games over .500. The Rockets have always been a team of tradition and heart. You take away the tradition and heart, you have a bad team. Yao, luckily is wearing #11, symbolizing the spirit of the Houston Rockets. If he wore some other number, he wouldn't have such a great season.
While I am all with you in the expecting great things and feeling dissapointment area, this is exactly the kind of mentality that we need to get away from. Brash decisions, impulse reactions, don't bring championships as much as not making changes. We had injuries this year, and especially one to Tmac. Now even if we made a trade, what would that accomplish? Who can replace Tmac? The answer is... no one. Everyone getting on the Rockets right now ARE acting a little bandwagonish, and perhaps even childish. That doesn't exclude me, I made the mistake of getting on JVG for his comments to Yao, and all that brash decision got me was the humiliation of realizing the context of his statements later. Let me put some of this in perspective JVG's offensive schemes were pretty horrible, this year for these players. However, last year, our system was a thing of beauty. We had maybe the greatest number of open shots of maybe any team, and we had a plethora of raining threes from Barry, James, Wesley, Padgett, and Mcgrady. Yet we lost in the playoffs due to a lack of footspeed, age, and an injury to Juwan. So this year, we went out after guys like Swift, Anderson, and attempted to remedy the loss of Sura (another example of a Brash action) with Alston whom we felt could work due to still having Barry, Wesley, and Mcgrady. We kept Bowen over Padgett, as Padgett was projected to see few minutes with our new Stromile. JVG (lets not kid ourselves that only CD is making moves here) has done everything that seemed right at the time. In fact, I would say that he has done a great job in handling the Houston Rockets. I will argue the reverse of what many people have been arguing. A very good coach that falls just short of championships is constantly adapting - with no continuity simply to fit his talent and expect immediate results. Until I am proven wrong, I contend that people such as Flip Saunders, Mike D'Antoni, Don Nelson, Rick Adelman, and the like - Fit their system to their players and get immediate results but no championships. While guys like - Phil Jackson, Larry Brown, Jeff Van Gundy, Greg Popovich, Pat Riley - Stick with their system through thick and thin, preach discipline of their system (As stated by one of TNT's commentators on last night's Detroit game - Detroit plays the same way whether they are down by 12 or up by 12 (and don't tell me that is Flip Saunder's doing, I have seen the T-wolves enough times to know that it is not his doing) - or San Antonio's similar approach, or the Laker's consistent triangle approach). Yes JVG can be more inflexible than the said coaches, and yes JVG is sometimes uncreative with his offenses, however his current inflexibility is due to a lack of success. When you look at last years flexibility with Tracy, flexibility with Jon Barry's three's and creative passing, flexibility with Mike James's isolation plays, flexibility with Ryan Bowen on Nowitzki, flexibility with a three guard lineup... It becomes clear, JVG is inflexible except when flexibility works. With this current lineup, flexibility will get us nowhere, because are players simply are not good enough w/o Mcgrady to get anywhere. Hence he is drilling in the system, as much as possible, so that we can be better prepared for the future, which in my eyes now makes total sense.
Problem with the coaches you named that stick with their systems is, they all won rings with it. JVG hasnt won anything. He's in the same boat as the Adelman's as far as rings go, but those guys for the most part were all more competetive with their respective teams than JVG. Even with C-Webb out the Kings still won, same with Carlisle. Same with Pop, and so on. JVG doesnt change for the better which is the problem. Those guys arent so predictable, they dont leave their star with one play although the entire L knows what it is and it doesnt work well. Dont force Tmac to stay on the perimeter far up top then complain about his percentages. Get him down lower. I mean it seems like the coach is SLOW. He doesnt understand things the normal fan can even see a mile away. Id take Doug Collins at this point anyhow, this is a team that is supposed to compete to win, not to experiment with. JVG is still talking about rotations. He cant even stick with one group. The guy is far from being stable as the rest of those guys.
Very solid reasoning. This is a very good example of logic and reasoning for some kids on this board.
are you really comparing JVG to Phil Jackson, Larry Brown, Greg Popovich and Pat Riley? yes, all of those guys have systems but their systems have resulted in championships. JVG is ONLY guy on that list who hasn't won a championship. and all of those coaches above make adjustments and changes to fit their teams. Pat Riley had showtime in LA and had tough grind it out team in NY and is working a two man game with Shaq and DWade in Miami. Larry Brown won a championship with detriot, with not one single "star" player. and got philly to the nba finals with a bunch of role players and allen iverson being the sole offensive force. Greg Popovich won championships around featuring two great big men (duncan and robinson) and won another around building a smart, athletic backcourt to compliment Duncan inside. Phil Jackson does have the triangle offense and won 6 rings with jordan, pippen, and no big man. and then proceeded to win another 3 rings incorporating shaq into the offensive scheme inside with kobe on the outside. those coaches made changes to their systems. yes, the philosphy and discipline stayed the same but they did in fact make changes to continue winning with the players they had. all i've seen with jeff is the same "system" every game (offensively) regardless of who is in there. without yao or tmac we are screwed, because our offense is predicated on them being in it. without them there is no "system" to score points effeciently, and no changes are made. and defensively we are very good, but what is the point of playing really good defense if you can't turn that into easy offense? i'm not saying we need to be a fast break team, but the spurs do something that is EXTREMELY smart and beneficial by being an opportunistic fast breaking team. if they force a turnover or a get a long rebound they are looking to beat the defense down the floor by running. it is AMAZING how many easy points a game you can get by simply being opportunistic with your fast breaks. we don't do that very often. we like to slow the ball down and grind it out most of the time which evens up the possessions, making the game close everytime. now that may work against a team that is obviously superior to you, and you want to change tempo and take what the other team does well and neaturalize it. but against bad teams, it hurts you because you keep them in the game. changes and adjustments are NECESSARY to being a great team. every championship team has done it, we obviously need to do more of it. i know some people may do this, but i don't make brash or impulse decisions or judgements. i just watch a lot basketball and observe, and i just comment on what i've personally seen. i think there are A LOT of changes that need to be made for us to win. i think our record obviously proves that.
Since when JVG's name is on par with Phil Jackson, Larry Brown, Greg Popovich, Pat Riley? Oh, Speaking of Riley, his mentor, which Riley do you refer to? Lakers' showtime? or Knicks' grind-it-out? or Miami with Shaq and a young star named Wade? Speaking of adjustments, did you by any chance hear of Doug Collins's comment on TNT when Rockets finally played some zone against Mavs? On how painful it must be for JVG to play some zone? And just how many times do we played zone the entire time JVG is here?
good question. it just tires him out and doesn't really use his strengths to the team's advantage. he's freakin' 7 feet 6 inches. get his ass on the block and let him do his work. if a double team comes he can pass it back out for open jumpers. also run backdoor screens on the weakside and let him look over the defense for easy layups. yao is an excellent passer, but we don't use it nearly enough. screen and rolls are great when you have a strong, athletic PF or C who can set up for the mid range jumper. the juwon and tmac screen and roll is good. it fits the strengths of both players.
Well here is the thing... Now you guys are all arguing that these other coach's systems have won championships, and that's the reason JVG should start coaching like the coaches who haven't won championships? Tell me what I'm missing here, it's not like JVG didn't adjust at all last year either. All I'm saying is he may be inflexible at times, but that doesn't mean he won't adjust to the major issues (ie. Tracy, Barry, James, etc.) and additionally, it can be argued that Yao may have never become the low-post monster that he is without JVG's insistence, so you can't have it both ways.
but you are saying that those coaches didn't make adjustments to their systems in order to win those championships. they did. every single one of them. JVG has to do the same. i know JVG made some adjustments last year when he let the offense be a little more free. taking shots early in the shot clock when they were open, being more aggressive, and even running some in transition. BUT he has gone away from that this year. we aren't doing the same things we did last year offensively that were successful. we have returned to the slow it down, grind it out offense and it isn't working. so why are we still doing it?
Sure, here I agree with you, I too do overall feel that JVG should adjust more, and be about as flexible as the championship coaches that were listed. My only qualm is that people wanting to replace him with more "open" coaches. JVG is a very good coach, and until you can replace him with a better one (or an actually better one becomes available), I say stick with him because he's the best we got. The one thing I would like to say, is this offensive system being succesful business. I know you can restructure the offense to fit your players better, but my question is: at what expense? Yao has become a monster in the low-post mode, and naturally you need shooters. Our players obviously can't shoot. Well then, do you restructure your entire offense? This is where I feel we would be impulsive in doing so. Let our players brick one million shots, but stick with the open shot offense, and when summer rolls around and we get some shooters, our offense will go back to being beautiful (I mean we get perhaps the greatest number of WIDE open shots of any team). Implementing a new offense now just seems unproductive and short-sighted to me.
obviously we do need better shooters (i blame CD for that), and the half court offense could work if we had them...but we don't. so you have to try something else if getting it into yao isn't enough. skip is quick and can get into the lane, use that some. have him dump the ball off to yao or other players cutting to the hoop. also design backdoor cuts to get those players who can't shoot jumpers, layups off of a yao double team. juwan has a nice midrange jumper, use a screen and roll with someone and try to get that working. try SOMETHING different, not just pound it into yao, let the defense collapse on him and have guys miss jumpers. get them moving to the basket for layups, something.
i've often disagreed with you, but this is one of my favorite posts ever by you. in a thread that needs it badly!
And this is one of the main reasons some people want him to go. Its so pinfully obvious yet he's the only one who doesnt see it. This is his problems with not adjusting, yet he blasts the players daily although he himself steps away from the blame. Like Barkley said about Sloan.. JVG should take a step back and say hey, my way isnt working anymore. Now you would think a man with some common sense would look at what kind of example Casrlisle set. Larry Brown got the freaking Clippers to the playoffs. Do you really believe JVG could've done that with the way he coaches? Whats the use of calling timeout when you come back on the floor, the other team already knows what you plan on doing? Thats how it is every game. CD botched this season up, JVG is botching up his job, and they pathetic people on the roster called nba players are even worse at what they should be doing. Like I said, it starts from management on down.
