Have teams that fired their head coach less than a quarter through the season ever been successful?

That was 100% morey pushing, and les granting.

 

By Nov. 6, when we were all of 2-3 on the season, Alexander had already raised with Morey the idea of changing coaches if things didn't go well. (Per cyberx: http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=269974) So the misgivings were well underway before we were even halfway to 11 games.

Which makes it extremely likely that Alexander went into this season ready to axe McHale. So instead of looking forward and asking why we changed coaches now rather than later, we should be asking why we didn't change coaches before the season began. Yes, midseason coaching changes generally don't turn out well. But this is not a change that happened 71 games too early. It's a change that happened 11 games too late.

The simplest explanation is that McHale would have lost his job if we had gone out in the first round, and possibly if we had finished our collapse to the Clippers. But we didn't. And Alexander didn't feel like he could dump McHale after that amazing feel-good comeback. And maybe he bought into the idea that we were getting close, and continuity was the best bet.

As for last year's extension of McHale ... I can't help you there. Clearly some emotions and expectations were in conflict. Whether they were going on in one man's head, or between two men, I have no clue.

 

Thanks, Will. I've forgotten this thread and didn't look for a reply to my question.

The extension was way more surprising than the firing.

Last season was such a strange journey that made McHale so enigmatic. He clearly had a lot of flaws. But the results of winning 50+ games with all the injuries and the WCF appearance can't be denied.

The strange thing is, even though the overall results were impressive, the Rockets had at many times looked terrible. A good team with a good coach may play badly once in a while. The Rockets played not just bad, but horrible, with a big "QUIT" written on them in many occasions.

So the QUIT motif is not just this season's but was already present last season. Was it because of McHale's incompetence or was it because we just had a bunch of weak-minded players, including our cornerstones?