Rudy Worshippers: Grab yourselves a nice fat portion of crow, and eat it.

And Heath...

My expectations aren't that High. I dont think "title run" when I think of these Rox.

I do expect a man whos promised a new offense for the last 4 years to deliver something other than that mess thats been on the floor. Cause its absolute junk!

Can he not take one basic play and use it over and over and over and over.

First it was Dump it in.........every time
Then it was ISO ISO ISO ISO ISO
Now its top of the key screen with nothing happening after the screen 95 percent of the time.


What I think some of you fail to recognize is that Id accept losing. If the team would just show some signs of positive influence from the coaching staff. Other than averaging 3 more points a game, how far has Francis come since his first year?

Why is Mobley still such a dumb player so often.


I hate it when people say "yeah and what scrub should we parade out there"

I say, any scrub who's willing to try to involve a team concept out there, and do what ever is necessary to win...until the Mobley's, and Steve's are willing to affectively make a change.

If its not the coach's fault when players "Dont listen to coach, we just do our own thing out there" then who's is it?

The players.....ok yes, but who's running this team, the players or the coach's? And if Rudy is saying "Mobley you have to stop ISOing all the time and jacking up 22 footers fading away with 2 guys in your face" and Mobley doesnt listen to him......is it still only Mobley's fault? Thats a real chicken approach. I wouldnt except it from my staff, why should Rudy?

Afraid to hurt the star players feelings? Last I checked, Rudy is employed by Les...not Francis.


Finally, even though we won tonigh.......that offense was junk. It doesnt matter who we have on the floor. Your offense should run the same. Maybe not as effective, but the same. For those who watch the game...can you not hear the announcers for all the teams questioning what the Rox are doing on O? It culminated tonight with the Nuggz announcers saying

"Thats the rap on these Rockets, ISO and no pass"

Followed by

"Hey ------- watch how many times the Rockets will pass in their offensive set.................one and a shot. See"

 

Coachs get heat every day. David Robinson was a pretty good player once (even if he was soft). He went through - what? 5 coaches? Hakeem had 4. Even good coaches sometimes have bad years. Don Nelson was terrible with Chris Webber and got fired in NY. He came back with Dallas. Rudy has been in a bad way for some time now - probably since Pippen. There's no value in blind loyalty - it'll drop you off an unseen cliff, every time. If Rudy can't get results with the team - if they repeat the same mistakes, fail to use their talent to win - he should go, just like any other coach in the league would.

 

Hakeem was a "selfish" player for a long time. What coach could of changed that? Confidence in his coach and teamates changed it. Thats what made the 94-95 Rockets so good. They wanted to play as a team, it was not coach mandated. This team does not really know each other yet. They are scared. How is a coach going to make them sink open shots? Seriously, is there a way? They are just now learnig how to win. I think Mobley will grow as a player as the team (Yao) grows. I just want to give them more time before we again shake things up some more. Give them some time to setlle, play and grow together. I think we are headed in the right direction.

 

I've always liked and supported Rudy, but he has really been pissing me off this year. He's making alot of r****ded decisions. For starters, he plays Rice too much, he takes certain people out at the wrong time, and he comes up with some BAD lineups at certain points of the game. Also, he really needs to come up with some more original plays. Everytime the game is on the line with seconds left he calls that same damn play where Yao holds it at the 3, and Steve runs around him and shoots the 3. Okay, that would be a good play if he didn't use it every damn time we need a score for a win or tie. It's so obvious and overused. You would think he'd think the opposing team might see that coming when they run that everytime. He needs to come up with some different plays throughout the game.

 

I have seen this said by a few of you that have the misfortune of having to listen to other team's pbp guys...just wanted to address this for a second..

Why should I care what they say? What makes them such great basketball geniuses? The are just guys who get paid to tell people what they see on the court..They dont see the Rox play game after game, how do they know what the Rox ALWAYS do??

They don't.

If you don't watch every game, you are in NO position to tell me what the Rockets ALWAYS do, cause YOU DONT KNOW!..

BEGIN RANT
There are many things that happen on the court that don't show up in the box scores..like plays that are run, passes that are made that dont lead to a score...passes that occur before the pass that leads to the basket...

Here are things I see that don't get recognized by quite a few of you who love to complain...

Mobley playing decent defense
Rockets as a team passing 3 and 4 times on possessions
GR actually staying in front of his man(it doesnt happen enuff,but thats a different topic)
Eggie working a downlow game into his arsenal

Are we done improving? Hell No ...Im not so stupid to think that..
Does this team still make stupid mistakes?? Hell yes, they do......noone is perfect...not them, not you...

But what I do know...is that this team is improving in little ways every day, but some of you just dont seem to watch close enough to see it..
Maybe you are too busy watching just your favorite( or unfavorite) player to see if they can screw up so you can come on here and whine and b**** some more about how Rudy needs to go...or we need to trade (insert players name here) cause he just isnt improving fast enough for you...

A championship team is built over time, not slapped together by a series of knee jerk trades if they dont get it all down in a month...
/END RANT

/Plead for sanity begins
I know Im wasting my time saying this...but cant you ppl at least give them till the end of the season to decree that this team can't win? You know the word I mean.........Patience...

If you seriously thought we were gonna win a championship this
year, then you are seriously deluded....even if Yao came in and started dominating the entire league, this team would not have been prepared to go all the way this year...no way...no how..

Enjoy the ride, discuss how the team could better defeat team's defenses that are being designed to stop them, discuss how to best take advatage of the opposing teams player's weaknesses...
But for Christ's sake, give this team(this team, not last year's team, not the team from 3 years ago) some time to get it together and do what we all know they can do...
/Plea for sanity ends


and to the rest of you that have the patience to weait with me, my thanks to you my brothas...Keep the Faith!

 

Rockets games are hard to watch even in wins. I ask myself why can't these guys do it the simple way without the fancy but yet ineffective plays? Is it the coach or is our arsenal overrated? For me it is not only about wins and losses but how you go about them. Simplicity.

The good news for me these days is to worry less about the team and focus on my career and other passions because it is not worth it getting getting frustrated over the Rockets.

 

I like Rudy and all, but for once could he get pissed off and show some emotion when our guys are screwing up? The laid back approach gets old after a while.

 

I'm the first to say that at times I baffled by Rudy's substitution patterns. Does that warrant him being fired not by a long shot. There are way more positives with Rudy then negatives.

With all the young hot guns on this team, and Glen Rice who can't keep whatever complaints he has behind closed doors in a professional manner, this team could be a chemistry explosion that would make the Trailblazers look like gentle inhabitants of a harmonious hippy commune.

There's the way he decided to draft, and has brought Yao along.

There's the way he's gotten valuable minutes from someone like Hawk, who no other coach has even taken a chance on. Oh yeah he's also gotten more out of Horry, Ellie, Maxwell, Chuckie Brown, Othella Harrington, Scott Brooks, and others in the past than other coaches have managed.

Did anyone catch Rudy's call in show where the guy asked him why with a young team he doesn't press more? Rudy's answer was awe inspiring. For those who missed it, Rudy said that they had worked on it, and thought about using it, but in studying all the teams that used the press in the past with any regularity and comparing all the data on those teams it showed that the press isn't really all that effective when used frequently. There aren't many coaches that do that kind of hard work. That's something that goes on behind the scenes and won't be noticed by many fans or from the game.

Despite not being known for his x's and o's Rudy drew plays that at the end of the Denver game outfoxed the other team and allowed Francis to run out more clock by inbounding to the backcourt, etc.

As for the youth question it goes way beyond that. Players like Hawk, wouldn't even be on the team and contributing like they are without Rudy, I think he's doing a great job of getting the most out of the players. He always has been one of the best at getting the most out of players that other teams couldn't get to produce or have passed on entirely.

Go Rudy!

 

What does this mean?

-- droxford

 

2K, I'm so unimpressed by your arguments and rant. I didn't reprint everything you said to save a little space. Regarding the above point, most announcing crews have a color guy that is a former player. They probably know a little bit about ball. For that matter, so does the play by play guy. Maybe even as much as you. You're big point is that since they only see one game, they couldn't possibly know anything. What about the fact that many different announcing crews say essentially the same damn thing about the Rockets in the one game they do see? If the comments weren't so consistent by many different crews, then you might have a point. But you don't. Some of them are a lot more diplomatic about it than others, but they wind up making the same point.

Of course, you are right about the Rockets making some improvement. But, it seems like it is a very, very difficult process for the guards to let go of the way they have been playing the last three years. I have to attribute most of that to Rudy. I think he encouraged Steve and Cat and their shadow, Moochie, for 3 years to take control, iso, dribble, dribble, dribble. It was very short-sighted on Rudy's part. They could have been working on an offense for the last 3 years that involved the whole team and not been a bit worse off record-wise. I'll tell you, that I think Rudy telling Cat several years ago that he and Steve had to be the men on the team was one of the stupidest things Rudy ever did. There are some people that know what to do with that type of responsibility, but Cat is not one of them.

You do realize that your argument about waiting to see what this years team does, not last year's team, not the year before's team, etc.. is something that stretches to infinity. 2003 - no, not last year's team, this year's team...2004 - no, not last year's team, this year's team...etc.etc.etc.

Most of the lame excuses people defend Rudy with could be applied to every single coach in the league, with the exception that he coached those two title teams, way back when. Are they all the bestest coaches in the league?

My biggest gripe with Rudy, other than the way he coached Cat and Steve for 3 years is his rotation. If you don't think that can affect the outcome of a game, you are deluded. Last year, it was Walt and this year it has been Rice. Very streaky and can't move on defense. Last year, it was also Moochie. This year too. The worst defensive guard in the league. Loves to dribble the clock down. Loves to show off his hair. When we loose games by a few points and Moochie has played 20 plus minutes, because he has played considerable time in the 3 guard, what had his net effect been on the game? I personally think he is a detriment. A net negative. He doesn't play his man well, because he is always sagging back trying to get a steal. That is not good defense. You know as well as I do that he stagnates the offense by too much dribbling. So, if he is a net negative and he is in the game a lot, whose fault is that?

Great players make great coaches. Hakeem made Rudy. Rudy did not make Hakeem. People want to give Rudy credit for getting Hakeem to pass out of the double team. After about 6 years that is. I used to scream at Hakeem (Akeem at the time) through the t.v. to pass when he was doubled and tripled. I think even I could have eventually talked Hakeem into passing after 6 years of trying.

One question. If we had not got Yao, what would our offense look like? I think it would be the same old **** as the last 3 years. Rudy would still be trying to ride Cat and Steve and giving us some of the worst ball in the league to watch.

This smilie is to let you know this is not a personal attack, just some points to counter with my opinions.

 

8 out of 10, including Minnesota, Boston, Orlando, Phoenix and the Lakers.

 

We might not be waiting as long as we thought, eh?!

Yee haw! (Can't believe I just said that!)

 

Rudy really had the team fired up last night. Again Rudy called the play that sent the game into OT from Francis' 3 pointer.

The defensive scheme by Rudy against the Lakers and the Rockets execution was close to brilliance.

Even Rudy's substitutions last night, with Moochie getting less crucial playing time was right on the money.

This was a huge game, and our coach and team were up to the task.

 

Which coach made the critical blunder of getting a technical called when the game was on the line? Hmmmm. Nuff said.

 

Pasox has disappeard too?

Where are all the haters hiding?


Pasox,

In case youre lurking...Rudy is doing just fine, thank you.

How does YOUR crow taste?

 

Nineteen? nineteen? Anyone seen poor ol' nineteen?

 

Time to pile on the Rudy haters! Yeah!

 

YEAH! lol

We have won FOUR STRAIGHT!!! AMAZING!!! Also like the last 8 out of 10 or something like that. I think our streak is going to end, though. I hope we can beat at least one of the opposing Texan teams. Good job Rudy! He's such a nice and content guy!

 

DS,
What's the logic now? Do you get fired as GM or as a fan?

 

IT was a great win, lots of fun.

But the Rox survive based on Talent alone.


If you were satisfied with how the offense was run, and are cool with it I ask you How good could they be if we tried to run an O like ummmmm the Kings, Pacers, or Mavs.

If your satisfied with how the O looked even in their win last night......I dont know what to tell you.