Rudy has never run a decent offense scheme. He has been a defensive coach since the start. If Rudy had Jordan instead of Hakeem, Rudy would have ISOed Jordan to death. And Jordan would have never won a ring. Rudy has a way of getting the best out of a single player, but the worst out of the rest of the team. Unless Rudy learns to run a 5-man offense (it's called a TEAM), we'll never see that smooth flowing Celtic type offense or the Showtime Laker ball. Ever! Never! No way, no how! Or even that fast paced King ball! Keep an eye on what happens this coming year when Rudy finds out that Boki and Yao have some pretty good offensive skill; he's going to ISO them to death. Real smart Rudy...NOT! Now tell me how that's making your team a TEAM? ISOs don't make a TEAM. They make for lazy coaching. That's what he did when Barkley came to the team. He found out that Charles could score at- will on the inside...So, Rudy had this brilliant idea..."Let's run the same play over and over and over and over and over again." Then, let's do the same with Hakeem." Uh, Rudy. How about running some plays that involve your other four players on the court? Reporter: "Rudy, how do you run a offense?" Rudy: "Give the ball to your best player and let them run around the court like a of chicken without a head...Now, move out of the way, it's time for my nap on the bench. " And someone tell Rudy to stop sticking his finger in his ear and then sniffing it all game long. He's done it twice on national TV. The camera has switched off of him, thank God. Good thing he didn't dig for gold and then munch that bogger. Oh, the shame! Now, THAT'S RUDY BASHING
I dont think your very smart, Rudy is not the best but he is far from what you described. My question is if he was so lazy, why did the organization for him to take a vaction after he went into the hospital for exhaustion? He coached the olympics, they only give that honor to good coaches you know. So many players love Rudy, there is a reason for that too. Bill Fitch couldnt pull an MVP outta Dream he could pull a championship outta Dream. Rudy is great, say it 60 times a minutes.......
Not lazy in defense. Lazy in designing a decent offense. It would be quite possible to win a title playing defense. But, really...what are the chances that Steve, Mobley and MoT playing defense? So, we are in trouble unless Rudy implements an offense that uses ALL his players! Not just ISOs.
Me and other posters have said this several times: Rudy had designed a new offense last year,probably to take advantage of the new rules. Since two starters pretty much went down in the beginning, and the pg and star player went out for 1/3 or so, he could not put the offense in. He used every player as a starter, so he never had enough time with the same group. That's why our offense was bad last year. As for the other years, there was illegal D and he probably took advantage of that with ISO's.
Rudy uses the talents of his players to get the most out of his team. Don't knock the dump it into Hakeem offense. In 1994 the team had one superstar and 7 very good complimentary players. It was the perfect offense for that group of players. These past couple of seasons, Rudy's had Cat and Francis. He's gotten the most out of them but without the supporting cast his hands were tied. This year the team will hopefully be healthy with serious talent 1-10 thanks to the additions of Nachbar and Yao as well as the development of Griffin and KT. With the exception of Cato, all of these guys can create, pass and shoot. It's Rudy's job to get this club to gel. I'll wait to see if he can get this team to play together before I crucify him.
Let's see if you see Rudy got the most out of Hakeem at the expense of other players I have to disagree. Horry did as well if not better with the Rockets than he's done in LA. Maxwell also played his best ball for Rudy. Mario Ellie who'd played all over the world, and couldn't land a stable spot on other teams, seemed to do just fine for himself under Rudy T. Otis Thorpe was actually an All Star under Rudy T. I would like to have seen ball movement out of the team last year too. But with all the injuries and the players on the team, how many plays would you call for Terrence Morris? And if you did, would that have made you a better coach than Rudy?
If you have ever seen Rudy or any of the coaches being interviewed they talk about playing the percentages. For example, at one point when discussing Cat a reproter asked Mike Wells why Mobley was ISOed so much. Mike Wells replied that if you broke the tapes down, Mobley scored 55% of the time he was isolated, and that 45% was considered excellent. Even when we had Hakeem in his prime the isolation offense worked. The only team that consistently gave us trouble was the Sonics, and if you were to go back and analysis game films you will see that Seattle used a zone (illegal) defense. They got away with it because they did it soo much that refs just viewed that as how they played, and if they were to call every single Illegal D we would have been on the line every time down the court. The bottom line is Rudy doesn't want to run ISO's every time down the floor, however we have a very young team and often times when the first option isn't there the ball handlers (Mooch, Mobley, or Francis) tend to go one on one. You will hear Rudy talk about spacing and ball movement all the time, this suggest that his offense is more sophisticated then bringing the ball down the court and going one on one. His offense is designed to spread the floor, attack the basket, and either go to the cup if it is there OR dish to the open man to knock down an open J or go to the cup again. The problem is not Rudy, the problem is ESPN and all other highlight shows. How often do you see guys knocking down 15-18 foot jumpers on ESPN - NEVER! You see dunks and 3's, and too many players have be come addicted to the difficult. It is tough to get all the way to the hole in the NBA, and the three point line is a long way away. All these young guys in the NBA want to be on ESPN though. Look at Kobe - he is coiming into his because he has found a mid-range game, and because of this he is unstoppable at times. When Steve and Cat decide to quit trying to dunk all the time and start taking the very open mid range jumpers that are there in Rudy's offense, they too will take the next step towards being super stars vs. being up and comers they are now. I hate to hear Rudy getting bashed because of a poor offense, when in reality it is poor execution do to having a young inexperienced team. I used to work with the Rockets, and I can promise you when they practice they actually run plays other then the ISO. It just takes having confidence that your team mates can come through in the crunch before you utilize this in actual game situations. I remember Jordan scoring 63 in a loss during the early years in his career. Eventually he figured out that the guys on the floor with him were there to help and the bulls became dominant. Rudy's offense is more sophisticated then given credit for, and he is an excellent coach. How many coaches would you trade Rudy for in the NBA - Jackson (he hasn't done anything without a team that didn't have 2 of the top 6 players on the league at the time), Brown ( is Philly's offense a whole lot different then ours?) There aren't any truly brilliant offensive coaches in the league now. SO GET OFF RUDY!!!!!!!!
David S, That was some of the best Rudy bashing I have seen in a while. It's nice to have someone here to fight against the newbie Rudy apologists. Good Job.
That was some of the best Rudy bashing I have seen in a while. It's nice to have someone here to fight against the newbie Rudy apologists. Good Job. Who are you calling an apologis and a newbie? We are simply saying that Rudy T. may not be the entire problem...We know for a fact that Steve waived a direct order from Rudy to go into a time-out.....I believe we do have alot of highlight hungry players in the league and on this team. If they would play fundamential basketball, Rudy wouldnt even be under a microscope right now. In conclusion we talk about giving the team a chance to gel and come together, we lets also give Rudy a chance to gel and come together wiht this team as well! Rudy T is the best in game!!!!!!!!!!
Maxwell and Cassell were the only other players that could create their own shot. But, Rudy rarely, if ever, ran plays for them. Maxwell and Cassell bailed Rudy out several times during the 1994 season. Cassell would get yelled at for missing shots (the same shots that he'd make sometimes during an offensive breakdown). Sure, Cassell was a rookie, but he had skills that were not tapped into as much as they could have. Maxwell had speed! As far as the other players...Horry, Thorpe and Ellie all benefited from Hakeems presence (just like Horry w/Shaq). Open threes for Horry and Ellie. We only had Thorpe for rebounding and defense. Ask Thorpe to score? Not! Go forward to the start of the 1994-95 season and you'll see why we sucked! The whole league knew what play we were going to run. So, instead of opponents leaving open the three-point shooters, they just played us man-to-man. If Hakeem was not on his game that day, then the Rockets would lose that game (anyone remember losing to Timberwolves and the Clippers in the same week?). All the teams knew that only Hakeem could score, or at least that Rudy wasn't going to run a play for the other players. And everyone on that team was scared to make a move (on their own). That's not a team. So, we bring in Drexler. Two options. And Drexler could create opportunities by passing, not just by scoring himself; he helped other team members score (By the way, two players that didn't get much credit were Carl Herrera and Chucky Brown; both players were awesome!). Oh, and talent isn't a necessity for a TEAM-based offense. Talent wins championships. But TEAM-based offense helps that talent reach that championship. If you guys/gals want to see some beautiful basketball you need to watch some classic Princeton University NCAA games back when Pete Carril was coaching. Pete, incidentally, is assistant coach at Sacramento by the way. Did you ever wonder why the Kings played such a beautiful brand of basketball? Pete's the reason. Also, before Orlando got T-Mac and Hill. Doc Rivers and his coaching staff played a nice balanced style offense. It was awesome. Armstrong was the best player. And Bo Outlaw was on that team. But, every time they played Houston, the Rockets got "whuped!" (Those were the years that we couldn't beat Orlando and Miami.). That was Frances's 1st and 2nd season. I have NBA League Pass...and if Houston wasn't playing that day, I would be sure and catch Orlando or Sacramento. Today, you can add two more teams to that list of balanced offense: Boston and New Jersey. If you are basketball purist. Make sure you check out some old Princeton games (ESPN Classic); it's Celtic ball w/out the All-Stars.
stevel, I agree with your commens about ESPN hyping the dunk. This is what caused the drafing of numous players in the 1990's that were Jordan-wanabes. All they wanted to do was dunk on ESPN. They thought that's what made Jordan great. So, that's all they would practice in college or on the playground. It was a suprise when those sucky players came into the league only to find out that they couldn't dunk all the time and they had to learn this thing called "the jumpshot." Oh, yeah. That! Go back to school young man! Or sit on the bench; watch and learn. You're right about Kobe. Phil Jackson has tought Kobe how to be a *basketball player*, not just a dunker for ESPN. Kobe now has a complete basketball game. You gotta respect him for that. He's starting to play the game the way it's supposed to be played. International players are going to change the league. You watch...old school is going to come back. And NCAA players are going to lose their jobs (ha ha!). Serves them right!
Rudy brought two championships to us, enough said. what are we going to do? fire rudy and hire clyde! ha!
What has he done lately? And, No. They should NOT fire Rudy. But we wont win another title w/out some changes in our offensive scheme. So, keep your two championships. That's all we'll ever have if Rudy doesn't wake up! Enough said!
That will still be two more than the Jazz. Seriously, I would assume our offense will change. Like I said earlier, Rudy had developed a new offense, but didn't get to use it.
