I always found Jeff Bzdelik’s sudden retirement quite odd as it was just prior to the season beginning. I always wondered if a large part of that had to do with Melo since Bzdelik abruptly retired like a month after Melo was signed. Then things got even weirder with this Melo drama with news that Bzdelik was coming back after a 2 month hiatus and then Melo now being the odd man out. I know we all know Melo doesn’t play or give full effort or just flat out sucks on defense whatever you want to call it. We also know Bzdelik commands full effort on defense and expects/demands a lot from his guys. I recall Bzdelik being a part of the Nuggets organization back in the day so I checked his Wiki and I completely forgot that he was actually Head Coach for the Nuggets and coached Rookie Melo in his short stint. After finding that Bzdelik coached Melo I did some extra digging and was able to find this article that may explain a lot of questions. 15 years and nothing changed with Melo’s defense or Bzdelik’s philosophy. At the time Melo was a Rookie future superstar and Bzdelik had to be the fall guy cause Melo didn’t buy in. 15 years later looks like the tables may have turned. Considering the timeline of events and the twos history I can’t say it’s just a coincidence. There was no co-existing between the two even after all the years. https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2004-01-11-0401110204-story,amp.html
welp... if its Bzdelik or Melo... I'll take Bzdelik - he's gonna have more overall impact... but its a shame if guys cant co-exist for the good of the team...
Melo got Jeff Bzdelik fired when he was his coach rookie season and he got Mile DAntoni fired from New York. So I guess it's ironic now the tables have now turned on Melo.
Ryan Anderson sucked for a whole 1 1/2 season & MDA kept him in the starting lineup. Melo wasn't nearly as bad & got 10 games? Definitely a grudge
Good find and thread op. Looks like rockets chose the coach/defense over what melo would/will be. The crappy oklahoma game probably put furrytits over the edge. Thats what you get with an owner that makes hot decisions on impulse. This feels like mark cuban in a bad way. Say what you want positive this is not a great look for rockets. 10 games? After all that chasing and courting for how many years? Perhaps the right move ..but I wonder if tillmanchild would have traded dream like rocks almost did when they had their spat? We wouldnt be sitting on 2 titles. Im hoping tilmafia isnt quick triggered overthink over react dude like cuban and your shoddy meddling owners. Its a "concern" going forward and an interesting tidbit in how this ownership might be and where their tendencies might go. Concern level is a few points higher today than it was 10 games ago. Benefit of the doubt but this is tillmob and we are married to it
I mentioned this when they announced the Bzdelik retiring announcement. He waited all off-season and then announced it when it became apparent Rockets were getting Melo. It may not be the only thing that made me retire but it definitely has to be one of the reasons. It's too much to ask to make your team a great defensive team with both Harden and Melo. The team has finally made Harden to be a non-liability on defense but then when you add Melo on top of that.....
Cutting Ryno = 20 mil in dead cap until 2020, cutting Melo = 2 mil in dead cap for the rest of the season. Also, 2016-18 Anderson > 2018 Melo
Yup, if there’s any consolation to getting off to a slow start it’s that we got our real prize Bzdelik back.
Seems like Jeff had some family issues to resolve but also use that to get out of dealing with Melo at all. To let the rockets work everything out and see if he was a fit or not. But if he was he wouldn’t be with us and if it didn’t he might come back. It wasn’t a high risk sign so that’s why Morey did it. Now we can move on since Melo doesn’t want to work things out and fit in our system.
The point was Ryan Anderson could've been pulled from the starting lineup, as horrific as he played. But MDA was patient enough to let him play through it. Somehow after 10 games Melo "didn't fit".
As poorly as Anderson played, he was still shooting nearly 40% from 3 on high volume from 25+ feet out, Melo wasn't even remotely efficient on a diet of open 3s. Anderson also far outpaced Melo in terms of WS/48, BPM, NetRTG, and TS% (taking PPG into account as well). Anderson was a liability against the elite teams of the NBA, Melo was a liability against mediocrities and tankers.
Honestly, Carmelo Anthony had everything come easy for him and once it gets a little bit hard he quits. He can still be really effective if he wants it, but he dgaf. He doesnt care about basketball outside of stardom and being in the spotlight.
If it were family issues, why was the Rockets in contact with him this whole time? I'm assuming this was 100% about a grudge
Stop it. You know & I know Ryan Anderson went about 20-30 games where he not only couldn't hit anything, he STOPPED taking open shots. Melo in 10 games wasn't even close to Ryno bad. That's even more proof this wasn't about basketball
