Gery Woelfel says Stephen Silas among coaches on hot seat

You saying he was woeful?

 

everybody has rights to opinions. But opinions have to be backed by evidence.

this isn’t whether Silas is a good coach or a bad coach. Why? Because it’s impossible to know.

It’s not a question of whether Silas has been dealt a bad hand. He HAS been dealt a bad hand. Possibly as bad a hand as any coach EVER has been dealt in their first head coaching experience in the NBA. Even if not a new head coach. I struggle to think of many equally bad hand scenarios.

different, condensed schedule. Minimal training camp. Russ trade. Harden issue - missing camp, being a prima Donna then leaving. A completely new roster. Other “vets” putting in half effort. Covid disruptions.

he’s on his 40th starting lineup in 68 games. That’s INSANE. I think it’s a record but can’t confirm. His best players have consistently been out. He’s coached many games this season with only 8 available players, most of shone your most avid nba fans or analysts wouldn’t even know who they are. He’s starting a Jeffries and Lamb tonight that moody knows who they are.

Silas maybe a horrible coach but who knows. There’s certainly no evidence to support it because there’s no chance for here have been evidence.

it’s be insane for him to be on the hot seat for a variety of reasons. Starting with the hand he’s been dealt but continuing on to the fact that despite all that, the key youngsters are developing fairly well. Then there’s the fact that Tilman is supposedly cheap. So another reason he’s unlikely to be on the hot seat.

 

You are entitled to your opinion , yet seem determined to change mine. It won't happen no matter how long your wall of text. Amongst other things, I personally hate the 3rd quarter letdown...every...single...game. That's bad coaching at half time. For me, it's not even about the losing, I'm simply not impressed with his coaching. I don't have the interest in discussing this any further other than to say I know I'm clearly in the minority here but I stand by my opinion. I'm not impressed and I hope next year he does things better. I'll be ecstatic if that's the case.

 

I don’t care if I change your mind or not. I’m just getting my opinion and the facts put out there. For posterity sake

 

I did. Mad Max agrees with my post

 

Reading the posts on here regarding Silas’s coaching situation just highlights how pathetic the Rockets present and future are.

This team is such a joke! It is mind boggling how far off we are from being competitive. No team with a decrepit John Wall and Christian Wood as it’s best players is winning anything. This team is going to be so bad for the foreseeable future it is sad to even think about it, especially when you consider how good we have been for the 8 previous seasons.

Fact is, without a star player in the NBA you are not going anywhere. Without more than 1 star player you are not winning a championship in the current NBA.

Coaching has little to do with success in today’s NBA, the fact that people continue to discuss it is mind boggling. I mean right now the Nets have the fourth beat record in the league, and would have the best record of James Harden we’re playing. Is Steve Nash a great coach? No one believes that. Nash is a good people person, however and he as a former MVP, knows that he will do better by getting the hell out of the way and letting his professional basketball players do what they do.

The only time coaching becomes an issue is when things are going wrong and the owner is looking for someone to blame. Since they cannot fire themselves, they fire the Coach.

Tillman firing Silas would do nothing for this team. What, is he going to bring in JVG? Please, I don’t think JVG touches this team because he (1) he hates coaching rookies and (2) this team has no talent. What about Kenny Atkinson? He flamed out in Brooklyn and no one in that building seems to miss him in the slightest. The team improved after he left. Tells me his exit was applauded by all involved and was a blessing.

Honestly, because this team is full of young players, Silas may actually be the best person to coach this team at the moment, as he is known for player development. Ironically, if this team still had Harden and Westbrook, he would probably not be the best coach because he has no experience dealing with star veterans. Probably why Harden and Westbrook were not overly enthused at his hire.

 

Need 1 more tank job and top 3 pick. Collect assets for trades or to play along side Harden when he comes here to play his final years after he wins a ring in Brooklyn and he tells us who he wants to coach here. Basically what LeBron did from going to South Beach back to Cleveland.

 

Trolling is the only rebuttal? Lol. This year aint on Silas and former Rocket players think the same way. You guys know NOTHING about basketball

 

All that and you agreed with me? Drama queen smh

 

“There’s no doubt in my mind, no doubt,” Rockets owner Tillman Fertitta said. “Teams at the end of the year that are out don’t usually play as hard as this team plays. I saw what I needed to see to feel comfortable about Stephen Silas.”

“I think Stephen Silas did better than we even all expected,” Fertitta said. “To have to play with 30 different players, no practices, playing every other day or back-to-back, and him to be able to every single night put a team out there that was competitive for nearly 48 minutes a game, I was just shocked at how competitive he kept the team. I mean, with guys that never played together, just throw five guys together.

“Look at the team at the end of the year. These are guys people never expected to be in the NBA. They did a tremendous job and a lot of that goes back to the coach.”

“Fundamentally, the most attractive thing about him and the thing we really liked in the interview process was he’s really smart,” Stone said. “One of the things he did a good job selling us on and I bought and I still buy is that intelligence is going to allow him to adapt to changing circumstances, changing rosters, injuries, to the way the league changes.

“I think he had a lot thrown at him this year. He made some smart adjustments. He can help us grow back into a team with a chance to win a championship.”

Though the Rockets never achieved continuity, they did evolve into playing a style offensively after the trade deadline that was effective even with a collection of G League and cast-off fill-ins. In May’s nine games, the Rockets were second in 3s per game, sixth in assists. Beyond having a brief, small-sample size run of effective offense Stone pointed to the style, with greater ball movement and more cutting.

“We were scoring the ball a lot as a unit with guys that hadn’t played a lot in the NBA,” Stone said. “You wouldn’t necessarily expect the rosters we were putting out there to put up 130 points. We were doing that. That’s a credit to the adjustments he made offensively. We were doing it without point guards, largely, at least at times, which complicates things for a coach.

“Then generally, I thought we played very hard toward the end of the season when a lot of teams don’t. I thought that was indicative of something really important for developing a winning culture and a winning team. I thought he did a very good job getting a team that was out of the race pretty early on to buy in to what he wanted and give really good effort. It didn’t always culminate into success.”

Stone said that after a season working together, he has a better feel for the types of players that would work with those on hand and with Silas’ style and offense.

Silas’ five-out offense differs in execution, particularly in the side-to-side ball movement that he wanted, even from teams that also seek to keep the lane open by excising post-ups, including the Mike D’Antoni offense that shared priorities but differs in how to achieve them.

“My vision of basketball and types of players that I think can fit a championship team I think fit very well to that offensive construct. Every offense has to be tailored to your talent but I think we were running the offense he envisions post trade deadline exclusively. Our personnel matched it a little bit better.”

“Almost never were we the more talented team,” Stone said. “But as our young guys get better and learn the game, as we become functionally more talented as we draft people and trade for people and frankly as we get guys off the injured list, some of those close losses should turn to victories, so long as we play hard and run these schemes. We were just decimated by injuries in that period of time.”

Developing young talent shifted to the priority and will be even more crucial to climb from the depths of 17-55. As much as Silas earned praise from 30-somethings Kelly Olynyk, D.J. Augustin and John Wall, long-term success could be determined by the progress made by last season’s rookies and the three that will come in this season’s first round. The Rockets finished last season with eight players that had been undrafted and just one that they picked up on draft night, the 20-year-old Martin who was the 52nd selection last season.

“That's one of the encouraging things to me that pretty much every single guy who played for us this season got better and played well individually,” Silas said. “So, I'm very encouraged about the future.”

 

If we get a top assistant who can help with defense without being dominant, then it's okay with me. Silas is a offense minded coach. We didn't have good defenders either, that part wasn't his fault.

 

Nobody can deny Silas had to deal with probably more than 99% of NBA coaches as a rookie coach. You could probably argue it was the hardest in league’s history. From a star leaving a few games in after off-season drama, to the actual drama right around the trade and after, to then lose veterans, having so many new faces come in to an already young team is just crazy. I cannot verify if were being competitive, but if we were then that’s very impressive. Glad he stays!

 

maybe silas will be fired, but not this season

 

These excuses will not fly next season.

 

Tilman and the team of course are putting a spin on this team and the year's results, but maybe I am a delusional homer, but there really isn't anyone on this team I don't like. We have a team full of professionals, and everyone seems to be NBA quality players. The only guy I would really question is House and that is based on what he did last year. KPJ defending his teammate outside of a strip club...okay maybe they shouldn't have been there. Other than that, these guys seem very likeable and seem to have the character to build on. It really makes me question Silas though, that he wasn't able to squeeze a couple more wins out of them, especially when opponents were often resting their stars against us. He just doesn't seem like he has what it takes to get wins.

 

Silas must have been at peoples ankles with baseball bats. I say he needs to be fired for injuring all our players. It is because of him we played with G league starting lineups.

Burn the Witch!

 

I am glad you like them, however we are not building a YMCA Youth Basketball Team but an NBA team. There may be 2-3 guys on this team worth keeping (KJM, KPJ, and maybe Armoni Brooks/David Nwaba). I would put everyone else on the trading block to obtain draft picks and get cap space/LTS.

I saw the Knicks-Hawks playoff game last night. Now those teams have young talent. There is not one player on our team that either of those organizations would trade for one of our players, unless it was to dump salary. I mean, MAYBE the Knicks would trade for Eric Gordon, because he is a spacer and a good defender, but that is probably it.

This team is a stack of turds more suitable to make mulch than to build a playoff basketball team.