Hmmm, interesting. So we now have a coach that can neither motivate nor not motivate. What are we paying this guy for? Mediocrity?
That's a funny thought. He cannot motivate when there is something to play for, and cannot not motivate when there is something not to play for. I hope all these "nots" not get everybody not thinking straight.
This is the NBA. These are professional atheletes. They are not paid to lose. Yes granted it might help the Rockets gain some draft pull, but no team in the NBA with high dollar personnal and talent(all NBA players are high paid) will delibertly drop games. I'm pretty sure that throwing games is illegal, at least unethical. It is not Van Gundy's job to lose games. The NBA is here to generate a profit and if every team that is lottery bound phoned in their last 20 games it would greatly hurt the integrity of the association and its players and coaches. Sorry the Rockets can't lose better but it is rediculous that Rocket fans are actually this upset that they won.
I read ya ... you wanted Redick Seriously though SWTsig, I understand what you're saying but I think you're exaggerating. No single player should be trying to lose. No single coach should be coaching to lose. I may have joked about it or been pissed about results, but that's a fact. However, there is no need to play for this season, continuing to roll out 30-somethings in the quest for meaningless wins. When you are playoff eliminated, winning should be secondary -- player development is primary. Minnesota benched KG and Ricky Davis and hoped to get Rashad McCants invaluable experience. Boston did them one better, benching every starter to get Gerald Green significant NBA time. You could clearly call that "tanking", but no player is trying to lose. In fact, part of the development is trying to get these guys to win. They are playing for next season, and adding the experience to the inexperienced atleast nets you something. Starting Deke, Howard and Wesley and having Howard play big minutes and take 19 shots does NOTHING for this team next year.
I feel like everybody on here have a right to be mad, out of everything that went bad: like trades (2 in particular) , injuries (2 in particular) and lost of a good draft pick!!.. Well, I look for your post next year when the rockets have David wesley starting at SG and still getting molested by the competition, we can watch roy thrashing somebody up on sportscenter from Minnestota
Welcome to NBA! They are professionals, they are paid for the team success. That team success meant a LOSS last night. Yeah, they were paid to win, did they win when it mattered? No team will delibertly drop games? Ever heard of a championship team - San Antonio Spurs? The big fundatmental? The great Pop? How did they get together? Take a wild guess! Integrity? Since when any big money involved professional sports had anything to do with integrity? The rules are there, you either take advantage of it, or you can watch others do. Integrity? Shouldn't every single Rockets player play exact by rules? When a foul committed but not called on them, should they report to the refs and beg them to correct? The rules are not perfect. The season is done long time ago, but you want to get something out from this painful losing season. A couple of points for those journey men are NOT in the interest of the team.
Ding ding ding...we have a winner..... This is exactly what I have been saying, and still can not believe that Lampje can not get into a game...wtf is that? DD
Not only that, but JVG recently said that a perimeter shooting PF is something he really wants, and yet every time Lampe gets into a game, they're posting him up. It makes absolutely no sense.
Ding Ding Ding.... another winner This is why JVG has got to go, what possible good did it do the team to substitute the players the way he did last night. Please for all the apologists what good came of that victory for the best interests of the Rockets and their future. What future gain is realized by playing David Wesley and Juwon Howard at this time of the year or Mutombo for that matter. This guy also has the gall to complain about the players he's stuck with when he engineered the majority of the moves. WTF is that????? And his chance to add something to the team by a future draft choice he f***'s up by winning the game last night and moves them further down the list. FIRE JVG. Again I'm officially on the bandwagon for getting rid of the Gundychild.
No team would do it? Sorry, but you are mistaken, and we don't have to look further than last night for the counterexample. The overwhelming evidence is that George Karl threw the game by sitting Carmelo and Miller for the entire fourth quarter. There can be no mistake about it: Karl tanked the game. JVG didn't have to tell his players to give up. He could have done what Karl did: benched Juwan and played Lampe instead. That would have been smart. Instead, JVG cost us 2 or 3 spots in the lottery. That could be very expensive indeed for the franchise, because the unnecessary win could cost us a starter in the draft. What JVG did was dumb, totally dumb.
So what can you do? George Karl wasn't tanking the game - he was protecting his players for the playoffs. Houston won a game because the players played and the coaches coached. We all want Houston to have a great pick, but c'mon - Golden State won some games, Seattle won a game, and Minnesota might win their last game. We still might get a decent pick. The whole lottery system is set up to stop teams from tanking...I think all this anger is besides the point. People are putting way too much importance on draft picks - which are just as likely to be a bust as a contributor.
Although I think JVG should definately have been playing guys like Lampe over Howard, I am not all that upset over the win. We've got a few guys on this team like Bogans, Head, and Hayes who play their ass off. It's refreshing. Hopefully some teams lose, and we get the number 8 pick. Never play to lose, but play your young guys in meaningless games in order to find out what you have.
Yeah your right. Now if we could only get the players to play and coach to coach when it counts will be champions. Why doesn't anyone get it. The players are not at fault they are supposed to play hard and they should be commended on that. But there is no reason for Howard are anyone else that is going to increase are chances of winning to be on the court. I will give the exception for Luther Head who can benefit from playing time and is one of the better players we have left. But Karl deliberately pulled his best players in order to lose and JVG was not smart enough to do the same. And don't tell me he was trying to win, but he was so confident we were going to lose. And then George Karl pulled one over on him. It was a pure display of out tanking the other and happened so fast JVG couldnot adjust. He didnot think he had to pull out Juwan like he did against Minnesota. George Karl pulled all of his best players and the others started shooting nothing but crazy shots and fouled unnecessarily and had eisley deliberately Dribble into a trap something Eisley would almost never done before. And then he calls a timeout to draw a 20 foot jumper, brilliant Carmelo was screaming on the sidelines let me in, let me in", He wanted to get in the last play so he could pad his game winning shot stats but Karl would have none of it. And don't tell me Karl was trying to protect his player from injury. Nope , not buying it, if he wanted to protect them so much he wouldn't have even played them in the early part of the game. Somewhere along the way Karl said look at this chump JVG he is not even trying to win. Well I'll teach them, I am not going to be the sucker who helps them get a better pick. If you need more proof watch the end of the game again. The team is jumping up and down excited about the win. And Van Dummy looks in shock and no that normal indifferent kind of look like you can't tell if we won or lost, This was much different like oh **** I can't beleive ithappened. F*&!ng Karl, he f*%#ed me bad. Watch the tape there's no lying in that face. Van Dummy thought the loss was a lock and Karl outsmarted him.
JVG should be canned. No foresight and his ego/pride clouds his decisions. Once we couldn't make the playoffs all vets should have been shut down, period. Pretty much the final straw in my book.
totally agreed. If he plays the young'uns and wins, okay fine, I can handle that. But Dike, Wesley, Juwan? Cmon. JVG put himself above the team. I am no longer a JVG fan.
Yes, exactly. I began suspecting that JVG's selfishness was getting out of hand when he called out T-Mac for not working hard enough -- after getting a 25-pt game from Tracy. The guy was visibly hurting from a bad back and probably shouldn't have been playing. But he played, scoring 25 points on 9/20 shooting, grabbing 7 boards, and dishing out 4 assists -- and JVG wanted more? <a href="http://www.nba.com/games/20060301/PHIHOU/boxscore.html?nav=page">See for yourself</a>. I was appalled by JVG's greed, pushiness, and short-sightedness. We all know what happened a few games later: T-Mac reinjured himself badly enough to end his season (and ours too). And let's not even mention why Yao was playing in a meaningless game. How greedy and short-sighted can one coach be?
All I was pointing out was you were wrong in assuming Karl was trying to win to get homecourt advantage in the first round. That had already been decided. Simple as that.
