No, seriously Rocky, two years ago when management was talking to Adelman about whether he would come back, they wanted him to put Finch on his staff and kind of train him to be the successor. Finch might not be a lock to be the Rockets next coach, but he's the heir apparent.
is this suppose to be dig on Lin? D'Antoni doesn't need a HOF pt to be successful, he just needs a competent pt (not Douglas) and all five guys "buying into the system". note that even Fat Felton was successful under D'Antoni. this team has smart, unselfish guys who would love to play under D'Antoni.
Mike D'antoni's system needs a PNR big man. He had that in previous years with Amare & Tyson. In Houston we don't have a PNR big man. Also you don't need Mike Dantoni to coach his system. I like McHale think he is a good coach. Players more often than not relate better with guys who have played in the NBA and McHale has a much more impressive track record of NBA success than D'antoni.
Maybe as a player but not as a coach. McHale 73-W 87-L .456 D'Antoni 388-W 339-L .533 Even with less success and experience, I still prefer McHale at this point over MDA or anyone else. He might still make some 'rookie' mistakes but it comes with the learning pain.
yea, i like Mchale too but i'm just responding to OP's post should Mchale get fired. i didn't liked Mchale early on when he started Morris but i can see his reason now. Morris can shoot, just don't ask too much from him offensively down low. the only head-scratcher is not giving minutes to Jones. i'm pretty sure our bigs can eventually get better at setting screens and rolling to the basket. not a big deal.
Sigh. He is not. McHale is the "face" of the franchise. Well mannered photogenic (for the NBA), more cred than you can shake a stick at and a great organization guy. He is the head coach for years to come. The Rockets can't fire him unless he goes off kilter to the media, because they picked the assistant coaches.
Heres a brief history of Adelman's stint as Rockets coach according to wikipedia: In his first season as head coach, Adelman guided the Rockets to a 22-game winning streak from January through March 2008, the second-longest winning streak in NBA history. In the 2009 season, the Rockets finished 5th in the West with a 53–29 record. They entered the playoffs without their star shooting guard, Tracy McGrady, due to an injury. Despite this loss, the Rockets defeated the Portland Trail Blazers in six games to advance to the Western Conference Semifinals for the first time since 1997. However, they lost to the Los Angeles Lakers, but surprised many people and proved their resilience by taking the series to seven games even though their star center, Yao Ming, had a season-ending injury in Game 3 of that series. Adelman won his 800th career game, 13th among coaches in NBA history, on March 24, 2008 against his old team the Sacramento Kings. On April 18, 2011, Houston Chronicle reported that the Houston Rockets would not give Adelman a new contract, and would part ways after 4 seasons " You can add to that the fact that the whole team played beautiful music together using the patented adelman version of the princeton offense. Rick Adelman in his limited tenure is already a legend in modern rockets history (22 game winning streak and most productive playoff appearance including the only team to take the LA lakers to seven games)
JerryH I think that it is unfair to critisize McHale. He is a great asset to the organization and brings a lot of experience, knowledge and respect. To compare guys like Finch to him is crazy! I watched the Olympics and his team played the worst basketball there. When his team was 15 up at half-time against Australia, they fell apart in the 2nd half - to be outscored by 41points in a half would not be too embarrassing if they were playing against the USA but they were playing against a half-decent Oz team that had appeared over-reliant on Mills in the first half. In truth, the fact is that GB had no Plan B and the only people you can blame for that is the coaching and Finch was clueless!
I'd rather have my team try to win games than be exciting to watch. Now, I will say I don't think Skiles or JVG are can't miss options. Neither guy is Greg Popovich, but I do think they are the best available of the NBA coaching free agents out there next year. FWIW I don't believe McHale gets fired next year. He still has one more year left on his contract and for all his flaws, he actually may be a good developmental coach, especially for all our young bigs and this team, as is, isn't anywhere near doing anything of importance anyway. If McHale does get let go then I'd again try to inquire about Spurs AC Mike Buderholzer - but last time the Rockets did, he wouldn't even interview, so I'm not sure that's a realistic option at all. The thing with Finch is, if you're gonna go the international route, why not go with the best of the best? Dusan Ivkovic may be too old, but what about David Blatt? It's hard to evaluate Finch, because the talent on his GB teams has been so poor, but from what I have seen, I sure have my doubts that he's a better coach than Blatt.
