Just my two cents on the team and the BBS...

If you don't think having the right coach is important then tell me what changed between 91 and 92 for the rockets and what happened to the Nets last year after they switched coaches. No one wants to go to war with Van Grumpy. A coach will not bring you a championship, but he can get in the way of one. In this case he is getting in the way of enjoyable basketball.

 

In rebuttal from the JVG got to go crowd (VGGTG). I agree that yes the players bear a lot of responsibility but may I point out that many of the players on this team were brought in by JVG and that he's also been the one making the personel decisions about who plays when.

That young team that JVG whipped into shape to get in the playoffs only won 2 more games than the previous years team and has been dismantled and replaced with an aging team largely due to JVG.

 

i don't put the entire blame on gundy. some i put on the players. some is no one's fault.


it's not JVG's fault that we are not a top notch defensive team anymore. to be even a good defensive team with this roster shows what kind of defensive coach he is. with anyone else, we would be among the worst in the L.

it is not his fault that we don't run more. every time i see him he is yelling push it and waiving his arm with the papers in it. he wants them to run.

it is his fault that the players aren't motivated all the time. i don't care if they are pro's or not. players rarely motivate themselves at any level, and when they do its not for a whole friggin season. jeff needs to make them want to kick ass every game. find something that makes them hyped that night.


its the players fault for commiting too many TO's some nights, and too many stupid fouls on other nights. :::cough::: yao. sometimes they take too many 3's when nothing will go in. if yao would hold on to the ball more we would have one a few more times already this season. if jj would find his shot we would have an extra 6-9 points every night.

i don't blame the fowards for not rebounding. they can't rebound any better than lue can. its just not thier game. we got them knowing that they won't rebound for us. its not fair to blame them.


the fact is we need a great shooter, we need a great rebounder/post defender, and if we have time a PG that will nail the 3 and not be a defensive liability like ward.

 

The Crappy Coach handpicked the Crappy Role Players and by and Large the Crappy Role Players weren't as Crappy until they got stuck with the Crappy Coach!

I Guarantee you, you are wrong and we will know soon enough.

Isn't this of all things the responsibility of the Coach. This coach is the epitomy of Hitler. Do what you or told or elese. Last night was a perfect example, Sura makes a bad play and he is benched. He showed up his player and the other players see how he is and or playing cautiously. Cautious play doesn't win in this league.

D'OH, if that isn't the coach's responsibility than what is.

To Sum it up; Les picked the wrong coach, the coach picked the wrong players and he is leading the Rockets to the Lottery promise land is in the future. Thank YOU Jeff Van Dummy for getting us the power forward we need in the draft. That will be your legacy with the Rockets.


OFF WITH JEFF VAN DUMMY'S HEAD

 

Tigermission,

Some people do not need to suffer through 3 or 4 seasons of bad coaching to recognize that a change needs to be made.

DD

 

Enough with this "JVG got us to the playoffs" crap, we only improved 2 games last season, and don't forget that the season before that we had Mr. Mean coached us for several weeks.

 

I think it's safe to say 99.995% would agree with you, the .005% all have Van Gundy as their last names.

However, no one is really asking for 3 or 4 seasons, most GJVGMTers are asking for 1/2 to 1 season.

 

I consider last year a success. With dumb and dumber running the show, and 300lbs of marshmellow as our center, I don't see how any other coach could do much better. We played fine in the playoffs against the lakers.

 

Really? When have we ever called for another coach's head that didn't deserve it? We sure as hell didn't want to run Rudy out of town (for the most part). Name me a time when these "typical Houston fans" have wanted to fire a coach as much as we want JVG gone.

So you're no better than us! People on this bbs are always saying that these JVG naysayers are bandwagoners because we're losing (which isn't true, btw, most of us have wanted him gone since day 1). Well, what you're wishing is even worse than what we want: YOU ACTUALLY WANT THE ROCKETS TO LOSE! Who's the real fan here, us or you?

To each his own. You think you're a realist, and I think I am as well. Under this current coach, we won't get to the Finals. Hell, we won't even get to the WCF. We'll be stuck in playoff mediocrity. Which is great, since we're making the playoffs right? I just want there to be a change for the better. Not a quick fix. Hell, Van Gundy can ride out the rest of the season. That's fine. Even though I hate his guts, I don't want anyone else to inherit this bad a situation. But find someone to replace his sorry "I hate the world and get 20 minutes of sleep a night" ass.

WE GOT RID OF THE HEART OF THIS TEAM. We have no identity. The "franchise" is either a short woman stuck in a tall man's body or a 24 year old scoring champ who has already insinuated once that he would like to retire. Where is the heart coming from? Please, I understand that the coach doesn't handle EVERY aspect, but when there is a heartless coach reflected on his team by the heartless players...I don't have the heart to love them either.

No one is saying otherwise. We all joke it's all van gundy's fault, but if you pay attention, we lay a lot of blame on management for f*cking up 5 years worth of draft picks. we lay blame on the players for playing like people who don't give a sh*t because they're making their millions of millions of dollars. But, we call for JVG beacuse even though this is the team HE brought in...it's not working for him, and neither are the players. Why keep that around?

This is one thing i agree with you on. More than anything i want this team to do well and win championships. If it's with Van Gundy, fine, I'll eat crow. I'm man enough to admit I'm wrong. First and foremost though, I WANT THE ROCKETS TO WIN. And to that end, I want to see JVG gone. That's not a quick fix. That's my opinion on what the solution is. And this soltuion isn't a one step fix: it's a multistep process.

 

Blaming bad role players on the coach is also not fair. We give away 3 starters to get Tmac. If you are against the trade, I see your point.

Besides that, JVG "hand picked" the following players:
Ward, Sura, Deke, Bowen, Dre

It's safe to say Deke and Bowen are doing exactly what they were expected to do, you really can't complain about them.

Sura just got back, but he looks promising.

Dre hasn't played enough yet, people seem to think he could help. I personally don't believe in extremely small guards, especially when you are not a proven shooter.

Ward. Well, I suppose he is the only "hand Picked" player that's been sucking real bad. I look at his career shooting average, and can't help but think that he'll shoot better.

1 out of 5 isn't really that bad is it?

 

JVGTG and GJVGMT PLEASE!

Lets all come together in the Spirit of Festivus

 

On the first part, two words........Hakeem Olajawon
On the second part, two workds.......Jason Kidd

All the coach can do is the planning......the players have to execute!!!

 

You know, threads like this give me the impression that you guys just don't like JVG...

 

JVG isn't a bad coach... his track record proves this. Bottom line. Is he a bad fit for this team? This team we have right now? Probably, though it's ironic that he may be a bad fit for a team he is helping to construct. Is it his fault that Yao turned the ball over 10 times last night? Has anyone congratulated him on his triple double?

Fans don't like our offense? Hell, I don't like our offense. Thank goodness for NBA league pass because most of the Rockets games are borderline unwatchable, but with the makeup we have, JVG is coaching the team in the way he feels best, and I can't fault him for that. I'd love for us to play like the Suns or Sonics, but that can't happen with this team.

Their are moments when we could have run but didn't, but with the players we have, there is no way we could be successful as an uptempo team. Aside from T-Mac we don't have players who would flourish in that kind of system. We don't have Marion on the wing. We have Jim Jackson. We don't have Steve Nash or even Luke Ridnour running the break. Ward isn't an uptempo guard, Lue is a below avg player, and Sura isn't a pure PG. He wouldn't make consistently good decisions in the open floor. Yao would get tired after 5 trips up and down the floor. Juwan isn't an athlete. The team was not built to run.

But let's talk about the team itself... this is not a well assembled roster at this point. We have 4 PFs, none of whom are a good fit next to Yao. We need an athletic, active shotblocker/rebounder who will knock some heads because Yao is so passive, has short arms for his height, lacks lateral movement, and not much ups, all of which you need to grab rebounds and block shots. Stromile Swift or Nene would look good in a Rockets uniform. Eddie Griffin (sigh) is doing some of these things. Yao will never be a good weakside help defender or great rebounder because of his physical attributes. I wish we still had Cato. Despite being not all that talented, he was a great fit next to Yao... Van Gundy recognized that last year.

Juwan Howard is on paper upgrade over Cato from a statistical view. He's put up solid statistics over his career but he's a horrible fit here. We don't really need his scoring ability in the post because we have Yao down low. He doesn't block shots, doesn't rebound well in comparison to the other PFs in the west, isn't athletic and in general doesn't work well without the ball. His jumper from the FT line is serviceable, but he needs the ball in the low post to really be effective.

The story with Mo Taylor is still the same -- good offensive player, horrible, just attrocious rebounder, best suited off the bench. Padgett -- mediocre player all around. A little shooting, a little hustle, a little defense, but not much of anything. Spoon -- best suited for the Eastern Confernce, can give you something in spurts, but over time is a deficiency. He lacks size, like a poor man's Kenny Thomas.

Next, we have below-average play from our PGs. The most glaring weakness about our PGs is that they can't consistently create shots for other players. Sura is a combo guard with no jumper and average passing skills, Ward is old, Lue is too small, and Barrett not experienced enough. He is probably the best penetrator we have and now he's on the IL. I had hopes for Sura, but it's just amazing how much the other teams sag off of him, daring him to shoot. He doesn't pass as well as I thought he would. Because he doesn't shoot well, he doesn't have as many opportunities to drive and dish because teams play off him so much. I think he's better coming off the bench. No assists last night, not what you want in your starting "PG," despite the fact he is only masquerading as one. Heck, I'd rather have Tierre Brown at this point. He's doing some good things for Rudy and the Lakers. How about going for Earl Watson?

I think the main reason McGrady settles for jumpers is that otherwise he has to work harder to take his man off the dribble for a closer shot because he doesn't have a PG to get him. Because he is a good shooter, and because he tends to play in neutral gear a lot of the time, it's easier for him to just shoot the ball over the usually smaller defender.

It's hard to pinpoint the blame on anyone right now, but being the holiday season someone should lay some blame so it might as well be me. =) We had a mediocre foundation to start with because of CD's past moves, and now he's trying to fix things.

So I do BLAME CD because his past moves (Mo, Moochie->Spoon) still affect the team, but I give him credit for trying to rectify things, starting with the T-Mac deal, though I wish we had been able to keep Cato and have them keep Howard and Lue. But it's not like we were set after making this trade.

I do BLAME CD for listening to JVG and bringing in Ward and Sura when we could have signed Damon Jones, Mo Williams, or Mike James. JVG was thinking, "Well we're not going to be able to get a good PG, so we might as well bring someone in who knows my philosophy who is kinda cheap." and CD bought it. Not good thinking. They really missed out on Damon Jones (did I just write that?).

JVG the coach is stuck with the players that JVG the "GM" brought in, but because JVG the coach and JVG the GM are still just JVG, I BLAME him too.

I expected T-Mac to be able to "will" his team to play better, but my expectations are too high here. I should say that I hoped he'd be able to do this. This what great players, great leaders do, but more and more I believe that he is better off being a sidekick a la Pippen than the main man, which is unfortunate because I feel the same way about Yao. I'm not sure your 2 best players having sidekick personalities will ever lead to a champsionship. Doesn't mean he's not a great player and out of world talent, because he is. Is it JVG's fault that he can't motiviate T-Mac to play with more fire on a consistent basis? I don't know if anyone has been able to do that. In T-Mac's defense, he has really stepped it up lately after sleepwalking through the first month, but it hasn't translated into consistent wins.

I BLAME JVG for not settling on a PF despite the fact they are all mediocre. He needs to establish roles for those guys. A coach needs to do this. And I BLAME all 4 of them for thinking they should be starting and getting more minutes. That's nothing but a disruption. And really, none of them should be playing all that much. The Rockets should ask their opponents if they can play their PFs for one half then go 4 on 4 the second half.

And despite all this BLAME i'm throwing out, it's still too early to write the Rockets off... we are only a few games out of the last playoff spot. I think everyone set their pre-season expectations a little too high this year. Losing 3 starters off a team is tough. The Rockets had better chemistry last year which compenstated for their undisciplined play. We have more talent and less chemistry this season. But it's not like we have bad personalities on this team, just some guys whose games aren't suited for one another. Definitely fixable. But if you're thinking long-term, I'd rather have the talent, which we do. The most important thing was to acquire the talent in the form of McGrady first. Once the bad contracts come off the books CD will have the flexibility to make some good moves so that we have the chemistry to go along with the talent. And who knows, the Rockets may all of the sudden click and start playing well.

 

You're right. Some people waited 12 seasons to start complaining about "Rudy-ball".

Fact is, if a team struggles everyone jumps all over the coach, because coaches are easier to replace than players.

I'd also like to remind some of you that CD is the General Manager, not JVG.

 

strange. ., the year before
with no JJ and a less experienced Yao
We were playoff bound until the coach . . .i will not say his name
got a horrible disease . . and sat out the last few games. . .
which we lost way more than the clip we were on before
he went down


BUT yea. . .it was Van Dumber last year
and not the team maturation

Rocket River

 

3 Quick points - First, I don't think we are looking for a quick fix by getting rid of JVG (more of a trying to stop the bleeding before you bleed to death). JVG has consistently tried to implement his system rather than taking what he's been given. He's tried to resurrect the Knicks of the 90's right before our very eyes - Give me a f'n break...Oakley, M. Jackson, Weatherspoon, Ward, even Ewing as an assistant. He's never proven anything. He inherited a team that Pat Riley helped assemble and didn't win a thing. However, he's great at ensuring that players play well below their abilities.

Two, as far as Phil Jackson and his four HOFers, - at least they got to the finals, BTW Malone was injured and Kobe and Shaq couldn't get along while the Glove was too busy feeling sorry for himself about not getting enough playing time.

Thirdly, as far as not being able to win by stuffing a team full of 20 point scores - I'll take my chances. We're certainly not going to do it with a bunch of players that don't average 10 points a game.

 

With respect to that nameless coach, his team hit a high-water mark of 23-15 after an overtime win vs LAL on 01.15.2003. After the nameless coach coached his last Rox game vs SEA on 03.18.2003, the team was 35-30. Or 12-15 over his last 27 games. If you want to consider that "playoff bound", feel free. I guess speculation is as popular as Van Gundy bashing these days.