minnesota is a very good team that seems to keep winning regardless of the fact that they really don't have anyone to play with KG. why? unfortunately i haven't seen them play much except against the Rockets, but i've seen the rockets get outplayed (and outcoached, but that's not exactly a rare occurence) by minnesota enough to know that flip saunders has to be a big reason. they haven't gotten over the playoff hump but the primary reason for that has been the superior talent on the other side of the court (e.g. last year vs. portland in a 3-1 series which included two close losses at portland). in spite of saunders and KG, though, or because of the mchale/saunders/smith debacle and the sealy tragedy, the future isn't so bright up there. mchale's been suspended, and the team has no number ones until KG will be past his prime. on the other hand the Rockets' future actually looks pretty bright from a personnel standpoint. core stars are in place; the team is short a thorpe and an elie but those are parts that can be drafted or acquired. The topic may be moot because I'm not sure that Les is going to fire Rudy any time soon, but this would be a better pickup than even webber (not that it precludes a webber signing of course, nor, despite the title of this post, do i actually advocate abandoning the webber strategy). I'm just not sure I can stand seeing Rudy screw up yet another marquee acquisition with Webber. If necessary the Rockets should pretend they're the Jets or the Patriots and offer picks. Now that would have me dancing in the streets. Disclaimer: this post is not written in frustration born from the latest mini-swoon as it comes from a charter member of the fire rudy club. ------------------ [This message has been edited by JR (edited February 04, 2001).]
flip, flip, flip from espn Minnesota: Larry Brown is an undeniably fine coach, one of the two best in the league at the minute, but Flip Saunders has to be the Coach Of The Year favorite. Kevin Garnett? Worth an MVP vote or two as well, dare we say. Much as there isn't a soul among us who understands how Glen Taylor and Kevin McHale could put those illegal Joe Smith contracts in writing -- in writing!?! -- there is no rational explanation for the Wolves' 11-game win streak and 52-win pace ... better than last year's 50-win breakthrough, in fact. Yes, several of the recent victories came against short-handed opposition, but let's remember who we're talking about. This is Team Undermanned. No Smith. No Malik Sealy. No Bobby Jackson. No hope of winning more than a round in the playoffs, but no better story anywhere in the league. ------------------
I'll pass on that deal thank you very much. What has sounders ever done? Won 50 games? Ok big deal. Show me what he has done in the play offs. Don't give me this crap that the T-Wolves are KG and nothing else. Last time I checked Terrell Brandon was a pretty damn good point guard. Maybe you should watch the T-Wolves a little more. Wally Sczerbiak aint too shabby either last time I checked. And don't try to give me any rational explanation that he is a spare, he puts up points on a consistant basis and does a lot better job of it than anyone on the Rockets outside of Steve and Cat. He is someone that will be challanging for an All Star spot at some point in his career. So lets examine the T-Wolves 1. KG is arguably the best player in the NBA and provides a dominating inside presence that is matched only by Shaq, Duncan and Webber. 2. Terrell Brandon is an All Star caliber point guard. Not as good as Steve Francis in my book but still very good. 3. Wally Sczerbiak (sp?) very good small forward that is continuing to improve and will challange for an All Star spot in years to come. Are the T-Wolves supporting cast any worse than the Rockets? We have KT and Moochie and not much else. Bull shows up every once in a while to knock down some three's but nothing else. Walt is nothing short of horrible. No one else play's enough to be considered very productive. How about the health of the two teams. Rudy T has had to deal with every single injury problem the Rox could possibly have. During one stretch there was no Mobley, Francis, Mo or Hakeem. The T-Wolves have had no real healt issues this year. Rudy T. has a history of attracting big name free agents. What kind of history does Flip have in attracting big name free agents? None. Rudy T. took a team that strugled to win 48 games a year and turned them into yearly 50 game winners and won 2 championships. What has Flip done? Nothing. Rudy T has taken a team that should not even be close to .500 and and has us challenging for a play-off spot. Show me any other team that has rebuilt itself as fast as the Rockets. Flip should have the T-Wolves challenging for the finals with KG on his team. Don't get me wrong, I don't think that Rudy T is perfect. I still don't like his rotations in the lineup. But he has enough skins on the wall and has done such a good job of rebuilding this team in such a short time that his job security should not even be in question. ------------------ [This message has been edited by crash5179 (edited February 12, 2001).]
Never Underestimate The Heart Of Rudy T. Players luv'm, fans luv'm...he's a Houston monument. ------------------ The best is yet to come. Go Rockets!
not to get into a whole thing about Rudy but the guy BARELY won a freaking gold at the Olympics against little Donny Nelson and the Lithuanians! Rudy has also managed to let over the half the season go by before realizing that Dream could still be a 4th quarter player. Rudy aside, to argue that Saunders has not done a great job for the past 4 years, this year in particular, is ludicrous. Yes, KG is awesome. Yes, Terrell Brandon and Wally Sczerbiak are good. But that team does not have close to the talent that LA, POR, SA, or SAC does yet are playing as well as any team right now. And as far as the playoffs go, take a closer look. He has had a significantly less talented team in each series, and each series has been very close. This team (the Rockets) would have 28 or 30 wins right now with Saunders as the coach. ------------------
What the hell was Donny Nelson doing coaching the Lithuanians anyway? Nelson doesn't sound like a Lithuanian name... ------------------ "I think the people who believed the world was flat were pretty stupid. You would think at least those living near mountains would know better." - P. Mesku
I disagree. The fact that the Rockets aren't many games under .500 is testament to Rudy's ability. Come on now, everyone over 6'9" except Matt Bullard has spent some serious time on the DL, two important complimentary players have struggled to find their groove and the two time finals MVP asked to be waived or traded. This team has no business being 25-25, and I fail to see what masterstroke Flip Saunders would have come up with. Give the ball to the best player in the NBA? Wait a minute, wrong team. ------------------ The Rockets will be the NBA champions. Believe.
One thing Flip might have done is actually talk to his aging superstar before forcing him to go public with his frustrations. Take a look at the Wolves' roster. You think the Rockets have problems with depth?? Garnett Brandon Wally and now the rest: Phonz Peeler Nesterovic Garrett Billups Todd Day Reggie Slater William Avery Sam Mitchell This is a team of three good guys and NOBODY. Yet this Minnesota team is 7 games ahead of our Rockets and only a game or two behind the Lakers, the Spurs, the Kings, the Jazz. Rudy has certain other beneficial qualities that seem to benefit the Rockets in attracting talent. But on a pure coaching basis, you have to be joking to say he is in the same league with Flip. ------------------ [This message has been edited by JR (edited February 12, 2001).]
This isn't three good guys and a bunch of nobodies. Its one great player, two very good ones and a bunch of role players. Winning isn't so tough when THE BEST PLAYER IN THE NBA is playing for you, its only a matter of constructing a team around him, which the T'Wolves front office did an excellent job of. Terrell Brandon is a pretty good PG and Wally is fundmentally sound, and can hurt you if left open. The T'Wolves have gotten good contributions from Billups, Ellis and Peeler. I still don't see what Saunders would have done that would make him better than Rudy. Would he wave his magic wand and make all of the injuries the Rockets suffered dissapear? Is he an Optomotrist, so he could fix Walt's erratic vision? Perhaps he has a way-back time machine so he could travel back to the beginning of the year and prevent Shandon from going into a funk? I don't see what makes Flip a better coach than Rudy. ------------------ The Rockets will be the NBA champions. Believe.
Phonz -- wasn't suppose to be all world at one pt? he is NOT a bad player Peeler -- great Shooter Nesterovic -- Weren't folx hyped on him? Garrett -- Doing more for them than CATo for us Billups - He is not ass horrible. Sam Mitchell - has a nice shot Rocket River not the worse collection of role players ------------------
I'll tell you what Flip, or another good coach, would have done with the Rockets. He wouldn't have played the visually challenged Wizard for more than a few games. He would have designed an offense that actually suited his personnel, in particular Shandon. He would have realized that even if Hakeem was providing no more than 8 points on offense, his defensive presence earned him significant minutes, particularly down the stretch. And he probably wouldn't be as encouraging with the jack-a-minute Cuttino. But those are just my guesses, based on what he has done in Minnesota, which is consistently deliver a winning team with one of the best players in the NBA, a good point guard and a good shooting, no defending small forward. In short, he has done MORE with LESS in the face of nearly continuous TURMOIL. How about losing your power forward with no compensation, not to mention having your owner and your GM suspended? Injuries?? Try having your shooting guard die on you. And what injuries are you talking about with the Rockets? Cato?? Big deal! That is called addition by subtraction, chief. ------------------ [This message has been edited by JR (edited February 12, 2001).]
Look JR, I know you're a Flip Saunders fan and all but Rudy T. has won more with less wouldn't you say? This team doesn't NEAR the experience as the team's battling for a playoff spot yet they are right there. You want to talk about coaching? Rudy's first year in the league he also had one of the best players in the league, and a roster of castoffs, yet they got to Game 7 of the second round of the playoffs and then ran off back-to-back championships in a city that has never won a world title. What has Flip Saunders done? Won 50 games and got knocked out of the first round with one of the best players in the league!? Compare Flip Saunders first couple of seasons coaching to Rudy's first couple of years and there is light years difference. And Garnett likes Rudy, what's to say that Rudy didn't take that team and run off a trip to the Western Conference Finals or something!? I mean you act like Rudy was loaded with talent his first go around. Journeyman Kenny Smith and Mario Elie!? Matt Bullard!? Scottie Brooks? Carl Herrera? Chucky Brown? (sorry CBFC), come on! It's a moot point, we have Rudy. Flip Saunders!!?? ------------------ Dream a deadly Dream. . . [This message has been edited by RocksMillenium (edited February 12, 2001).]
Donny Nelson is very good friend of Lithuanian Sharunas Marculionis since his Golden State days. And Donny helping LIT coaches almost 10 years, but you must notice that he wasn't on the LIT bench teaching in USA-LIT game Sidney 2000. He said that he don't want win his own country ------------------
now you've don it rocks mil, pray for inviting the wrath of cb himself and cbfc. more to the point, it is an utter fallacy to compare Flip's wolves teams with rudy's title teams. The league didn't have nearly as many good teams as it does now (particularly in the west). Not to mention that, if you try to compare the teams anyway, you are vastly underestimating both Dream and the Rockets' supporting cast. Dream during those two years dominated games like Garnett never has. He should have been the league MVP both years. And Garnett is NOT the best player in the league right now anyway. Do you remember Otis Thorpe, Robert Horry and Sam Cassell? Drexler? Elie, a journeyman? I don't think the Spurs would agree with that. And just bringing up Scott Brooks is an embarassment to Rudy T, who was the moron that insisted on playing Scott Brooks -- in the fourth quarter no less! -- until finally giving the job to Sam Cassell, who should have been in there after about the fifth game. Just because the Rockets have won 3 in a row in spectacular fashion doesn't excuse Rudy. If anything it emphasizes what a terrible job he did in the first half of the year -- these are the same players! ------------------
I am so tired of hearing about Rudy, the Lithuanians and how he proved he was not a good coach by this showing! We all know Rudy is not the greatest X/Os coach. We know he is a tempo feel coach. This did not make the difference here. The bottomline is they won the GOLD! In Olympic competition, you are always going to have individuals and teams that rise above their normal level of play (see 1980 US Hockey Team). Beating the NBA Stars would be the equivalent to the US beating Russia and winning the gold in 1980. Unfortunately for the Lithuanians, it did not happen! If anything, Rudy's coaching helped them win the damn thing. For the most part, the guys on that team are overpaid atheletes who thought no one could compete with them, really took no team serious and considered the Olympic moment a joke, until Rudy sat them down and said, "you want to be the laughing stock of the world!" You see the rest of the world plays real basketball, not above the rim, 43% shooting basketball. The sharpshooting Lithuanians have always given the NBA a run for moments because they can shoot the rock. This has nothing to do with Rudy's inability to coach or his ability to barely win the GOLD. I will take Rudy's Olympic team nine of out ten times agains the Lithuanians. Every team is beatable at any given time. Coaching has nothing to do with the one time a team rises up and beats the greatest team in the world. It is all mental. The US Olympic Basketball team will lose eventually and Rudy will not be the coach! Although, Rudy will probably be blamed for it anyway! ------------------ "Their Tiger Kung Fu is strong, but our Dragon will defeat them!"
But Rudy didn't have Sam Cassell and Mario Elie and Clyde Drexler until the championship years. You say the Spurs wouldn't agree, give me a break, were you bragging about Mario Elie when he first became a Rocket? Did you think that Sam Cassell and Robert Horry would be key parts of a title team? It's easy to say now that "Mario Elie is a good player, just look at him", before the Rockets got him he bounced around from team to team, from country to country. But if you want to look back, you're getting on Rudy for playing Brooks 5 GAMES before he played Cassell, my god FIVE GAMES! Well Brooks has a ring doesn't he? Rudy had to do something right! The 1993 team wasn't anymore talented then the Timberwolves are now. And not only were there as many good teams, there were more TITLE contenders! And think about it, maybe this team is getting better because they are MATURING! We're working with a 3rd year guard, 2nd year PG, a PF not completely used to our system, and a center past his prime. Of course there will be growing pains, Minnesota has been together for the most part 2 or 3 years! ------------------ Dream a deadly Dream. . . [This message has been edited by RocksMillenium (edited February 13, 2001).]
JR, Flip as good as Rudy? Please! Both years Rudy won the championship the other team was favored. Everyone, and I mean everyone outside of Houston thought that the Knicks and Pat Riley would beat the Rockets. Why? Because the Knicks supposedly had better tallent from top to bottom and had the Great Pat Riley to coach them. The East was suppose to be the better conference at the time. That Rockets team had Dream, Otis Thorpe, Robert Horry (A guy who has been nothing more than a backup an a jurneyman since leaving Houston), Mad Max (A guy that had been a trouble maker everywhere else in the league) and Kenny Smith (an avg no defense playing point guard). The supporting cast was Scottie Brooks, Sam Cassell (an unproven rookie drafted very late in the round), Chuckie Brown, Mario Ellie (a guy that could not hold a roster spot on any other team in the NBA). Yeah I could see how you think that team was stacked with tallent...Do you watch much NBA? Now look at some of the so called weak teams the Rockets had to go through: The Pheonix Suns with Barkley, Kevin Johnson, Tom Chambers and Wesley Person. This team had just been to the finals the year before right? Yeah they had no tallent. The Utah Jazz with Karl Malone, John Stockton, Jeff Hornecek. This team was better than the current Jazz team that has a better record than the Wolves. They also made a trip to the finals a couple of years later. The next year the Rockets traded Otis Thorpe for Clyde Drexler and had to cut Vernon Maxwell and Rudy T had tons of injuries that he had to coach around. The Rockets once again beat Pheonix and then beat damn near the same Spurs team that won the championship two years ago. The only signifigant change was Rodman was at the PF spot then and Duncan is there now. That team had the league MVP in Robinson who was at the very top of his game and had the best record in the west. Everyone outside of Houston thought they were going to the finals. And then the Rockets finished with Orlando. Everyone considered Orlando the most tallented team in the league and the next version of the 80's Lakers. The Rockets embarresed them and swept the series. Rudy led Hakeem, Otis and a bunch of nobodies in 94 and Hakeem and Clyde and a bunch of nobodies in 95 to championship victories. Here is a quote by you Jr,"if you try to compare the teams anyway, you are vastly underestimating both Dream and the Rockets' supporting cast." I would say to you, that it is you that are vastly underestimating KG, Brandon, Sczerbiak and the supporting cast for the Wolves. Oh BTW. The Lakers won the championship last year with Shaq, Kobe, Rice and a bunch of nobodies that would have a hard time making most NBA rosters. Hmmmmmm. Stop overating Flip! He has no skins on the wall and I doubt he could rebuild a team as fast as Rudy T has hear in Houston! Period! ------------------ [This message has been edited by crash5179 (edited February 13, 2001).]
RUDY GIVES HIS TEAM HEART U right. . he would Sit on Cuttino and CUttino would be a nobody . . He'd vanish into OBSCURITY under Saunders. . . BUT UNDER RUDY he d*mn near and allstar that has everyone Salivating at the prospect of having him Wally in College > Cuttino in College Wally under Suanders < Cuttino under Rudy Rudy biggest failing is FAITH IN HIS PLAYERS He lets them hang around too long and maybe less than forgiving in letting them out again But he lets players play He nurtures them and moves them along. THAT IS A PLAYER'S COACH Rocket River ------------------
that was an incredible series of posts by blinded Rudyphiles. I don't even know where to begin, although Crash's "damn near the same Spurs team that won the title, except they had Duncan" might take the cake. And whoever said this, Rudy didn't play Scott Brooks for 5 games. He played him for about FIFTY-FIVE GAMES!! I'm complaining about FIFTY-FIVE MINUS FIVE EQUALS FIFTY GAMES of enduring SCOTT FREAKING BROOKS mauling the fourth quarter. Which was even more painful than watching the Wizard in the fourth these days. I just can't believe anyone could argue that Flip hasn't done one hell of a job this year, and in years past. He's not the coach who had HAKEEM CHARLES SCOTTIE CUTTINO DICKERSON and couldn't even get out of the first freaking round. Stop embarassing yourselves by even trying to compare Rudy to the Great Flip Saunders!! ------------------
