Doesn't make it right, specially when he was the President of the NABC, and the fact that he did it again after been caught. He is a scumbag for what he did in Indiana.
People continue to misunderstand the type of coach McHale is. McHale is not some Napoleonic JVG type coach, totally tied up in his pompousness and imagined self importance. McHale is a leader of men (isn't that what Morey said about him shortly after he was hired?) who willingly delegates responsibility to his qualified staff. I cannot think of a better coach for this Rockets team. And evidently Morey agrees. Howard explicitly cited McHale as a reason to sign with the Rockets. How much more of an endorsement do you people need?
Yeah I really only think LOF's want to see McHale gone. I think he's the kind of coach you need with this young/talented roster. He's the glue... he reminds them to forget all of the nonsense and play with a certain attitude. You don't need a puppet-master coach to win.
I think this might overstate it a bit. I'm fine with McHale at this point. But "leader of men"? I don't see that in him...I find him to be pretty damn arrogant, too. And I don't see JVG as seeing himself as self-important. In fact, I find him to be quite self-deprecating....to the point of it being humorous. He seems to have no trouble making fun of himself.
http://www.nba.com/rockets/news/follow_the_leader_kevin_mchal_2011_06_03.html I was not making this up.
You chose the words of a paid Rockets journalist to describe what Morey was looking for...not necessarily what he found. If the article were written today and all the players were saying, "this man is unbelievable..a true leader of men...transcendent...etc" that would be great. I haven't seen "leader of men" out of Coach McHale yet. I'm sure the people in Minnesota would have a hearty laugh at that idea. I think he's a fine coach. Not a great coach. Time will tell if he's enough coach to get this team where it wants to go.
That "commenter" has zero credibility if his suggestion is that Jeremy Lin is a better player than Howard or Harden. Zero credibility. Also, post a link next time so we can see the source you're quoting from. In truth, I'm an "actual real life commenter." I comment a lot. And you can quote me on that.
I chose the first article in a Google search. And I specifically remember Morey saying those words. In the order that I quoted. Does the roster seem to be more than happy? Did not Howard cite McHale as a reason for signing with Houston? I fail to see where your opinion differs from mine.
I don't believe you! http://houston.culturemap.com/news/sports/10-11-13-global-joke-jeremy-lin-benching-proves-kevin-mchale-doesnt-respect-rockets-difference-maker/
"Knowing" basketball and being a great coach are very different things. Every coach in the NBA "knows" basketball. That's like saying a player "knows" basketball. This is the most elite basketball league in the world. There are very few coaches that do not "know" basketball. The question for me has been and always has been whether he can potentially be a championship/play off level coach, in other words, a coach that can impact the game sufficiently either positively, or smart enough to stay out of the way of the true offensive/defensive masterminds and the players. Statistical study after statistical study has shown that with very few exceptions Coaches have minimal impact on game win percentage. The fact is, outside of coaches like Pop, Doc Rivers, etc, VERY few coaches are able to elevate their players to any statistical significance. If we accept that it is statistically unlikely that McHale will be Pops 2.0 (there's only one Pops after all), then the best we can hope for from McHale is negligible positive impact, but more importantly NO negative impact. A mediocre coach isn't going to "help" a team by making them better, but that's not what you want from a mediocre coach. What you want from a mediocre coach is that they simply do NOT hurt the team. As for Dwight's comments, I don't doubt McHale's ability to coach Dwight in terms of his post play, however being a good skills coach does not necessarily translate into being a great team coach any more than being a good shooting coach translates into being a great Head coach. Like I said, for me the jury is out. It's a far cry from being a passable coach (80%+ of NBA coaches) and being a Good to Great coach (able to elevate the team in Play off/championship contention). Hopefully McHale is enough, but don't be surprised if he's not. As followers of the Clippers will acknowledge, sometimes "okay" isn't enough.
It's pretty clear from McHale bringing Lin off the bench last preseason game that the entire Rockets organization is out to sabotage Lin and his near certain future as the best PG on the planet. It's because Harden and Howard are jealous. They only WISH they could be the kind of playmaker he is! I hope Lin gets traded to a team that will APPRECIATE him and VALUE him. Also... my opinion has LITERALLY nothing to do with the fact that he is Asian-American. Not even a little bit. If his name was Dave Smith I would hold the same opinion of him as I do now. I REPEAT: I am not in any way influenced by the fact that Jeremy Lin is Asian-American. Thanks.
That's not the "commenter" whose opinion you shared who said that Lin was the best player on the team.
For those interested in reading more academic study of coaching in the NBA, here's a link to the PDF of the published paper by David Berri, where he studied 62 coaches over 30 years in the NBA, then analyzed their actual impact on the game once you excluded non-relevant variables. http://www.suu.edu/faculty/berri/IJSF4-2CoachingPaper.pdf You can hop down to page 87 for a list of the coaches that actually made a difference (14/62). In other words, unless you get the truly cream of the crop coaches, the best you can hope for is that the coach doesn't screw things up too badly. This is why I think it's generally best to focus on coaching errors vs the things they do right, unless you're talking best of the best like Pops and co.
see that's my biggest concern the coaching and MCHALE.. He is what what we needed previously but is he what we need NOW ??? but after this season we can sit back and see. It plays a big part on how he uses the rotation and drawing up plays in different situations. I can tell you right now if DOC or POP had this team we would be favorites in the west and ahead of the clippers and spurs and would go to the finals. That's why the media always has clippers ahead of us because they have DOC even though we have more talent. I'm ok with giving MCHALE this year to see but he needs to step up to the plate.
Torocan it has been a long time since I read one of your posts. As always thumbs up, way up. Is McHale a great coach? A transcendental coach? Not enough evidence to say one way or another. His Minnesota days as a coach were just "avert disaster" days as a coach. But I personally do not see any reason he could not be defined as such in the future. He has the talent, perhaps. He seems to have the trust and the buy in from the players. And as you almost said, winning a ring is way more about the players than the coach.
McHale might be smart, as quoted, but the personal who was sitting atop and carefully planning his every move, for the longevity of his job, was none other than Morey. To this day, I believe McHale was Les' hire. It was a calculated move if you think about it. Smart? He certainly couldve used more appropriate terms to describe quality traits in a good coach. Why do you think Morey used the word "smart" to describe McHale? It was for Les to hear that they had found the type of coach Les wanted to hire: a SMART coach! Here was the situation: Adelman left because of of conflict with Morey. What would've happened to Morey's job if he hired a coach of his choice and performed badly? Morey was way too smart enough to realize that his future as a Rockets GM depended on the coach he hired. He already chased away a possible HOF coach and hired an incompetent one? His GM job was as good as gone. His analytical approach to the game would be over. He probably wouldve become a laughing stock of NBA. Instead he came up with a brilliant idea of letting Les decided who to hire just to prolong his tenure for one more contract. McHale came as a recommendation by Ainge. Ainge believed ex-players make better coaches, which Morey disagreed. He thought highly of JVG whom I believe was the coach Morey really wanted to hire. He asked Les for feedbacks several times during the selecting process, and guess what the only trait Les wanted from his next coach? Yup, a SMART coach. Morey is totally blameless if McHale becomes a McFail. Genius!
