I am very impressed with Van Gundy this year. 1. The team is coming together much faster than anyone anticipated. Much of this is due to the fact that we have veteran players that play smarter. Much of this is the fact that Van Gundy is getting the players to buy in. JVG the quasi GM helped JVG the coach. 2. JVG recognizes Tmac for the talent he is and has given him the green light to make plays, has opened up the offense. Big decision, correct decision. 3. JVG has managed Yao well. Yao gets rest when he looks listless. Yao has received the ball in better low post position, while on the move, with better timing than at any point in his career. Frankly, it's time for Yao to rise to the occasion. 4. JVG has managed Boki well. Boki was forced to earn his playing time and now understands that he has to play efficiently and effectively on both ends of the court. 5. JVG was right to give MoTay the green light. The guy is a consistent offensive threat and makes pretty good decisions. I'd like to see Mo dump the ball to Yao more, but it's hard to fault him for taking open shots when his defender is giving Yao a lap dance. 6. Ward has impressed me as well. He is solid. makes few mistakes, does his part in running the offense. I'd give Van Gundy a 7 out of 10 so far.
6/10 On the offensive side, I don't believe it's him having such a great offense or even preaching it, I think it's because of Mcgrady being too good and makes it look easy. On the Defensive side, we're still gellin together as a cohesive unit, but in time I think we'll be okay.
He obviously supports TMac's decision making and understand his skills and has definately given TMac freedom in the offense. The offense is basic, has motion, screens, P&R, and low post iso for several positions. It is a good 1/2 court offense if you execute and make the pass. The offense utilizes Yao in the post, and TMac's ability to create. JJ and Ward must be steady and hit the wide open 3 ball at a good % I think JVG has done a great job handling time outs, rotation and adjusting to the new players. His system may not be the best in the league, but it will be very successful if executed. I think this team buys that.
5/10. 90.1 PPG. 3-3. Average, average, average. The offense is a mess. Defense hasn't coalesced, but has signs of getting better.
I'd give him a B- I'm very encouraged to see that he is allowing McGrady to act as a point forward and create. I'm surprised to see that he's installed Taylor as the #3 guy on the court, deeming his offense more impt than his defensive issues. This may be a very good decision, considering that MoT has proven that he can get you points in the post consistently. The rest of his offensive coaching, as usual, leaves a bit desired, despite new wrinkles added to help Yao get the position that he so routinely can't get on his own (cross screens, etc). Very little weakside cutting or off-ball movement. Defensively, I can't really get a handle on whether JVG's not stressing it as much as before, or if this group doesn't have the chemistry or personnel to dig as well as last year. My money's on the latter. The biggest question for JVG, as far as I'm concerned, is whether he can develop Yao Ming. Yao is still far behind where a franchise center should be in many areas; mostly in establishing himself down low, sealing the defender, catching the entry pass, and making an immediate strong move. JVG inherited a Ewing in his prime, he has to teach Yao. So far, I'm not sold if he will do that. Last night's game was encouraging, IMHO. I have a feeling the team will be solid by January, which is great. Evan
even with slow charlie, undersized jj, and our PF's we STILL and a very good defensive team. without going into too much detail i will just say this. defense is half the game so i give him 5/5 so far. now for offense. its really not hard to score with tmac and yao surounded by shooters like ward, jj, even our pf's can hit the mid range J. the fact that jeff likes to slow down the game makes the offence look bad, but we are still doing a nice job of scoring, running plays, getting open looks and easy shots. since offence is the other half of the game i will give him 3/5. overall 8/10. that is up from last year's where i wouldn't give him any points for the offence....now i see that it wasn't jeffs fault that we couldnt score last year.
Yao has progressed a lot in my opinion. Even in the last few days. He's getting to the line, he holding the ball high, he's dominating during stretches of the game, he's running the court, and last night he got fronted and still received the ball. I like what he's doing out there in his 3rd year.
I give him a 7.5/10. The offense is starting to come together, as is the defense. With a completely new team, they look to be improving steadily.
8/10 His coaching really showed last night when we took a loaded Minnesota team down to the wire, despite missing our only two athletic creators and finishers in Sura and TMac. The only way we were even in that game was through teamwork, especially when Yao was out. We might have won the game if Garnett and Cassell weren't so on their games. We consistently run good plays out of timeouts, and his insistence that MoT practice shooting 3s has started paying off. The better MoT shoots, the easier it's going to be for him to feed Yao. We are also pushing the ball better than last year and have fewer stupid turnovers. (this may not solely be a JVG thing) However, we still have too many turnovers, so I'm only giving him 4/5 for offense. On defense, we have quarters where we give up too many open shots. We don't force many TOs, and we have trouble securing defensive boards. Not all of this is on JVG, but I can't give him 5/5 on defense either...so 4/5.
I cant see all the games so my point of view may be a lil skewed but I think our offense still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. We rely too much on someone trying to create *usually TMac or Yao for the others instead of having a solid offensive set. IMO But our ball movement is better than last year and it seems we are controlling our turnovers better.. (less TO's from carelessness than in previous years) I hope JVG utilizes his bench more and earlier than in years past to make sure everyone gets some minutes and learns the game. We have not blown out a team in a while so I expect us to blow out the lakers. J
I'll go with a 7.9 One thing I wonder about is why he waits so long into a possession before Yao gets the ball. On any normal possession, Yao flashes to one side of the paint, usually the left posts his man but instead of receiving the pass there, he runs away through the paint, alot of times setting a screen and then reposting on the right side where he finally receives the ball. The problem as I see it is this usually takes a good 15-18 seconds to execute up to this point leaving little time for the "extra pass" that made prior dump it down offenses in Houston really go, also alot of it could contribute to Yao's quick fatigue problems. I remember when Dream was here, it was up the court and straight into Dream, where he would wait for the double team and if it came the ball went back out and was swung around to the open three point shooter or if the double was slow Dream scored, very simple and also very efficient. I am also aware how it easy it was for this offense to turn players with great open court talent into a stagnant three point shooters and I do not want this from T-Mac. On our basic offensive set, what are the goals we want to accomplish. Is the sole purpose of all the screens and motion simply to use as much of the clock as possible because even with all of this the result is usually the same, into Yao or a Tmac or MoTay jumper.
With the offensive talent we have, the Rockets would score at least as many point without JVG. I don't think anyone would argue that JVG is an average offensive coach at the best. Rate: 3/10 Defense is all motivation and effort, so I'll give him the credit there. Rate 8/10. So I'll give him 5.5 out of 10 so far this season.
In terms of developing Yao Ming, I give JVG a 7.3/10. Getting yao to play the low post power game is a difficult task. And it remains to be seen if he will be successful or not. But I can't think of any other coach who could have done better at getting yao to where he is now (in terms of the power game).
The problem is, even if the Rockets executes the JVG offense perfectly, they still will never score many points. It's just a matter of not having enough posessions because of the slow pace. Lengthy, half-court offensive plays are perfect for this Rockets team. It allows Yao to play longer by shortening the game. It enhances the value of our role players, who are smart and can work the half court game, but don't have the athleticism for much running. But this type of offense will rarely lead to high scoring games. And JVG will never be seen as more than a crappy offensive coach. So far, I must say our defense has been pretty bad. We're letting opponents shoot an inordinate amount of FTs. Meanwhile we're not holding opponents to the incredibly low FG% that we did last year. Teams are getting good shots against us, which just shouldn't happen. It's still early, but I give JVG a 6/10. But that's mainly for his ability to get this team to play together so quickly with such a schedule. But the Rockets better not continue to flounder at the .500 mark.
Keep in mind that now you don't have to wait for the double, it is already there, That is a major difference.
First off I am a big JVG fan. I have always thought of him as a high quality coach and was excited when the Rockets went after and signed him. As for the job he has done for the Rockets, I think it is great. Do you think that we would be any better off, either in terms of record this year, or the path we are on, if we had a different coach? Would Eric Musselman, Jeff Buzdellimlooking forajobick, Mike Dunlavey, Hubie Brown, Rudy T, or anybody else be doing much better. Even Phil Jackson and Larry Brown, in my opinion, could not have made us significantly better.
