There is a lot of Rudy bashing going on. That he's not the coach to get the Rockets to the promised land. But he did for two glorious years in 94 and 95. So what is the difference in his coaching? Was the Dream THAT GOOD that it didn't matter what Rudy drew up? Or did the players actually LISTEN to Rudy and have respect for him back then? I think he's still a good Xs and Os coach. But I believe the players (Francis) don't really respect him. If they did, they would listen to him. You can't honestly tell me that the last play was for Francis to go inside and throw it back to Cat. Yes, maybe the play broke up, but then what was the play? Another crappy ISO by Francis when you have Ming inside to knock Osterfat out of the way? I'm very very frustrated and know Rudy is a better coach then what we are seeing. I just wish Francis would not be MORE than the team and just play ball and listen to people who have been there before. My wish is for a trade to happen in which we get a nice roll player for Cat. They somehow sign Gary Payton to teach Francis how to play point and Moses Malone works out with Ming, like he did with Dream in the early days! Oh yeah, so what gives with Rudy??????
Rudy is a GREAT coach when he has EXPERIENCED players. Rudy is an BELOW AVERAGE coach when he has young players. Simple as that. It is his personality and the way he deals with people. With young guys, you almost have to be tough and forceful. He is too easy going to coach young players.
The game has evolved since the glory days of 94-95, Rudy hasnt been able to cope up with the changes.... He's a champion coach alright but sticking to the same old plays is just too easy for other teams to take advantage of. Give Rudy some slack though, Yao's been playing for him for less than 4 months with no training camp background. What he needs to figure out is how to deal with his guards when they make stupid mistakes. Rudy is a terrfic motivator........but with the current team, a carrot and stick approach can work out for the better...... Wudnt be suprised if Rudy gets "promoted" to a managment job, if this is the only way to save face for a former champion coach.
Yes, Dream was that good. I watched Rockets' two championship series while I was in China. Typically the TV room was full of people/college students. I remembered Rudy would call every play outside the court using hand signals. Most of the time when he signaled to his players, the whole room would burst into laughters, "oh, Olajuwon again" . Dream was just that good. Shrimpie
Let me make this clear to everyone: Rudy is a great coach............In 1994, he was a fresh voice and a new attitude and his messages and game plans got through to his players. Ultimately, his players responeded to him (especially in the Phoenix series) and the Rockets became championships. However, I think his players are tuning him out, his message of urgency and his game plans are just not reaching the players. This is why the Rox are so inconsistent. For this reason, I believe its time for Rudy T and the Rox to part ways. A fresh new voice and attitude is needed in this locker room. Otherwise, no matter what trades we make, I think the result will still be the same as is right now.
That is just not an accurate statement. Everyone is a bad coach when you have young players. Because young players take time to develop. With Rare exceptions it's the veteran teams that win in this league. The Rockets are just too young right now. Look how long Shaq and Kobe took. Yeah you can have one young player and mix him in with some cagy vets and thats fine. Like adding Bibby with Webber Divac and The Kings. But the other way around doesn't work. There are rare exceptions but for the most part young players make coaches look bad because they are terribly inconsistent and make too many mistakes. Experience heals this to some degree. Eddie Griffin is a perfect example one night he is blocking shots rebounding and scoring 20 and the next night he is nonexistent... one night he looks to be or best 3 point shooter on the team and the next I cringe when he shoots the 3, but he's only 20 playing against some of the toughest players at the strongest position in the West. The Rockets are a young team at every position right now... extremely young on the inside right now with Yao Grifin and Posey. And Mobley are oldest Vet is not a stabilizing force out there.
Old Man Rock: That's just not true. The teams you see *dominating* are usually veteran teams. But there are plenty of young teams that win and make the playoffs. The Timberwolves w/Garnett, the Sonics w/Kemp & Payton, the early Bulls with Jordan, the Rockets with Hakeem and Sampson... jeez... the more I think about it, the longer the list gets. If you look back at the career of most superstars... they might not make the playoffs their first couple of years in the league (given that they usually start on bad teams). But after a short time, they usually bring their team into the playoffs. Maybe you can just say that Francis isn't a superstar. Maybe It's going to be Yao, and we'll have to wait a while for him. But to say that young teams can't be competitive is just incorrect.
You got it in the last part of your post. Why would you even compare a Francis-led team to a Jordan or Hakeem-led team? This is an example of unreasonable expectations. Francis is closer to the Marbury level than he is to any of the guys you mentioned.
I never thought Rudy was that great of a game manager/strategest in the early 90s either. We forget in both playoffs runs we had moments each year that if 1 single play turns out differently we lose. Riley almost beat us w/o an MVP caliber player, and the Suns almost beat us with Oliver Miller as a center. It was a magical run for sure, Hakeem was unbelievable--the best player in the league at the time, and we had a bunch of good players playing at their peak, but we should have been expected to win yet both times had to play very clutch to squek by. Later, Rudy's lack of adjustments against Seattle and later with the Jazz were signs. I have impartial friends who to this day don't understand why he didn't have Hakeem D'ing up on Malone instead of Barkley at every key juncture of that series.
Dream was that good. Rudy is too hung up on spacing on offense. We have more guys on the three point circle than most teams. Not enough movement I guess to keep the middle open for isolation and keep the guards back to prevent fast breaks. Rudy has always been big on that. The bad coaching can really be seen on the last second plays. They almost never have a good one. The exception is Francis off the screen and everyone knows that's coming now.
How many years has Garnett been in the league? He's young but he also entered when he was 18. He's got veteran experience while having a young mans athletic body. Has he lead a team to a ring yet? His team still can't get past an early 1st round exit just yet. The Sonics with Kemp and Payton? No ring for them either, and that's what everyone is thinking this team can do this year, and they're simply not realistic enough. The Hakeem and Rockets statement took a good many years before they even won a championship. Lets see Hakeem was drafted in 83 right? It took him almost 10 years in the league before he got himself a ring. The Jordan statement. Does anyone even remember that Jordan wasn't always the epitomy of greatness for his first few years in the league? Wasn't he drafted in 83 as well? And he won his first ring in 90-91'? That's 7 years. And if I recall it took him a couple of seasons before he could even get past the Pistons during those days. Even the greatest basketball player in the history of the game took awhile before he got a ring. Now if you're talking about making the playoffs with young talent, I'm willing to bet with a few of the teams you mentioned, definitely Minnesota for sure, took a couple of years atleast to make the playoffs. Almost all the key players for the Rockets last year were injured as well. But you know what that got us? It gave us Yao. Listen, right now I don't really mind the Rockets not making the playoffs this year. It'll be another lottery year for us, and that could prove beneficial. Maybe the Rockets will nab themselves a diamond in the rough with a late pick, like the Suns did with Stoudemire, or the Celts did in acquiring Pierce. Who knows, maybe we'll get lucky again and get a high round pick, like this past draft when we weren't even supposed to get the #1 pick. Anyhow, the future holds a lot to be optimistic about. People are just too impatient, and think it's so easy to make a consistent winning basketball team. Do you guys honestly think there aren't other BBSers on other boards who aren't creating topics like the ones we're creating now, except with teams like the Clippers, Sonics, Heat, etc? We could be a lot worse off then we are now. We could be the Clippers who aren't even anywhere in contention to make the playoffs this year. I don't know where I'm going with this, but the jist of it is, you guys are too impatient with our guys. You guys do realize that our original offensive scheme was to go directly to the guards this year, and granted we still are primarily a guard oriented team, you can see the effort in running their offense through a center. It's an incredibly hard adjustment to make right in the middle of a season you know. The Rockets will be good next year. They'll be one of the elites. It'll be an offseason to make some good trades to make this team stronger, it'll be an offseason for Yao to get some rest, bulk up some, and actually practice with the team in the summer. It'll be another year for Francis and Mobley to mature, and another year for Eddie to develop into a strong minded player. There will be a lot of positives in the offseason, so have some patience guys. That's all I ask.
