For all those who wish to criticize Rudy please first admit that you are stupid.

lol, lol

 

1st you seem to misunderstand what OMR was getting at..he didnt mean you dont have a right to your opinion, just that Rudys BB knowledge is far beyond your comprehension, and you need to acknowledge that before you critique the coach...In fact comparing Rudys B-ball IQ with this whole board would probably be like comparing genius to a mushroom or a cow bisquit.....
Now the part about the old guys...We missed you and JR at the recent pickup game..we could have used a couple young, bright basketball geniuses at the game. Mabe next time you can come out and give some of the older guys some tips on how to improve their game. Behad and Crisco Kid could use a little help with their post game against a 2-3 zone, Kam needs some advice on how to take a little arc out of his 3 pt shot, and Chickenboy charges way too much and zz jr always likes hints on how to move folks out of the post area...But hell....even if you cant coach and cant play, come on out next time and just trash talk..youve shown some skill at that....

 

My quick recap of the last four seasons.

<b>Steve's first season.</b>
Barkley goes down early...season over. Hakeem is now officially bobsledding down the hill...he misses almost half the season...Rockets end up acquiring some obese guy because everyone else is injured...Francis makes some mistakes like any rookie...he's correctly voted co-rookie of the year at season end...Cuttino comes in second in 6th man of the year voting...Not a memorable season, but not much else to be expected...The future looks bright now that we have two of the most explosive young players in the league.

<i>Blame Rudy Factor: ...I got nothing, and at the time noone else really did either.</i>


<b>Steve's second season</b>
Barkley gone...rebuilding has officialy started with battered Hakeem the only integral player remaining from past glory days (maybe Bull)....acquire Mo Taylor, who should (and does) help to provide some extra offense (ends up shooting a very efficient 48% from the floor)...Rockets not picked to make the playoffs by virtually every major sports magazine and everyone who is not an overly-optimistic, unreasonable Rockets' fan...Steve improves in nearly every facet of the game...increases his shooting, scoring, rebounding...while assists remain the same, he lowers turnovers to 3.3 per game (0.1 less than Jason Kidd's career average)...Hakeem has injuries off and on all season long, at one point he's even said to be out for the season...Rockets go 25-5 against the East, highlighting the fact that eventhough they are early in the rebuilding process (1 year) they are in desperate need of stronger big men to compete in the west...Rockets teetering around .500 most of the season...All the sudden Hakeem comes back reinvigorated!...Rocket's make a valiant run at making the playoffs, but end up coming short...They end up having the most wins ever for a team who didn't make the playoffs, but more importantly the team has improved drastically from the previous season and won more games than everyone predicted (except for a few whose perceptions aren't based in reality). Everything is starting to come together, and only after ONE YEAR of rebuilding! With Hakeem gone and Mo Taylor as soft as butter, it becomes obvious the Rockets aren't going to go anywhere in the West without front-court help.

<i>Blame Rudy Factor: the team won more games then they were supposed to (i.e. overachieving). Rudy has done a good job rebuilding the Rockets so far.</i>


<b>Steve's third season.</b>
Mo Taylor gets big contract...works ass off all offseason...weight down to 245...great things are expected from him...*snap*...gone for the season...Next! Our best player suffers from migraines all season long as well as a shoulder injury that will require offseason surgery, Glen Rice goes down, Kelvin Cato's off and on...Walt Williams is our starting center on several occasions...Moochie Norris is our floor general...enough said. The Rockets do poorly this season and it directly related to the injuries. More important than the bad record, is that this may have "stunted" the Rocket's growth. Since there was virtually ZERO continutity through the season, there was absolutely nothing gained...just a wasted season.

<i>Blame Rudy: You could blame him for not playing more of Jason Collier, and for not incorporating a more complex offensive system that better utilized the talents of 13 year old Eddie Griffin, 6 ft 8 center Walt Williams, 2nd rounders Dan Langhi & Terrence Morris, and Moochie, but I'm not prepared to do that.</i>


<b>Steve's fourth season</b>
Rudy brings Yao Ming to Houston through nothing but tireless effort. A move which many believed was a mistake (including coaching great Mike Fratello and the most highly regarded GM ever, Jerry West...just think if we would have switched coach's this offseason we very well might have Jay Williams right now...dammit!) Yao gets off to slow start, and noone, including Rudy, has anyway of knowing whether he can compete at the NBA level yet. Yao missing training camp ends up being a HUGE factor that is often overlooked. All the sudden Yao emerges. He's given the starting job. Rockets haven't quite figured out how to incoporate him in the offense. Rudy is blamed for not playing Yao enough, eventhough he bends down and grabs his shorts more than any player I personally have ever seen (not that I blame him, he's frickin' 7-5/300). Guards seem to be having a tough time adjusting from the guard-oriented offense to a big-man oriented offense, but slowly begin to come around...Cuttino shoots less and more wisely than any of the previous three seasons...Francis takes almost three less shots per game than the previous season...Rockets seem to be getting the ball to Yao A LOT more after the All-Star break...it begins to become obvious that the Rockets do not have enough good outside shooters...Rockets look like they're doing pretty good to make the playoffs...Rudy leaves to get cancer treatment...team goes down hill...misses playoffs...

<i>Blame Rudy: definitely some things Rudy could have done better this season (namely the offensive system). I think Rudy does take some blame for this season, although I think it could have turned out differently if Rudy had a chance to set up an offense around Yao during training camp.</i>

----------------------------------------------------------------

Alright, sorry for the stream of consciousness stuff. There's probably some important things from the past four seasons that I left out, but I wanted to keep it as short as I could. In my opinion, this was the ONLY season of the past four that I've really been disappointed the Rockets didn't make the playoffs. I thought they were a tad better than the Suns, and should have been able to slip into the eigth spot. Having said that, there's no doubt in my mind that the Rockets would have made the playoffs if Rudy didn't leave. They played 2 of the 3 worst games in frachise history in the few games that Rudy was out. Don't you think that's a pretty big coincidence?

And missing the playoffs by one game while being the 2nd youngest team in the league doesn't fill me with too much dread. What does fill me with dread is the Rockets brining in some inexperienced new guy or some arrogant Jeffy van Gundy type who causes team turmoil, which requires the team to be broken up and start over from square one. When you begin to start shuffling everything around it's not very hard to get in a loop powered by impatience and just end up with nothing (kind of like investing ).

And If I thought the Rockets situation was so dire that there was absolutely no hope left without a coaching change, then I'd agree it's time for Rudy to go, even if it meant taking the risk that could set the team back to square one in the rebuilding process. But we have a young team who finished one game from making the playoffs...RELAX! Tweaks to the skills of our overall personel need to be made, maybe even one big trade, but that's it! A coaching change is too drastic, and I'm positive would have a negative effect on Yao.

 

Bottom line is none of us would be complaining about Rudy being such a bad coach (or at least not this much) had he been available in the season's crunch time - cuz we'd be in the playoffs, and that streak wouldn't've stopped at 5.

 

Why must Rudy take credit for all the goods and no blame for the bads? How many players has he not got production out of? Never mind the Pippens of the past or Cato the 3 previous yrs, how about Francis, Griffin, Posey, Morris ...

For every game you think Rudy outcoached the opp, there were probably 2,3 that went the other way. But mostly ... Rudy was just an innocent bystander, taking blame for a young and undisciplined team!!

Rudy sucks at a coach. Examples are many. Let me give you one that others had not mentioned: Rudy does not even know how to do an offense-defense substitution correctly.
NY game, 2/25/03.
18 secs to go, NY's ball, leading 100-95. Ming Substitution replaced by Hawkins (to foul intentionally). Francis committed 4 th team foul.
16 secs to go, NY's ball. Hawkins Substitution replaced by Ming (ehh, "we" forgot, we still need to foul but Yao is probably quicker than Hawkins, maybe he can stop the clock faster ). Griffin committed 5th team foul.

 

I'm not a musician, but I can tell good music from bad. Rudy T is the Milli Vanilli of basketball.

 

Can anyone realize that no matter what you think of Rudy, he WILL BE our coach at the start of next season?

Wow I became a senior member. But I also didn't realize it until this post. LOL.

 

Rudy T has been with the Rockets organizations for his entire playing and coaching career. Rudy T was part of two championships in Houston and is supposedly respected by his peers in the NBA. However, last season Rudy T's team underachieved by any coach's, player's, reporter's, fan's standards. I'll say this much. As great as Rudy T's coaching stint in Houston has appeared to be up until now, he has one season to change the offensive system and make damn sure that Francis and Mobley adhere to it. The one-on-one iso plays for Mobley and Francis are going nowhere fast. Rudy T gets a pass this season since it was the first year that he got to see what he had in Yao Ming. Now that he knows, he had better come back with a system that incorporates the big man more. And personally, I think some players need to be removed from this team ASAP if this team is seriuous about contending for the playoffs in an overpowering western conference.

 

There is no post-up game against the zz zone, only jumpers and fast breaks.

As far as the coaching goes, I'm perfectly satisfied with him coming back for one more year(tho this next year he should be on the hotseat, imo). And yes, I am dumber than rudy.

The only thing I hold him 100% accountable for is letting the guards walk the ball up the court. Chew them out Rudy, that should never happen next season. No more 8sec violations, ever. GDAMMIT!!

*chucks beer at computer screen*

 

Well, except for the part about removing the iso (that was done a long time ago), I pretty much agree. This next season should be do-or-die for Rudy.

Personally, I think some improvements need to be made to certain skills of our team. Yes, we're talented, but a lot of that talent is concentrated in one particular area. For instance we have three soft big men who have outside touch (Yao, Taylor, Griffin). Our backcourt is two good one-on-one players who can create for themselves, but have a very risky style of play.

Based on this, I hope the Rockets bring in three players this offseason, two of which are good, high-percentage outside shooters who are not major defensive liabilities, and one strong big man with good hands who doesn't mind doing the dirty work. After seeing what Andre Miller did for the Clippers (ie. absolutely nothing), I remain unconvinced that "true point guards who can't shoot worth a lick" (Tinsley, Snow, Miller) will really help this team very much. However, I wouldn't mind getting a back up point guard to replace Moochie either.

The main players involved in a trade would be Mobley, Griffin or Taylor.

 

Does that mean you are now 'oldwoman'?

 

Rudy T is a damn good coach.... but next season is make or break for him. Get some better freakin' assistant coaches.

 

A lot of our fans are not blind and deaf. But the problem is when they BOO or complain, they forget to post the sign said "We are stupid". Maybe that is why RT did not get the message.

 

i haven't had a chance to read through this thread yet, but, i just want to say this:



1) rudy's a good coach, comparatively speaking.
2) rudy's offensive style sucks. it's boring and non-creative.
3) rudy's way too lenient on players
4) rudy's (and his staff)'s player development skills suck raw ass.
5) rudy's a great guy, and that inspires player loyalty

 

Forest: "Stupid is as stupid does sir."

 

You pretty much summed it up best!
Very fair.

 

The whole JR argument is based on him assuming what we see the Rockets doing is the extent of Rudy's plan. We have absolutely no proof of what his plan is...and blaiming the coach is equal to excusing Francis. It is not that black and white.

If there is one fact about the Rockets, we have no chance in hell running a Kings or Utah offense. You have to choose something else, or trade the main players. imo, you can't run motion (don't even try), and Rudy never said he was trying.

JR,

Describe the Dallas offense. Would anyone please try to describe the system behind the Dallas offense?

As for this "lenient" "let's them do what they want" thing. Who says Rudy is "too lenient" on his players and doesn't let them have it? We don't know this. That is pure speculation.

To me, that is merely an excuse for Francis...by all the Francis apologists. "He's too lenient on Francis. Francis needs a big dose of pine."

imo, he's not too lenient with Francis. He just doesn't criticize in public, and it is not like he can bench Francis or lower his minutes to Moochie. Nor could he lower Moochie's/Mobley's minutes last year when Francis was out...well, he could have, but that would be called giving up and not trying.

Besides, how often does it work to give Francis a big dose of pine? There is a big difference in how some coaches discipline their stars versus others. The ones who do it wrong and lose touch with that player get fired. Almost every single time.

Besides, Rudy does discipline. We can list from history many times than Rudy has quietly placed someone in the doghouse.

Maxwell
Elie
Langhi
Dream
Carlos Rogers
TMass
Maddox
Two Sandwiches
Cato
Moochie
Eddie had an unexplained DNP while the 3 PF issue was brewing
Maurice did too

And you can't say that these were role players, as most of these guys were the guys who *had* to get more minutes, if you were planning to bench Francis or Mobley. You have a numbers problem disciplining SF/CM in a DaDakota way.

Further, we somewhat do know Rudy lets them have it in practice. We've heard that from Yao.

When you aren't deep, benching multiple players is just shooting yourself in the foot. And in the case of the Francis, Mobley and Griffin,,,<b>you'd really be disciplining them for lack of ability to learn.</b>

imo, Rudy is a coach who communicates well, but won't blow up a team for poor execution or blame them....his philosophy seems to be that if you can win them over enough to realize that their execution is the problem without accusing them, then they will come around to the best of their ability.

<b>To me, Rudy's player management skills are beyond reproach.</b>

 

hmm, seems edit is off again.

It is also very likely that Oscar Torres got placed in the doghouse last year. The guy shot everytime he had the ball.

 

good post. I forgot about how he did put former players in the dog house, you forgot to mention Pippin too.

Rudy is a good coach, and just like someone said before, this season will be his do or die season. Must get postseason.

 

Lenient or tough, it doesn't matter. It only matters when the players respond, or don't.

It is apparent to me that this group, assembled by this braintrust, has not been responsive to the demands set forth.

This means either you reassemble the group -- that means make trades, sign FAs, cut guys (ouch, Moochie, ouch ouch) or you assemble a new coaching staff, from top to bottom.

I suspect we will see a few new faces on the roster but the same old same old from the Rox coach and his NBA extensive assistants.