Les Alexander: If they don't respond and play hard they're not staying

McHale's blood is on the hands of the players.....primarily Harden. I hope this serves as a massive wake-up call to him that when you show up to the arena for practice, work-outs, or games, your mind better be right. Don't bring all that excess baggage (that he brought on himself, btw) with you when you step onto the court.

 

No way Les gives the okay to trade Harden. You don't get franchise players off the streets. Unless this organization wants to start completely over and follow the 76er's route.

 

how in the hell did you come to this conclusion lol PLAYERS are PLAYERS and harden showing less effort than anyone at this time.

 

you dont designate a franchise player by salary only btw. harden doesnt even make as much has tristian thompson lol If he continues this lazy play , then he is OTB.

 

No way in hell Harden gets traded. Absurd.

 

Do players really care about comments like this? I mean...guaranteed contracts & stuff. They're getting their $$ regardless.

 

a young "gritty" boston team just embarrassed the rockets the other night

 

I hope Daryl Morey is next, he needs to go

 

HOUSTON ROCKETS CLEANING HOUSE

YAY LE$$$$$$$$$$

 

Someone say soap operas? :grin:

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Les Alexander right now:

Spoiler

 

List of players I would take for Harden:

1. LeBron
2. Curry
3. Durant
4. A Davis



5. Porzingis

 

No way Harden ever beomes the most hated Rocket of all time. Jeremy Lin has that title locked up.

It's unfair to Lin, but face it, if he were still here and innocently producing at his current rate (19.1 pts per 36), people here would still be laying ALL the blame for the team's crappy season on him. Admit it, the whole board, the game announcers like Drexler and Worrel, and all the radio channels would be killing him mercilessly instead of being honest enough to lay the blame where it actually belongs, with the Bearded One. But the Rockets world has not been particularly honest for years, especially where Lin was concerned.

Now Leslie Alexander, the somewhat detached owner (doesn't he live in NYC?), is finally realizing that he has been fed a load of blarney for years, and he is mad.

 

LOL. Get out of here LOF.
Jesus christ you Lin fans and your persecution complex.

 

Les is about to trade the whole team except Capela, Dmo, and maybe Beverley.

 

Shutup lin lover.

This is what happens when you have mchale as head coach for years. Years and habits of oversight, lack of preparation, lack of attention to detail, and its all culminating right now.

We had no structure, no discipline. This is like a household with extremely smart kids that don't work hard. At some point, its going yo show. And its showing right now.

 

I wanted to post yesterday but time got away.

My thoughts were originally going to go in the "not the same group" thread. But now it seems this is probably a better place to post the same things.

The more time passes and the more I began to look the last couple of days for comments by McHale, about the firing, I found a couple of things reaffirming my original view that the poor play has been a player issue all along. It's just very unfortunate that Les Alexander didn't do the best job an owner could do by being more hands-on and digging even just a little into the situation before agreeing to let McHale be fired.

One little tidbit I found was supposedly a quote from Ty Lawson. Lawson told the Houston Chronicle after the meeting, “Coaches say, ‘Run this pick-and-roll coverage.’ We were calling something totally different. No matter what the coaches say, we need to do. We need to be on the same page.’’ And I wonder who "WE" really is/was here. Was Lawson including himself?
(source article: http://www.forbes.com/sites/mitchla...me-for-rockets-dismal-start-mchales-firing/2/)

Then there is this puzzling statement from Harden about McHale during the playoff run: "I felt like I was talking to an actual player," Harden said in May. "Obviously he's won championships so he knows what he's talking about. So my ears are just locked in and focused in on what he's saying." (Source article: http://www.startribune.com/mchale-f...c-johnson-calls-move-a-big-mistake/351384041/)

Excuse me? Who would I guess changed the most from the post-season playoff run to the start of this season? McHale? I don't buy it. McHale had already been rewarded mid-season with a 3-year contract. Harden got rewarded in the off-season with a new shoe deal and a well-known girlfriend.

In addition, McHale is old school, in that he isn't one for excuses. He was obviously aware this was a "players" issue and not really his fault. Yet he probably never thought to ask Les Alexander to become involved. Too bad. That is exactly what Alexander should have done. You don't praise a coach's performance the previous season and then assume he's the problem at the beginning of the next season.

All this "tough" comment demonstrates is that Les Alexander should have taken this stance with players before allowing the knee-jerk firing of McHale. If you look through a couple of pages of links about the firing you'll find that Magic Johnson thinks it was a big mistake, Charles Barkley thinks McHale "got screwed," Rick Carlisle didn't agree, Chandler Parsons didn't think the Rockets lackluster play was McHale's fault. And I know how many here feel about some of these "sources." You may not like some of them personally, but their opinions have merit, just by virtue of the above 2 quotes. Hell, Harden's quote is every bit as glowing as Chandler Parson's. Brewer made it plain how much he cares for McHale. No. Something else has happened. And it doesn't smell nice.

I started to compile a list of links where these things are but if anyone's interested (which clearly many here are not) you can find the quotes by these players/coaches easily enough, with some I didn't mention.

So you can praise Les Alexander if you want, for "taking a stand" with players, but he muffed the situation and, I think, cut his nose off to spite his face. The time to let players know they have a duty, bound by contract and character, was at the very beginning when 3 losses by 20 points happened. Is an owner so out of touch with what is happening with the team that he couldn't see what Ty Lawson was seeing? Surely he was at the games. If not, then I would question the firing even more.

I know there are people here who are very glad that McHale is gone. I'm not one of them. The fact that the players are still suffering from a poor effort this long after McHale's firing only serves to make the point even more clearly. This has been on the players all along. As I think about the players on the team and wonder what could have happened to make basically, the "same group" from last season "not the same group" this season, as Terry said and B4everly reiterated in the background, I don't get the sense it's more than 1-2 players making chemistry so difficult.

There is usually an unspoken code in sports to not point fingers publicly. Thus, team meetings are behind closed doors and what is said isn't discussed with the media. That's what makes Lawson's comments ring true. I think he was so shocked at players ignoring what a coaching staff is asking them to do that he was wondering just what he had gotten himself in to. His numbers from his career in Denver prove he is no slouch of a player. His DUI's really aren't relevant to this situation. It's pretty plain that there is a player-to-player issue that has been causing a disjointed effort. If you've ever been in a situation where personalities are clashing, you know how distracting that can be for "innocent bystanders" (players who just wanted to pick up where they left off last season) to ignore what is carrying over to play on the court.

So pardon me for not being the least impressed with this "hard line" supposedly being taken by Les Alexander. That's just a follow-on of firing McHale. Just a little thought should have led him to do everything possible to recapture what happened going to the WC Finals as possible. We all know when people around us aren't acting normally. If any player was sincerely upbeat after the first 3 games it would be like denial IMO. He should have tried to get to the bottom of any issues and let each player know that they are professionals being paid a LOT of money. An open-door policy should exist from day one. Any player who has issues with other player(s) or members of the coaching staff should be encouraged to say something. It's then up to the owner to handle personnel issues discreetly. If everyone in the organization is truly for the team success, then everyone should applaud such openness.

 

It's 16.9, it's not 19.1 I don't understand why you guys always lie when you quote stats for Jeremy Lin. There's nothing wrong with 16.9 per 36, you don't have to lie about it and call it 19.1

 

GREAT! Hopefully this is including Harden!

Enough of this pussyfooting around coddling multi millionaires! I'd rather be a midlevel team with players who WORK, than entitled superstars who dont feel they have to give their full effort!

Unfortunately, I think this is what Harden wants. I think he wants outta town so he can go play Kardassian or hang with Jay-z or whatever... To which, I say - good riddance you self entitled lazy arrogant loser!