Gundy had you fooled....

We know it takes 5. Jazz proved it. But it takes more than just that.

It takes a functional 5, a Coach and a of course a bench too. Jazz proved that also.

The number one defense used for JVG is ..."yeah well it's the players fault. Obviously he is not playing out there."

So i ask you....

Who got these players here in the first place?
Who refuses to develop young talent?
Who has minimal respect for draft picks?
Who refuses to play players that management get?
Who has been getting into Ego wars with his players?

I also ask you...

How excited do you get while watching Gundy's offense?

Do not for a second think that Gundy has no say in who comes to play for Rockets. This has been going on for a while. Gundy went and got an old Oakley. He got an old Charlie Ward. He got an old Rod Strickland. He traded away Mike James for Rafer Alston because he had talked to his brother Stan who raved about Rafer. He has refused to trade Juan on multiple occasions, once even for Cassell. Gundy has to take blame for his players because the players that he put on the floor...are the players that he went and got here in the first place.

Was Gundy oblivious to Rafer's overall FG% and his poor defense?
Was Gundy oblivious to Juan's losing career and terrible stint for Dallas in playoffs?
Was Gundy not watching when Mike James helped Rockets win couple of big games in playoffs?
Was Gundy not aware of Shane Battier accepting minimal responsibilty in past playoffs?

Here's the kicker. If the Rockets management gets a player that Gundy does not like he will make sure they do not get off the pine. I am not a VSpan fan. At the beginning of the season I didn''t know whether he can contribute at all. Hell, I still don't know. Why? Because Gundy wanted to secure his job and refused to take risks. Had Vspan played here and there this season, we could have at least found out if this guy can do anything or not. One season in book and we are still at ground zero with him. Same with Novak. Gundy apologists claim..."Well he got 2 minutes yesterday and he sucked." Anyone who gets sporadic 2-3 minutes a game and 0 minutes most of the time is going to suck. Players need REAL GAME court time to develop. Do you guys think Barbosa and Joe Johnson came into the league averaging the numbers that they average right now?? Suns went throughh painful times to develop them. I had been following Barbosa and Johnson. They were highly mistake-prone in the beginning but Suns kept playing them. They developed them by giving them time on the court, not sitting them on the bench. Look at them now. D'Antoni still has a job because he took the risk and has had more success than JVG past couple of years.

JVG must have the biggest ego for a coach that has never won a championship. It gets personal with him. He will not play Bonzi because his ego cant swallow pride and he refuses to be flexible for the welfare of the team. He never liked Vspan and he never wanted him on this team. When management got him here on false promises, he made sure every mistake made by Vspan was magnified. Vspan could not breathe. He had absolutely no room for error. If he made the slightest mistake, he was yanked, yelled at, and made an example of.

I absolutely have no problem with a coach being tough on his players. Popovich does it and he has had results. But what I have problem with is double standard. If you are going to yell at Vspan or Yao for a mistake, then make sure you do the same next time when your beloved PF just sits right under the basket and does not even attempt to play defense while someone just lays the ball in. How about pulling Rafer aside and yelling at him for mindlessly chucking up shots and throwing up wild floaters. Popovich yells at Duncan, Manu and Parker just as same as he yells at 12 and 13th person on the bench. Oh right right....I know the Gundy apologists response..."Well Gundy knows his personnel and how to handle each one." If Tracy, Juan, and Rafer are so fragile that they cannot respond well to harsh words from JVG, then they are not worthy to play in big games. And judging from each of those guys performances so far (I will exclude Tmac), they might not be. JVG's double standard needs to go.

What's ironic about all this is that the very strategy that JVG used to safeguard his job, might have been his undoing. He had one short-term goal in his mind. "Gotta keep my job". He made no attempt to hide it. So his first step? Go with people you trusted. He traded the draft pick for a guy he knew he could trust. He knew exactly what he could get from Battier and he knew Battier would do exactly what he would ask him to. Good move for short term? Sure. Long term? Very debatable. Battier is hardly a player that will shine when the spotlight is on him. We needed much more than a decent defender who will occasionally hit 3s from outside. It was a lottery pick... a reward for a really painful season...but of course Gundy has no respect for lottery. He was hell bent, the previous year, to win meaningless games... Lottery and Gundy? Match made in hell. That debacle ultimately cost us Brandon Roy. We could have had Brandon Roy but long term success for Rockets wasn't on Gundy's mind. His shortsightedness had a couple wins and a good paycheck on radar. He went with 8 man rotation for the entire season. Only players he could trust not to make any mistakes were allowed in this elite club. Zero vision for future. Well Gundy... no risk means no reward. No soup for you.

If Gundy does not like certain players on Rockets, can he at least not bring their trade value to absolute zilch? Swift was not Gundy kinda player. Ok fine understandable. But why get in an ego war and devalue him so that we cant get anything for him? Why does it end up getting personal with Gundy? Why did he let Bonzi rot to nothing? In all the years of coaching, I don't think Rudy ever made it personal. If he thought he could get better deals for players, he would do it. He was very up front about it. I don't think he ever embarrassed his players. Gundy on the other hand seems to be hell bent on embarrassing players he never liked in the first place. That is just childish and immature. I expect better from a head coach.

Gundy drama might cost us free agent signings. How many of you have high hopes for free agent signings? Would you be lining up to sign with the Rockets as CD claimed couple years ago after what has transpired over the years? Would you come here looking for the Swift and Bonzi treatment? And for what exactly? A first round exit?

Moving on to the coaching part...When was the last time you sat down after a hard day's work, turned your TV on, and exclaimed, "I would love to see me some Gundy offense!" My God. If you want one coach who would never think outside of the box on offense, this guy would be your pick. I have heard that Gundy has countless schemes and X's and O's yet when it comes to game time I see only two plays run. Dump the ball to Yao and let him decide based on how offense reacts, or give the ball to Tracy and let him do "something." Tracy, of course, will be either in Iso mode or coming off of a pick. How many other plays can you think of? I have been saying it for years now....This offense is too damn predictable. Good defenses will have no problem shutting it down. Utah capitalized on it eventually. What makes this predictable offense even more poisonous is the fact that Yao is slow. Match made in hell. After all these years I am absolutely certain that Gundy cannot coach decent offense to take this team to championship. Especially in such a brutal division and conference. The gap between other teams and our team will only widen further if Gundy remains on board.

How about the 8 man rotation eh? Well 8 man rotation is not bad when you have young munchkins with endless energy. Our star player is a 7-6 behemoth, another one has chronic back problems, we have a slow footed PF that is running on his last legs, and lastly Mutombo could have retired during the last recession. Count it. That handicapped group right there is half of our 8 man rotation logging heavy minutes in the season playing at 100% for 82 games. What does that get you when the playoffs get here? Your opponents have another gear to kick it into. While your team has only 2 choice. Either stay at the same level or go down from there. Rockets came with low energy in most of the games. WHY!?!? So much was riding for Gundy, Tracy, and Yao. Yet they came out so flat in not one, but multiple games?? Either Gundy does not know how to motivate his players or he left them with nothing in the tank. As a reference, Riley and Gundy's Knicks were often cited as playing with same energy in regular season and playoffs. Well at least they maintained that energy. This team might have spent too much energy in regular season on a 8 man rotation just to save Gundy's job.

You can ignore all that I have said so far. Yet it will be hard for you to ignore the fact that this guy is just a bad fit for this team. Gundy cannot tap into Yao and Tmac and use their creativity. He has stifled their creative offense. It's not that he wants to. Its just that his system will regardless of what he wants.

The sad thing in all this...This guy is a very good defensive coach, which is one of the most coveted quality for a playoff coach. He knows how to prepare his team defensively. He knows how to take away other team's strength. Yet his ego, double standards, stubbornness, short sightedness, inept and predictable offensive schemes keep him away from success. Too much drama, nothing to show for it.

Maybe Gundy can succeed. But his kind of team would need 8 Battiers. Hardworking, yes sir-no sir, players who he can control like robots. He seems like a coach who can take a band of average players and make them overachieve, but not one who can start off with superstars and take them to next level. Unfortunately for us, we have 2 superstars and I am not sure it would wise on Les' part to get rid of two supertstars just so Gundy can continue with his mad experiments.

"Win Now" never stood for Winning a Championship.

"Win Now" was meant to win some games so Gundy could save his job.

You were fooled.

 

I am just doing my part for a change.

No guarantees yet that there will be changes.

Sad thing is, we had to wait for couple of failures to start back from where we began.

Tick Tock Tick Tock...

That's McGrady's back talking to ya.

 

You are correct. I wasn't fooled. Neither were you.

But majority were and I will leave it at that.

On second thought....

You know what edc,

I will change it. Thanks for pointing it out.