Franchiseblade- If I remember Kobe had a guy named Shaq,Eddie Jones,Elden Campbell, and Nick along with Bob Horry starting. Do Eddie have any guy of that caliber starting in front of him? Kobe was and is a incredible talent, but he went to a playoff team with championship talent and not a lotto team. Theres a big difference. When you wind up in the lotto for whatever reason, it means you were not good enough to make the field. Show me a team good enough to make the playoffs, but didn't. 45 wins was good, but look at the record against our division and conference. That alone tells me we can't compete in our conference seeing that Denver and Seattle had better records in the west than we did. Lottery means just like it sounds,LOTTERY!!!!. No matter how many wins, if you're waiting around for ping pong balls, you were not very good or you made a trade. Why didn't we sit Steve behind Cat or Bryce Drew? I mean we were fresh off a playoff cameo, Cat was the starter and barkely and Hakeem were back. Rudy saw that Steve was better already at the point than both which is the same with Griffin. Cat could have stayed at the point until Steve fully understood the point, but Rudy let him make his rookie to's,hit the rookie wall, and win his rookie of the yr. Griffin should be allowed to do the same.
Oh no Griffen might be get blocked. He blocks everyone else. Fine if you guys want to jack it up every game don't wonder why we're losing.Sorry for trying to express the view we need an inside presence.Every other team tries to establish one.Just admit we are in a season with no inside game.
I agree that we need an inside presence. But Cato is incapable of creating his own shots. Griff sometimes shows a postup move and I agree that I'd like to see more of it. However, either EG doesn't feel comfortable with it (which means he probably won't be successful) or Rudy doesn't beleive he's a threat based on what he's seen in practice. Our only threat inside is Big Kev and thats a shame. We need to add somebody inside and/or develop EG. But if we base our whole inside game on EG and Cato, we'll get crushed. Hence, we keep jacking up outside shots until we find something else. I don't necessarily like either but thats the reality.
I'm not implying anything but it seems like for the past 5 years, I've been hearing Rudy whining every year about how "we don't have enough practice time to implement an offensive scheme/work on our defense." Doesn't every team in the league play an 82 game schedule or am I missing something here? Rudy supporters say that "it's not Rudy's fault that the players don't do what he says" but then wouldn't every team in the league have that same problem? Have the Rockets just had a collection of the dumbest players in the NBA over the past 5 years? Steve and Cuttino have been a duo for 3 years now and not even once have I seen them properly operate a fastbreak. I know, you might say it's a convenient time for one to bash Rudy. I realize that due to the injuries and the dearth of talent on this roster, this team probably would suck even with a better coach. However, I am quickly losing faith in Coach T. Why can't his teams run fastbreaks? Why can't he institute an offense more complex than a middle-school design - how hard is it to set a back-screen or to move without the ball <b>once</b>? Why does he never have his big men come out when defending the pick and roll? Why must he stubbornly insist upon playing Moochie Norris during crunch time, especially when any idiot can see that it is killing the team offensively and defensively? Why has he never designed a final play that doesn't consist of giving one player the ball and letting him heave up a desperation shot? [Probably the most famous buzzer beater during the Rudy T. regime would have to be Kenny Smith's 3 to send Game 1 of the '95 Finals into overtime. What was the play? You guessed it - inbounds to Smith, pump fake on Penny Hardaway, shot. No pick or anything to free up Smith. It was merely a testament to Smith's own brilliance that night that the shot went in. One of the most horrendous plays I have ever seen.] I'm willing to give Rudy another year to play with a healthy team. However, if it's the same story, somewhere down the line the blame needs to be put on him.
My thoughts exactly. Although I have already started placing the blame on RT, I still am willing to wait unti next season when he has his full arsenal of weapons. Ultimately its going to be up to the players to be able to effectively play freelance basketball if this team is ever going to sniff the playoffs with RT as coach.
Agreed. Rudy's incompetence as an ingame coach manifests itself every game. How many times has he stubbornly refused to double team another's team star because he'd "rather give up a contested two pointer than a wide open three." ? Have the Rockets' ever gotten a better shot in the final seconds coming out of a timeout? Has the Rockets play indicated any kind of coaching on the defensive end of the court? Defensively is the area where I feel he gets off guilt free unjustly, especially after witnessing the game live tonight. It's painfully apparent how poorly coached the Rockets are on that end of the court. The big men are generally clueless to the concept of stepping out and denying penetration. The team as a whole is bad at recognizing where they should be on rotations. The guards show ambivalence on whether or not to double, or to what extant they should help defensively. Most of the Rockets' players are not below average individual defenders. Most of their mistakes stem from errors in a team context, which points to the lack of adjustment on the coach's part. The offense in general....and why the fast break seems to be in a state of disarray I realized only tonight the source of the Rockets' problems with their transition game- their offensive scheme. Rudy has designed an offense in which there is no designated position on the floor for each player. Most teams can run a number of plays out of a basic offensive set. The Rockets on the other hand have no basic offensive set, which leads to the 8-10 seconds we often see run off the clock as a result of various players not knowing where to be on the court due to sporadic playcalling. This pertains to the fastbreak in that players typically have no idea where they should be on a fastbreak, and instead of running a lane they follow the path of the ball. I have lesser gripes with the offense, such as his use of bad passers in passing situations (ie: Griffin being the entry passer to Kenny-wtf?, and Mobley running the pick and roll- I just feel he's too contrived a passer to be effective in that role)....there's also his reluctance to exploit Griffin's more obvious talents....the aforementioned complaint is my biggest concern though. Communication This is his greatest foible as a coach. He is not direct in his communication with the players. He's great at handling personalities, keeping team morale up, etc.,....but mistakes are periodic with this team because he won't take the role of authoritarian. Preaching the same gospel of "swing it to the open man", "Think out there guys", etc., isn't going to cut it. If Moochie goes into Curly Neal mode, bench his ass. If Francis forces a shot on consecutive drives, call a timeout and remind him that he's 6'3 and they're 7' ft tall. If Mobley shoots an ill advised fadeaway or pull up 3, tell him that's a bad shot no matter the situation. If he simply did this, the erroneous periodic cycle would stop imo.
The Rocket's win percentage last year was only 3% lower than in the second championship. Weird. 1993-94 - 70% champions 1994-95 - 57% champions 1995-96 - 58% 1996-97 - 69% 1997-98 - 50% 1998-99 - 62% 1999-00 - 41% 2000-01 - 54% 2001-02 - 34%
Very nice analysis! The Rockets were never a really strong regular season team. But Dream had injuries in 94'-95', I beleive, in the regular season. But 2000-01' shows we have the ability. I understand the criticism of Rudy at this point but I'm not so quick to kick him while he's down. He's got a system that he hasn't been able to implement due to injuries. I'm waiting to see what happens next season before I'll jump onto the <b>"bash Rudy" bandwagon.</B>. And don't beleive it is anything other than a bandwagon.
There will be another set of excuse next year, so I am not waiting to see shut! The problem with Rudy T is that he has a tight wrap on the boys. That is, no creativity. He is just content in putting the ball in SF hands and waiting for him to do something. We went from the team leading the league in turnovers to a middle of the pack team but with no fast breaks. None of the players came from a slow methodical program. RT has to open it up and it would seem that it is not his strength. EG did well because he is a good shooter from the arc and is gifted defensively. What has RT done to improve the youngman that stands out? He still has not gotten EG one layup out of his offensive scheme. That is why I am happy with Moochie's play recently. He is going about his business running the offense more efficiently and getting people some good looks, like in the Wizard's game. I give no credit to RT for that.
It doesn't matter what the excuses are next season. If it doesn't come together then it is clear that Rudy can't make things happen. As of now, he still has time to pull it together and I still beleive he can. "I BELEIVE" This is EG's 1st year. He's only been playing consistently for a few months so Rudy is learning his capabilities. Give the guy a break. At least give him a single offseason to hone his skills. That being said, I don't think EG was previously known for his 3pt shot. Rudy has certainly maximized that. EG has not shown that he's much of a force inside. I've seen several of his shots blocked on postups this season. If you want more out of the guy, I think your expectations of a rookie are a bit high. He's clearly struggling right now -- hitting the rookie wall. With rooks, you take what you get the first year and be happy. The 2nd/3rd years is when you should expect production.
It would be the last time anybody doubts whether SF should be an all-star and Mobes would be on there next year.
what i dont understand is how almost everybody on this system complains about the rockets offense, ISO's and alot of dribbling. The rockets are simply using what they can, and should use. They have 3 guards who can take any defender in the league in and score, or set up a shot when someone comes to help. When Hakeem was with us, we did basically the same thing, constantly bring it in the post and when someone doubled, he would kick it out for the outside shot....
