Oh can it Mrs JVG..., just get your lips off JVG's meat wagon for one second and you will see the truth. JVG is nothing special......he has failed everywhere he has been and he flat out QUIT on the Knicks. This team is so much better with a coach that is more offensively oriented..... Thank God we don't have to listen to the JVG apologists anymore..... He had 2 major leads in the playoffs for the Rockets and failed to get them beyond the first round......if you are up 2-0 with HC advantage and get outcoached, you are overated....the Rockets are sooooo much better without his brooding arse on the sidelines..... So many NBA teams lining up to sign him...oh wait...they aren't..... JVG is dead to the Rockets....and.... Good Riddance ! You guys can go ahead and deflate your JVG real dolls now....... DD
Wow.. defensive much. He posted a good point. If these players simply needed a change on the offensive side of the ball why were we still so low down the offensive food chain last season. I think that you are taking his comments personally when it's just debate. JVG said it best in this interview, he lost twice in a seven game series, the second at home. When that happens unfortunately it's the coach's fault and he gets fired. JVG sometimes did things that I didn't necessarily agree with, but I could always see a reason behind the rotation and path that he chose.
Me too, and I disagreed with most of those moves and found him lacking and his firing long overdue. Think of it this way. Ryan Bowen or Kelena Azubuike, which would you have kept? JVG always kept offense over defense.....remember only 4 players scoring in a playoff game? JVG is a great interview, very engaging, and a funny guy, but as a coach, the guy is just overated IMO...... I am sooooo happy he is gone.... Gone like a freight train, gone like yesterday, gone like a soldier in the civil war..bang bang..... DD
I think it was Scott Padgett over Kelenna, but I wanted to keep Kelenna cause I knew what he could do... defensively and offensively!
Either way, you get my point........JVG was always too short sighted.... If your team is NOT good enough to win it all, you need to think long term and develop....ala Popovich with Manu and Parker...... JVG was too short term oriented, and thus he gave the team no real future. Him going, was better for this franchise than most people will ever realize. I just get tired off all the JVGApologists swinging from his brown and curlies...... You don't see me posting about V-Span much anymore...he isn't a Rocket....PSSSST...neither is JVG. DD
For the record (like it matters) I personally think JVG was a very good coach but I also believe we needed a change. I also believe the biggest change we needed was players and Morey seems to have done pretty well upgrading talent post-VanGundy. I personally think Adelman is a very good coach and I am glad we made the change. What Adelman did with last year's team is not much different than Gundy. What Gundy could do with this year's team is not that much different than what we will do. I don't consider Doc Rivers in the elite group of coaches or some coaching genius but, I would take Kevin Garnett on this team and stick Bill Worrell at the helm.
JVG cut them both. And Kelenna had no chance after shooting poorly in the preseason. I would have much rather kept Casey Jacobsen over him. But we went with Padgett because we needed the size insurance, since we were unsure about Hayes and Novak (remember Novak was ahead of Juwan in the rotation in the preseason and beginning of the season). Speaking of Juwan, I saw him today. He had a great game for the Nuggets. He's emerged as their leader and "big brother" of sorts. He even got to start alongside Nene. Denver needs his size, experience and leadership, especially since Nene and Martin are injury-prone. Good for Juwan. I let him know that I still believed he was a true, consummate professional.
If you really think that, then I think you are not analyzing it correctly. I don't think when Yao went out JVG managed to win tons of games in a row and when more injuries hit the team continued to win with Mike Harris a just signed undersized PF playing significant minutes. Not to mention a 2nd round undersized PF playing too.... JVG would never have played Landry, or Harris.... JVG is a great defensive coach and a lousy offensive coach. His teams play hard in the regular season, I give him a lot of credit for getting his players to play hard, but when adjustments are made in the post season, JVG has no clue...he got outcoached by a rookie coach in Avery Johnson..... JVG, IMO, is just waaaaayyyyyy overated...and he failed as a Rockets coach.....that is undeniable.... Why people continue to laud this guy as some great savior of the Franchise is beyond me....he won a grand total of ONE more game than in Rudy's last year.......and Rudy had Yao as a rookie...JVG had him as a budding superstar...yet only won 1 more game.... Yeah, he was great.....NOT ! How can you say that? Tom clearly knows defense, but can he coach both sides of the ball? Has he ever succeeded as a head coach? Let's hold the chuck wagon to see what he does with a real team.....I would rate JVG ahead of Thibedeau at this point, but Tom may pass him if he proves he can coach both ends of the floor.... DD
Juwan is a great guy, but if you are looking for him to provide leadership, your team is already done. As for the Ryan Bowen vs Azubuike comment, you guys missed the boat....whom do you think JVG would have kept...that is entirely his weakness...... DD
You sir...get a cookie for getting it.... I am done with this topic unless called to the carpet.....JVG is not a Rocket so....for the fun of it. WRONG FORUM !!!!! DD
Well, I wouldn't call Van Gundy a Savior. Nor do I believe he is a good offensive coach. But I was thoroughly convinced after talking to him for just one hour that he had a better assessment of the Rockets than all of us put together. I think he made some bad game decisions, I think he put too much emphasis on winning every regular season game, I think he aired too much in the media and he was sour/negative to a fault at least in public. But he is a very good basketball coach. I would like to hear the opinion of ever other NBA coach that has had to coach against him. I think he would get sufficient votes to validate my opinion on this. YES we all know he is not the coach of the Rockets, he is HISTORY. But so is Rudy and I still like to think of him in a positive light also.
jvg is one of my favorite coaches, no metter if you count him as elite or not. and i like his relentless pursuit of perfection. i like him even more as a commentator and an individual, along with his loyalty, professionalism and his unique dry sense of humor. he's better than the majority of head coaches in the league right now. pretty sure he can get a job if he wants, though he chose to sign with espn for another few years. that said, i believe his biggest and fatal weakness is him being too too slow to adjust DURING a game. if his gameplan goes wrong or if something unexpected happens on the court, our team would be doomed since jvg as the coach can't counter on the spot until he spends a sleepless night the next day trying to figure things out. because of this, i don't think jvg will be a championship coach until he changes his stubborn personality (if that is possible). the knicks in the final was a miracle, equally miraculous as adelman's 22-win streak. it was a real good change that we hired adelman. i'm quite hopeful, especially with morey working at the back stage.
that is sooooo true. if as is, the nuggets are gonna be replaced by the blazers in the p/o picture. i'd bet money on it.
Don't get me wrong, Adelman is a great coach. The Rockets did not fire JVG - they hired Rick Adelman. Adelman is one of the few coaches I would want coaching my team other than JVG, and we were lucky he was on the market. If the coaches this past offseason were on the market when JVG was relieved (Carlisle, Porter, D'Antoni, Isiah, Larry Brown, Skiles, Avery), then I would have kept JVG for another year. But Adelman brings a different style and personality that has proven to be successful over 2 eras of basketball.
