"something to do with" =/= full reason. Two stress factors in two seasons playing the heaviest minutes of your career and stretches where you play 12-14 mins at one time with no break has at the very least some factor into things. Stop intentionally cherry picking. You're a joke. Not gonna respond to the 5th grade banter in the rest of your post. Troll elsewhere.
At the risk of inserting an opinion where is is not wanted: 1: Adelman is a first ballot HOF coach. His version of motion/R&R was a joy to watch. 2: Adelman did not want to install an offense that absolutely minimized the mid-range shot. Morey did not renew his contract. Within 18 months Morey had booted in one way or another every single player on Adelman's roster. 3: Morey hired McHale, who ceded offensive strategy to the FO. McHale rolled successfully with some serious punches last season ("So coach I just traded away your entire PF rotation in the middle of a playoff race. Play the rookies."). McHale's team still made the playoffs. McHale successfully integrated a completely new roster and a completely new offensive strategy over the last 16 months. McHale seems to be a success. I doubt many coaches could have kept their sanity. Adelman certainly would not. 4: Adelman seems to be having serious trouble in Minny. I wish him the best and hope things turn around for him and the franchise soon. Just my 2 cents worth. My view of the history of the Rockets over the last 34 months. I hope I have not just pissed everyone off.
What exactly do you mean "who cares"? I'm certainly sure all the real Rocket fans who followed the Rockets back then cared. Rick Adelman did a remarkable job gettin that prepared every nite, even though we were outmatched 95% of the time. That certainly counts for a lot It has a lot to do with everything when judging a coach's performance. How doesn't injuries to your 2 biggest superstars not mean anything? I'm not sure you even followed Rocket basketball post Harden. Your posts are just dripping with inaccuracies Remarkable series. We lost, but that series should've never been close. Again, you sound like your hatred for RA is personal. Oh noooooow I get it. Just as I expected, your a bias Daryl Morey fan who has no sense of reality. FYI, that roster was nothing special and most Morey's moves were lateral moves. Now he deserves all the credit? Um, no. GM's don't deserve credit for building a below average roster. Did Morey implement the Princeton offense too?
You all really need to stop the "real Rockets fan" bit. It's overplayed and silly. It makes you look like a fool. Who cares if we won one series? That shouldn't be what a franchise strives for. His point was that Adelman had the most injury plagued roster of any coach we've had in recent past. JVG had injuries to both his superstars as well. There is nothing inaccurate about that. Hey, I have an idea. instead of throwing out vague comments like "your posts are dripping with inaccuracies" and backing them up with gems like "i'm not sure you even followed Rocket basketball post Harden" (you meant pre btw) why don't you point out these inaccuracies so they can be openly debated? It's all would have, should have, could have. In the end it's irrelevant. We still lost. We also got blown out in every game we lost. I don't think it was "close." I do think however that Adelman did a remarkable coaching job during that series and deserves a lot of credit. I also think you're trying to express that we should have never won games in that series after Game 1. Which I believe you are absolutely right on and it was a joy to watch. Adelman's offense had a lot to do with the reason behind that. Brah, if you don't watch out SwoLy is going to come out of the shadow and correct your grammar like you've never seen before. Btw, what are you going on about? We've had winning records still even after Adelman. Morey has built this squad (Which is what I have to assume you're commenting on because there's no other rosters being discussed and I don't know what "that" roster is referring to) which is in no way a below average roster. He's pulled off amazing trades time and time again which are not lateral moves. Was trading Rafer for Kyle Lowry a lateral move? How about V-Span for Scola? There was also Ariza for Lee. Oh, what do you think about K-Mart for James Harden? Also, he didn't implement the Princeton offense (which isn't fully what Rick Adelman's offense even is, since you were trying to say that). But he sure did implement our current offense and defensive systems. As well as our pace and pretty much everything else. What do you know, we're in the top tier in the NBA for all those categories. So, yes, Morey deserves a lot of credit for being key (since no one ever said all the credit) in molding this team from the dying corpses of Yao/McGrady/Adelman into his image of success in just 6 years. Now we just have to wait to see how the Rockets perform in the playoffs the next few years to pass final judgment. The outlook is great though.
You have an excellent post and great appreciation of Rockets History. Like the real History, not one where false statistics or hypothetical scenarios are prevalent. You care about what really happened. Thank you.
Thank you sir. Morey basically rolled the dice with the coach, with the roster, with everything. And things seem to have turned out splendid. I am so happy!
An odd standard that McHale has somehow yet to meet. Wait - so you really think this same team would be doing worse under Rick than they are with McHale? Uh....so? Are other teams beating down our doors trying to interview Finch or something? Since when is getting Finch some big coup? What evidence do you have that Finch has improved this team more than any other 3rd assistant would have? This is just crazy. You're trying to make the case that Howard would be in LA right now if Rick Adelman had been the Rockets' coach? As if Rick Adelman is someone that players don't like playing for. Good lord. Ask Kyle Lowry about that. Unbelievable. Of course he might complain about that, as would any other coach. When you are told that winning is all that matters, and the GM is constantly shuffling the roster, it makes it hard to accomplish that. Do you really think McHale was hired under the same conditions as Rick? I doubt when Rick was hired that he was told "we're not really trying to be a contender right now, so expect a lot of roster changes and here's your coaching staff, offensive scheme and defensive scheme. Now shut up and go do what we tell you". That would be on the GM. You know, the guy who's the coach's boss. I like how when the GM makes a move we don't like, we can conveniently blame it on the coach if it fits our agenda. I'll get right on that. Yeah. I'm sure Rick forgot how to coach since 2008, or 2011 for that matter when he coached a team with no all-stars to the 4th best offense in the league. Sorry. We can't all be like you and never speculate. Yes, the team has a good record. We'll see what happens in the playoffs. And poor McHale, having his roster turned over into 2 max players. It's eerily similar to the roster upheaval that Doc Rivers had to endure when Garnett and Ray Allen came aboard. I don't know how those guys do it. I guess having your stars play almost every game counts as "adversity" somehow in your world. Putting aside for a second the fact that he even has stars to begin with, which is every coach's dream. Are any of those stars injury-prone? Do any of those stars have a minute limit imposed upon the coach by management? I'm trying to pinpoint the diversity McHale has had to deal with compared to his predecessors, but I'm coming up empty. I'm sure you can help me out with that. Yawn. It's a players league. You win when you have the players. Let's at least win a playoff series before giving McHale credit for being the best Yes Man in the league.
Do you have any evidence that Rick blocked any moves that Morey would have made? This is so silly. The coach's boss is the GM. Morey made several moves that Rick didn't approve of but he still coached his ass off for this team. Granted, he did have reservations on Terrence Williams' value as an NBA player and expressed as much publically, much to the chagrin of Clutchfans, but unfortunately it turns out that he may have known what he was talking about with that one. This is also ignoring the obvious, which is that Leslie is the one who had a problem with Rick, not Morey. This is confirmed by Clutch. Morey claims that he wanted Rick back and it appears that the assistant coach lineup being up for debate was the only thing Rick couldn't tolerate. I'm sure Phil Jackson or Gregg Pop might have similar feelings on that subject.
The acquisition of Brad Miller nullifies any and all old Knick players who signed 10 day contracts under JVG. Brad Miller was hot garbage. JVG>Adelman
I am not sure that any of this is accurate. But I am not sure that it isn't. If I had to guess (and it is certainly just a guess) Morey got permission to tank. Adelman was just the first to go. Literally everyone was gone from Adelman's tenure within 18 months. Morey (and all of us fans) got incredibly lucky and snagged a backup shooting guard named Harden. Tanking just did not happen. The rest is history. Nothing stood in Morey's way, least of all Rick. Adelman was just part of of the collateral damage. Nothing more. He would not change and got shown the door. I would like to say that I love the Rockets offensive system. I watch a lot of games and every time I see an 18 foot shot go up I just go WTF?
As much as you like this offensive system with 2 max money All-Stars, Rick had a BETTER offense without them. Rick had a better offense with these guys: Spoiler Shane Battier Aaron Brooks Chase Budinger DeMarre Carroll Goran Dragic Mike Harris Chuck Hayes Jordan Hill Jared Jeffries Courtney Lee Kyle Lowry Kevin Martin Brad Miller Patrick Patterson Luis Scola Ishmael Smith Jermaine Taylor Hasheem Thabeet Terrence Williams Spoiler Rick the Ruler Strikes Again.
And I supposed you didn't bother to read the multiple posts where I said I was very happy to eat crow about the hire of McHale? Also how does complaining about a new hire compare to irrational hatred of a previous hire?
Umm once again how does criticizing a recent hire = dumping on a previous coach,to make yourself feel good about the current coach? future =/ past. And for that matter I at least admitted I was wrong and gladly ate crow over it. Because it is pathetic. You're standards of criticizing Adelman have been proven wrong and as I noted even your current standard of success praising McHale over Adelman is off since McHale hasn't had the same success that Adelman had with the Rockets/ Don't get me wrong but I fully hope McHale exceeds Adelman's success. And you are aware of how injured the T-Wolves have been this season too. Look I know how bad things are with the T-Wolves as I hear about them daily. I also agree that Adelman lost his mojo. What I'm not doing though is somehow going back retroactively in time to say that Adelman has always been a bad coach or making up stats to argue that. Frankly I don't know why you are so bitter about this.
I honestly think McHale will be our coach for a LONG time. He is absolutely growing as a coach and you can see it happening. He is adjusting better, knows when to play players and when not to and has installed an offense to maximize the strengths of his players. Sure our offense stutters in the half court a bit but when its on, oh boy it is hard to stop! Because we don't have set plays teams get worn out due to its unpredictability.
