Before you hate, learn a little. The East was as strong as the West in 99 and stronger in the years before that. "Win and win now" did not happen? Did u expect the Rockets to win the championship? You opinion about the record and play of the Rockets is way-off. The Rockets are a much better defensive team and as good an offensive team (43%FG). JVG did a very good job. Not an A+ mind you, but B+ or A- is pretty decent in my book.
So, Rudy got 45 wins with a two year younger Francis and no Yao. Is that average? edc. you are a backseat coach, and below average at it. period!
well we didn't pay Jesus and Red $5M last year either. DoD - were you just nitpicking the 45=average comment or actually challenging the assertion jvg was at best average last season? i find it hard to believe you were doing the latter. Texas Stoke - do you have that same post prepared every time the same people bash steve, or bash cat, or bash yao? it seems like it's such a crime to bash jvg on this board (maybe even more than yao at this point). ragingFire - the east was hardly as strong as the west. while it hadn't fallen off like it has now, it was basically just a big pile of mediocrity where all the teams were very close in talent level. the 1 seed won 33 games and the 8 seed won 27. while it is indeed doing a good job to end up being the team that comes out of it all, the knicks basically did it against a bunch of teams about equal to themselves. factor in the knicks underachieved/were injured to get those 27 wins and it takes even a little more away from it. and finally, what is with all this crap about it being impossible for fisher to have gotten that shot off? the clock started essentially exactly when he caught it and we can all see the ball out of his hand when the light went off. it isn't like the refs just lied about it being out of his hands or we don't have electronic equipment and footage proving it. i've heard the laws of physics brought up as making it impossible. which law i'd love to know from all the people saying it. i haven't seen an in depth breakdown of angular momentum proving fisher couldn't spin that fast or anything. unless those laws include the speed at which derek fisher flexes his arm with a basketball in it then they would appear to be pretty irrelevant.
I don't really understand why people get upset over what a coach is making. They don't count against the cap, so if they are way overpaid it doesn't really hurt the team. The only person that should care whether or not JVG is worth his contract is Les Alexander. All we as fans should really care about is wins.
Does he get credit for the team being an 8th seed in the 1st place? That team underacheived in the regular season then FINALLY played up to its potential in the playoffs basically it was like they tanked the season away Rocket RIver tired of the GREAT myth of great a coach JVG was that year. . . .
The 98' playoffs run by the Knicks should not be dismissed for it's in the East. The Spurs steamrolled every Western team before they met the Knicks. Duncan and Robinson was a great frontcourt.The Knicks were the only team that won 2 games against them in that playoffs. The Knicks were playing better than any other team in the West at that point due to their amazing defense, a factor that must be attributed to JVG's coaching.
In a stacked Western Conference? Right. Tell that to Jerry Sloan, Mike Dunleavy and Nate McMillan in the West who couldn't reach that 45 win plateau. Go ahead and add Paul Silas, Lenny Wilkens and Tim Floyd only one of which could muster 40 wins in the Easy.....I mean East.
1) I wasn't sure it was 43 and 45. But kudos on reeeeeeeally stickin it to me . 2) First of all, he stepped down. Second of all, he's still not ready to coach, which indicates that he wouldn't have been ready for this season anyway. If he was, it would have been distracting to the team everytime he got himself tested. To answer your question, hell yes I expected improvement, and I saw it. The Rockets we saw in the playoffs would put Rudy's Rockets to absolute shame in a series of games. If you're going to sit here and tell me Rudy had the Rockets better than JVG had them at the end of their season, you must be kidding. We won one less game against the Lakers than the defending champions, the San Antonio Spurs. Before you begin your "well, if you had given Rudy one more season" argument, let me point out that we are comparing JVG's first chance to Rudy's first chance. Who's to say we don't win 50 games and homecourt next year if we make the right moves? It's more than plausible...it's probable. We are paying JVG 4M I believe, not 5. Yes, it makes a difference. Winning 45 games in the West is not average. We were constantly ranked in the top 10 or 12 for the league, which is in the top 1/3rd of teams in the NBA. Do you really think we had anything better than top 10 talent? We had one damn good player, Yao Ming. The other had trouble adjusting, and wasn't able to play up to his potential. So we rode Yao Ming's game and JVG's defense this season, while Steve unfortunately couldn't find his niche in the system. We went from 9th to 7th seed with essentially the same team. Although I believe we should've gotten 8th, andw ould've had Rudy not gone down, I still firmly believe that this team improved through JVG, and will cnotinue to do so next season. Roc Paint, I can see why you relate to Steve Francis so well.
Lets stop the JVG is this, JVG is that. Get over it EDC. JVG is our Coach and I am a Rockets fan, and so are you I think. JVG has 3 more years on his contract and he accomplished his 1st goal, make it to the playoffs with just about the same team as the 02-03 team - Griffin, -Posey, - 1/2 of Moochie, + Jackson, + Piatowski. Next year we will be a title contender. What I did not completly catch was JVG's coment before the Lakers vs. Spurs game. They replayed JVG clinging to Mourning's leg. Barkley was making fun of JVG and Jeffs comment was something like, The only player in history that was allowed to hit his own coach, in Larry Johnson. Can some one elaborate on that?
I don't like JVG. I was ready to axe Rudy, and now I'd just as soon see JVG get pink slipped. Good coaches get fired. Rick Carlisle was fired last year. Kevin O'Neil is probably a good x/o coach and he's history. Shoot, most coaches that win coach of the year get fired the next year. JVG knows some things. Here's a few things I don't like : Inflexible. An Ass. Closed practice = defensive person, closed mind. Terrible media presense. Bad use of time outs. Poor in-game adjustments. Bad draw for recruits - who wants a face full of a "mfing-mfr"? Assistant coach Patrick Ewing. Ex-Knick brigade. God-awful, stultifying, stupifying "basketball" is offensive to eyes. 70 pt games. Offense not working ? Keep hammering at that square peg. Sourpuss. Now, maybe Jeff will be more embraceable after they blow the team up, and his job won't be fighting insurgents in the graveyard. I hope so. Right now, he's not making the Rockets any more fun to follow. If you don't like someone in authority, you ought to at least respect them. Right now, I don't. He's shown me nothing. Another year of that should get him fired. If the negatives outweight the positives he should be fired right now.
For the record, JVG makes $4m. And (even though I wanted him) it's a lot less than Larry Brown's $10m. And in case you haven't been watching, Brown is getting outcoached by a JVG clone...NJ's Lawrence Franks. And interestingly enough, Brown replaced someone with a VG personality...Carlisle. It's too easy to sit back and take potshots at VG's 45 wins while totalling ignoring the West is stacked, Cuttino fouling Voshon Lenard at the 3pt line with 12 seconds left after the Rox led the whole game, Francis's Super Bowl fiasco and dribble-mania flashback in the final 15 seconds of the Spurs loss, the teams horrible scoring droughts in the 4Q of both MEM losses and the last SAC loss at home, that the team finally learned defensive rotations, and it was all done with basically the same team because VG wanted to give everyone the chance to prove themselves (Moochie failing the test early). In retrospect, Van Gundy was the best available for a team that severely needed discipline...something we wouldn't have gotten with Silas or MD Sr. Does VG need a personality transplant? Very likely...but I prefer what I'm seeing on the court to the ISO-mania Francis and Mobley ran (with or without Rudy's approval) for 4 seasons prior to Van Gundy. And I for one am convinced that whatever offense VG uses is a lot less effective because of Francis's poor P1S2 PG skills and inability to effectivley finish a FBreak. And for those that think RT was headed for the playoffs before he took ill and are tempted to blame it all on Larry Smith...the Rockets were 23-15 in mid-Jan and 35-30 when RT coached his last game. 12-15 over Rudy's last 27. Rudy's gone, he's not ready to come back by his own admission even 15 months later. Get over it. He's enjoying life...maybe you should also. Then again, the RTOF's can join the SOF fans if the Rockets don't win the NBA Finals next year. Lastly, edc - don't waste your time responding. After reading the quality of your posts, you have the distinction of being the sole poster on my ignore list...considering some of the other crap that gets posted, that's quite an accomplishment. Your monotonous whinning contributes nothing with intellectual value.
Im with edc, as you can tell by the last few threads ive started, im really into the glory years of the rockets and Rudy getting pushed out the door was the last person left from that era. And then to make it worse they replaced him with the enemy. The New York Knicks. I wanted to puke everytime I saw JVG, Mark Jackson and Oakley sitting on OUR bench. What goes though my head everytime I see that is M Jackson and I think Oakley chanting "1 win away" "1 win away" when they went up 3-2 on us in the finals. Dont get me wrong I do like the defence he has brought, but why did it die on us with a month to go in the season. Sure it would, becuase somehow the lakers water would turn into wine and Phil, Kobe, Shaq and Malone would take a long nap on their bench while the rockets are hitting prayer shot after prayer shot. Why would they blow the team up????? We just did that in 99' and just added key players.
If you'r ebeing sarcastic, I'm not detecting it... But, man, 1999 was 5 years ago.... This team won't be blown up, because blowing a team up means changing its direction - and we won't do that because we spent last season trying to turn this team into Yao's team and we will contniue doing that. Blowing a team up means changing its identity. I think we're just going to replace some parts to make it run as smooth as possible.
Not everyone has to like JVG, in fact, I lot of us don't. But thats part of the job, especially since he replaced a Houston legend and a fan favorite. I admit, I am not a big fan of JVG, but I do want to give him another season. As Pasox lists in his post, there are alot of things JVG does that pisses me off. We didn't improve much this season, only on the defensive side, but we lost all offensive ability. The one thing about JVG that I can't stand is his lack of ability to adjust. He seems to be stuck in the NYK 90's days, an era where you could win games by just defense. But now that he has to battle guys like Duncan, Garnett, Shaq, Kobe, Dirk, Peja, etc...I hope he find a way to put some points on the board. And for those that say JVG is here to stay, nothing is 100%. If Les doesn't like the way JVG is running things, he will get canned. Floyd got canned after making the playoffs his first year, Ayers got fired after 1/2 a season-his successor soon followed. Carlisle and Tim Floyd are perfect examples, if management doesn't like what they are doing, no matter how successful they are, they will get fired.
Correctimundo (IMO). There is no questioning JVG's defensive genius. However, even though I have not been as impressed with his offensive coaching prowess, he deserves time for the team to understand what he is attempting. It may take a change of personnel, either major or minor. Regardless, he deserves another year to continue this work in progress -- and another if the trend remains positive. And, besides, Rudy T. said he still needs another year to mend.
You don't have to like the guy, but you can acknowledge his accompishment(s). Someone had to take Rudy's place, he was going to step down anyway. JVG has another full season for sure. After that, I really would like to see him replaced, because JVG is the type of coach that prepares you for greatness, but can't quite get you there. I would love to see Rudy come back after next season.
Lost all of our offense? Will this fallacy ever die? 2002-03 Rockets: 93.7 ppg / 6,461 FGA's / 1,198 TO's 2003-04 Rockets: 89.8 ppg / 6,195 FGA's / 1,373 TO's A whopping 3.9 ppg. Easily attainable without the 175 additional TO's. Let's blame those on Van Gundy, too.
