Sometimes the way he micro-manages an offense can have negative effects on shooters. When players think too much bad things happen to their shots. When their shots stop dropping it has negative effects on the rest of their game...particularly when they are loosing. There is a reason that all of his teams have been offensive sloth’s. And there is a reason why the Rockets were probably his best offensive team ever during the 2nd half of last season. David Wesley, Jon Berry, Mike James were all players that came in after the season started with no off-season or training camp or preseason with JVG. Like wise Bobby Sura basically had no pre-season or training camp with JVG. And yet these were the players specifically responsible for changing the way our offense played last year after the horrific start. They basically came in and played their style of offensive games and the teams offensive made dramatic improvements. -The fast break showed up, -the outside shots started dropping, -ball movement was the best I had seen on the Rockets in a decade -the team was making assists like they were Sacramento -and all of a sudden we went from one of the worst offensive teams to one of the best. Hell we were scoring over a 100 pts a game on a regular basis! So what is the difference this year? Mike James is gone and Bob Surra is injured. But are those two the only reason the Rockets started playing better and passing better last year? Wasn't Rafer Alston suppose to come in with the perfect skills to run this offense? Wasn't Derrick Anderson suppose to bring proven outside shooting to this team? With most of the players back from last years core; Yao, T-Mac, Howard, Wesley, Berry , shouldn't the team have improved after playing the better part of a season together along with a full off-season, training camp and pre-season.? When training camp started didn't it look like the Rockets were passing and playing with the same intelligence that they ended last season with? All right so here is my theory. JVG has had an entire training camp to get into the heads of his players. To make them think instead of react. Every time down the court seams to be filled with players trying to figure out what they want to do on offense and indecisions. Players unsure if they should take wide open shots. Players indecisive about where to pass. I have always believed that JVG micro manages an offense and I have always thought that it hurt his teams. I am not saying that the team will not come around at some point, maybe when T-Mac gets healthy, but it just does not look like they have a clue about what they are suppose to do on offense and I think that falls on the coach. We are not talking about a raw, young team...we are talking about a team full of veterans that have been above average ball handlers and decision makers their entire careers. These same players look totally clueless on offense right now. Perhaps the loss of Bob Surra really did ruin this team or maybe when T-Mac comes back we will suddenly start playing like we did at the end of last year. Personally I think JVG needs to quit coaching offense all together and maybe we will see the team loosen up and start playing like they did at the second half of last season.
Sura was never mistake free, but did play with fire and had that insatiable desire to win. Seemed to give him a get out of jail free card with Gundy. Bobby is such an animal on the court he never let Gundy psych him. Perhaps he can become an assistant coach while recuperating and coach the rest of the team in attitude. Elie would have been good at this as well. I think Gundy thinks he is doing this but it seems like all he ends up doing is irritating some players - he is probably like someone I know who just talks too much and explains the same principle over and over and over again, until you just want to slap them. I think Gundy needs to learn some people need time to train their brains and muscles to change from old ways to Gundy ways - and it takes doing it, not just talking about it. But Gundy consistently puts a low scoring offense on the floor.
I don't have a clue why I am going to try to take a drink of water from an open-valved fire hydrant... It seems pretty simple to me. It's a team built to provide spot up shooting around one dominant player and one semi-dominant player. The Rox average 80 or so points and the difference between starting Bowen vs starting McGrady is 20+ points. Would we really be having this discussion if the Rox were averaging 100+ ppg? I will reluctantly admit that my life is out of balance. I have NBALP and I watch waaaaaayyy too much NBA BBall. For the life of me, I genuinely can't see what in hell some posters are whining about. Easily 50% of what the Rockets run are standard NBA plays. There are only three teams I can think of that vary notably from the norm. 40-50% of the time, the Kings & Nets run motion offense when they are not running standard PnR's or 2 man strong side games. Contrary to popular belief, the Lakers do not run the triangle every set. They ISO Kobe strong side, run PnR's for him and very frequently use the 2 man game. If I had to describe VG's offensive coaching philosophy, this is how I would do it. Everything starts on the defensive end. This has a long and strong precedent in NBA Championship games. When you get possession of the ball, you force transition tempo as much as possible to gain mismatches. If there is nothing availble in transition, you ran a long set filled with multiple screens. Does it take some learning to figure where you are supposed to be? Yes. Does it take some smarts to figure out how to react to taking what the defense gives you? Yes. Can it bog down if the energy level is below average on a given night? Yes. Do we have a new PG? Yes. Are our spot up shooters missing wide open shots like they did at the start of last season? Yes. For the current year, has VG added another series with more foul lane back picks? Absolutely YES. Is this all too difficult for grown men who do it for a living? IMHO, no! Again, I'm have no idea why I am posting this. I tape every game and watch it multiple times and just can't figure where the "he can't coach offense" thing comes from.
Why are his teams regularly some of the least productive offenses? This goes back to the Knicks. Low scoring slow it down offense. Not a lot of fast breaks? I am not stating facts in my post just opinions. The jist of this thread is simple...what is wrong with the offense? You blame it on a new point guard but Wesley has been in the system about a year now. When our team started really doing good last year it was when a new player that had little time at all with the team took over the PG role...Bob Sura. Sura is not even a natural point like Raef was suppose to be. You also lay blame on the fact that T-Mac has been hurt or absent in every game this year. Ok but with or with out T-Mac we should not be 3 and 11. Why is it that this team has had such a slow start. Other teams have had to deal with changes too but how many have flopped out of the starting gate like us? I don't think anyone can deny that players have looked lost on the floor many times even with T-Mac in the game...both on offense and defense. You can see players hesitating when they have open shots...not sure if they should shoot or pass. Why? The bottom line is that it is the coaches responsibility to get his players ready for the start of the season and for the second strait year JVG has failed very bad. I am not calling for his head…he has won almost 60% of his games prior to this season, but I am looking for reasons that the offense is so bad. Now last year we pulled out of it and had a 50+ win season and I am by no means prepared to say that it will not happen again. But damn man we are 1 and freakin 5 at home to start the season! When we were passing the ball around and fast breaking like one of the best teams in the league last year we were doing it with point guards and back court players that came in well after the season had started and they meshed like they had been playing together their whole life. So now I am supposed to except that many of these same players with just a couple of new additions need more than a training camp, pre-season and a dozen regular season games to figure it out? If you say so. Last year our back court is what turned our season around...this year a rookie seems to be its most consistent player and I am just looking for reasons.
Gater: I respect your opinion, I just wonder how do you attribute the terrible execution of pick and roll - something you admitted - to the coach and the players?
crash - Since you genuinely appear to want discussion and not a lynching, let's take this piece by piece.... First, how are we defining "least productive offense"? If a team takes 100 shots and makes 43 of them, are they more "productive" than a team that took 80 shots but only made 40 of them? It should be obvious that the 100 FGA team was more "productive"...but they were far less "efficient". VG's '96 Knicks won 57 games and were 19th of 29 teams in ppg. They were ~8 ppg behind the league high Bulls, ~5 ppg behind the #6 Rockets and ~8 ppg above the least "productive" Cavaliers. Now, let's take a look at the FGA's of the above 4 mentioned teams.... CHI - 6,923 -> 84.4 FGA/g HOU - 6,484 -> 79.0 FGA/g NYK - 6,227 -> 75.9 FGA/g CLE - 5,972 -> 72.8 FGA/g How seldom does anyone here describe the '96 Rockets as a slow down team? However, the difference between the #6 Rockets and the #19 Knicks was less than 1 FGA per quarter. BTW, for perspectives sake the #3 scoring NBA team in '96 was Jason Kidd's PHX Suns...they were 40-42. First, I am not assigning "blame" to any one person or one thing. The "single point of failure" concept should be roundly booed off of this board by all fans of the game in general and Rox in particular. Secondly, Wesley is not new to the team but he is new to running the point and the PnR. He is a spot up shooter who is fairly decent in transition O. He's a SG in a PG's body. But he's still a SG. And he's an older player coming off of knee surgery. The difference between Sura and Wesley as PG is huge IMO. Sura is 4-5" taller and is more capable as a driver. He's also younger the DW. Very much to the contrary. There is no reason to believe that we should have won any of the last 6 games when our second most productive player has been a rookie. And we have played 6 teams with a combined current record of 49-24 (67%). Personally, I think losing 6 games by a total of 50 points when you are starting Ryan Bowen instead of McGrady is actually not too bad. You bring up "other teams" not flopping out of the gate. I think it's a fair question...what other good team has has to deal with the loss of two starters from the prior season and not missed a beat? We are missing both McGrady and Sura from the 51 win team. (And no, the Suns don't count because the players they got for Joe Johnson are playing equal to Johnson and they still have Nash and I would define 7-5 as "flopping" compared to their last seasons' 10-2 start). Nope...won't deny hesitation or looking lost. I've observed it myself. But again, Wesley is not last years' Sura, Head is a rookie playing both PG and SG, Ryan Bowen "hesitated" last year, and DA is entirely new and very rusty. And although I was one of the strongest supporters for acquiring Stro, I am dissapointed...thus far. (I'll gloss over Alston because I personally never had a high expectation). Why? Because VG is asking them to do something they have never done before or never done to an ultra high level. Play lock down D, run a controlled break and then run a lengthy inside-out half-court set based. Do you think post entry passing was something Luther Head did every day at Illinois? . How many reasons do we need? I've given you at least a dozen! Sometimes it just comes down to players hitting wide open shots. Forget about how they got wide open...fast break, motion offense, PnR, ISO, inside-out, outside-in, triangle, flex, 2 strong with weakside screens...it ultimately comes down to hitting an open shot. And just like last year, the Rockets are getting them. IOW and IMHO, it has nothing to do with the offense we are running so much as we have shooters in a slump. If they continue to slump, Les will address it. But it has absolutely nothing to do with the offense VG is installing. crash - I would be greatly flattered if you "'took my word for it". But what would be more beneficial for us all if you do this. Tape a Rockets game. As you tape, enjoy the game in real time and scream your butt off...I usually do. Then go back and watch the tape. Watch the weakside screens, watch the double high post sets, slow motion some sets. Genuinely and analytically watch the game. The Rockets have plenty enough quality offensive sets to get wide open shots for their players. I don't have a "single point of failure" answer to your inquiry. I strongly don't think there is one. But I also feel VG is doing a very adequate job of getting the team open looks. He'll be the one who loses his job if they continue to miss. And that's the way it should be. But to singularly blame VG's lack of offense coaching ability when he gets his players wide open looks is flat out ranting and "hate". In closing, I dealt in too much detail and did not do a very good job of addressing "fastbreak". In a nutshell...Sura and McGrady (and Mike James) pushed tempo. Wesley and Head don't...yet. One of the reasons I was anti-Alston is I figured him for one who didn't push tempo. So far, I've been right.
Panda - Thanks for the compliment. Read Jeff's response here.... http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=104970&page=2 I "rode his coattails" toward the end.
GATER, First of all...very nice analysis and believe me when I say I respect your views. Having said that why do you think our second most productive player is a rookie when we have Yao Ming, Derick Anderson, Juwan Howard and until a game ago..Jon Berry? I don't know but I see other teams in the league with what I think is less talent...even with T-Mac out that seem to be a lot more in sync than us. With Alston I feel we may have been dealt a placebo. What in fact was advertised has not happened. He was suppose to be great at the fast break and pushing the ball up the court. We were suppose to get into our offensive sets much faster because of him but as we both know that has not been the case. I don't mind if we only take 80 shots a game as long as the other team is also being held to around 80 shots. But even if we hit 47% of our 80 shots, if the other team is taking 10 to 15 more shots because we are turning the ball over or running out the shot clock shooting 47% is not going to help. Living in Dallas and watching the Mavs a good deal as well as listening to Don Nelson for years on the radio I have come to the belief that a good open shot should never be passed up. The worst thing that happens from missing a wide open shot is...missing a wide open shot. Passing on wide open shots give the defense time to collapse on the post or adjust and react. The Rockets consistently pass or hesitate when they have wide open shots. It kills me every time I see a player on the perimeter with the ball in his hands and no one with in 10 feet hesitate because he trying to decide if he should pass or shoot. It completely blows my mind when ever I watch Yao Ming catch the ball five feet from the basket and being guarded by a 6'9" defender and then pass the ball back out to someone 22' away. For the life of me I can't understand why when Yao flashes to the center of the paint 5' from the goal and one man guarding him the guard on the perimeter hesitates until the defense sends help or Yao has to vacate because of the 3 second rule. Why? The one thing Nellie always preached was that the whole point of ball movement and running offensive plays was to get a good shot. He always said he could handle players missing shots he just could not handle them passing up open shots. If you were not going to shoot the ball when you had an open shot then he was going to put your butt on the pine. Nellie may not have ever won an NBA championship but he sure had some damn good teams and I don't think anyone can question his ability to coach offense. I don't think any of us here are questioning the fact that JVG is coaching basically the same offensive plays as the rest of the league. But how does he coach it and what does he stress is most important. I remember Vernon Maxwell talking about playing for Larry Brown years ago in San Antonio. He credited Brown for improving his game by demanding that he run hard off of picks so he could create some separation from his defender and get a good open shot. He said no coach had ever demanded that of him before so he would just trot around the pick. To me that is just an example of how different coaches may coach the same plays but may stress the execution of those plays differently. We will probably never know for sure where JVG places his priorities when practicing offense. We can only go by what we see on the floor and that is a lot of indecision. The 4th quarter of the Bulls game was a thing of beauty even though we lost. For almost the 1st time this season I saw players just playing and not out their thinking. There was a real effort to get the ball into the post with out any hesitation. When Yao was open the pass was made just like that. No time to think twice. When a man on the perimeter was wide open he took the shot with out hesitation. What I want to see is not so much the ball going in the basket (although that would be nice) but I want to see players taking their open shots, I want to see players passing the ball into the post with out hesitation when there is a pass to be made. If the ball does not drop then the damn thing just does not drop...sometimes that is just how it goes but I never believe that there is a good reason for players not knowing when to pass or shoot...and I never think there is a good reason for running out the shot clock. My God I did not mean to ramble on so much. My apologies.
GATER: I totally agree 100%. And, like you, I don't know why I get into these debates. I think it is indicative of our general outlook as a society that we search for one solution to a problem that is incredibly complex and has many contributing factors. In the case of the Rockets, you can blame: Poor execution on offense Poor execution on defense Injuries (particularly the loss of T-Mac) New players Defensive that limit post players An unusally poor shooting start for many normally good shooters A tough schedule Lack of effort for 48-minutes Deficiencies defensively on the perimeter I could make a list that was 50 items deep if I wanted to, but what's the point? The fact is that the Rockets are a bad basketball team right now doing many of the same things that other teams around the league do, but just doing them worse than most. Who here thinks that San Antonio or Detroit, the two teams with the last four championship rings, are built around their offense? Their offense is actually more limited overall than the Rockets. They just clamp down on defense and know how to finish.
Personally, I think our biggest problems are a lack of rebounding, and turnovers. We would probably have won 50% of the games we lost, if we had done better in those two areas. The truth is, Yao is not a very good rebounder, and neither is Swift. Howard has his moments, but he can hardly be classified as a "good" rebounder. I've noticed a few things: 1. teams get 2nd and 3rd chance opportunities to score on us because we don't box out, and can't rebound the basketball. 2. we give games away by turning the ball over. It seems like half the time we try to dump the ball down low to Yao, it results in a turnover. We need to make adjustments in that department. 3. we are shooting like crap. We really lack a consistant stroker from the perimeter, something that is vital if we are going to have real sucess in the post. 4. our guards are getting beat off the dribble far too much. There's not much we can do in this department, except play Head 40 minutes a night. In all, I am not ready to flip out just yet (see last year for details); however, if we don't address these obvious problems, I don't see how we can be considered contenders, even is a weak Western conference.
Jeff, You are correct that SA and Det are built around defense. But one of the main reasons the offense on those teams does not score a lot of points IMO is because they push opposing offenses so deep into their own shot clock. I think Houston’s lack of offensive points is more because of their own offense running into the shot clock or turning the ball over. Couple that with the lack of knowing what to do with the ball when they have it and we have witnessed the end result for almost an entire month. The problem has been so much more than just missing open shots. I think that there is too much talent on the Rockets for them to be this bad. As I said earlier I'm not saying that it will not turn around. I do believe that once they start having a little success that it will build on itself. I also believe that JVG has earned a mulligan for the teams success from last year. But when there are so many problems that fall back on execution and not just the injury bug or missing open shots then I think the coach certainly has to shoulder the brunt of the blame. It is no different from any other team or sport.
Look at all these quality teams they have at least 2 people who can create off the dribble and look for their own shot. SA has Ginobili and Parker... Detroit has billiups and hamilton. Indiana had Reggie and Jackson and Artest. The point is outside of Tmac we have no one else who can fill it up. The sad thing is this is a league of scorers and we can't find another one. Reality is Luther Head should be starting at the point and we need another swing man. Look at cleveland they added Hughes to Lebron and its worked. THats our need and lets hope we can get it done this season.
I don't know...I like what I believed the basic philosophy was when this team was constructed. And that was...or at least I thought...surround Yao and T-Mac with intelligent players that took care of the ball, passed very well, played great team defense and could hit the open shot when defenses doubled Yao and T-Mac. With both Yao and T-Mac on the floor a person should not have to create his own shot as long as the Rockets know how to pass and shoot because someone will always be open. I think Reaf, Dereck, Luther and Wesley are all adequate at taking the ball to the basket when they need to be.
