imo, there are five sides to the argument... 1. the coach is to blame for bad coaching/strategy 2. in the NBA, it's more about one star vs another 3. the coach is still to blame, if he can't whip his players into shape even if he can coach a winning strategy. 4. Steve Francis is the franchise and my favorite player, and if I blame him, I'm really left without something to root for...so it must by Rudy and Cat's fault. 5. Yao Ming is the franchise and my favorite player, and if I say he was tired or unable to play consistent D and rebound, I'm really left without something to root for...so it must be Rudy, Steve and Cat's fault sheesh, in all my experience watching NBA bball...coach's at best take you over the hump. It really is more about the players....if not just one player starting to get it. Rudy is not a moron. Steve Francis is a moron. imso, Rudy got a lot out of Yao Ming, just about as much as Steve Francis could deliver. What, are we supposed to bench Steve Francis...yeah, talk about moronic.
Listen Up, If anyone REALLY wants an example of motivation, just think back to 99.' when JVG took the basicly same Knicks team you saw last season (subtract washed up Ewing and LJ) to the Finals from the 8th seed. The media was calling for his head at the time and with the NY media, that's the biggest pressure any coach could ever face. (except for the firestorm GM assclown Layden is facing now). And when it was all said and done with, the Gahden' faithfull was left chanting his name throught the arena.........clap, clap, "Jeff-Van Gun-Dy!" Remember the old saying, " If you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere." and JVG will. You guys just need to settle down and give the man a chance to succeed, like you did for Rudy in 93'.
If JVG takes these Rockets to the finals he will earn my respect as a head coach. Cheering for him? Maybe after he has been with the organization for thirty years.
Rudy's last 6 seasons. 1997-1998 (41-41) 1998-1999 (31-19) * Strike/Lockout Season 1999-2000 (34-48) 2000-2001 (45-37) 2001-2002 (28-54) * Francis's Meniere's Disease season 2002-2003 (42-39) Languishing in mediocrity...
I agree with most of what you say. But, Rudy's simpleton coaching philosophy drove me nuts! No matter who we had on our team, (Hakeem, Drexler, Barkley, Pippen, Francis) he played them the same way: ISO/basic ball. No dynamics. No team oriented passing. Just a buch of "give the ball to your best player and have him create." That's lazying minded coaching and very boring. Rudy's idea of calling a play is: "Francis, go ISO!" I'm glad he's gone. As far as JVG. Well, he's no Tex Winter or Pete Carril. But at least he's balanced on offensive/defensive creativity. Rudy was strong on defense schemes, but weak on the offensive side. Predictability is something you can't have on offense. Mix it up! Keep the opponent guessing.
I am a big Knicks fan (not at this time with Layden aboard) and have been a fan of JVG for the time he was there. He was mentored by one of the greatest coaches in this league, Pat Riley. He is ONE of the hardest working blue collar coaches this league has ever seen. I swear, he is so intense and puts in so much effort and energy into his teams, that one day it will drive him to the looney bin. But you have to admire how hard he works to make his teams better. AND IT HAS ALWAYS PAID OFF IN THE END. All I'm saying is to give JVG a chance. You've done that for every other coach, player, GM, owner, etc...........this team has ever had. Sometimes, changes are for the best. Be fair to JVG too. Because I know HE WILL NOT LET ROCKETS FANS DOWN.
1997-1998 (41-41) - 1998-1999 (31-19) * Strike/Lockout Season 1999-2000 (34-48) - The season that both Charles and Dream were out for most of the season and Francis's rookie season 2000-2001 (45-37) - first real year of rebuilding and we were the best team not to make the playoffes 2001-2002 (28-54) * Francis's Meniere's Disease season and MoT and Rice were out for the season. 2002-2003 (42-39) - Yao's rookie season and we were one game out of the playoffs
That "reasonably close facsimile" Van Gundy had was 37 years old when Van Gundy's Knicks were 50-32 in 99-00. When Dream and Ewing went head to head, Riley was the coach. If you want to think that if Rudy and Riley swapped Centers and Rudy's Rockets with Ewing beats Riley's Knicks with Dream all I can say is "Dream on".
2003-2004 No Rudy. And what will people be saying if JVG consistently gets our team above 50 wins? Coincidence? I think not. If coaches consistently give excuses. They get replaced. We'll just have to wait for JVG's first few seasons. Then, we'll know if Francis is a "coach killer."
I never said JVG was a bad coach. He was the coach I wanted, once Rudy got fired. However, that diminish the accomplishments of Rudy T. Rudy T was a great coach that brought us two championship teams with guys like Chilcut and Charles Jones playing major minutes. He also has had only 2 losing seasons during his years as our coach. Both times, there were major injuries to multiple starters including our best player. Rudy doesn't have to give excuses, his record speaks for itself. I'm not giving JVG multiple seasons to reach the playoffs because the rebuilding is over. I trully believe Rudy would have gotten us to the playoffs last year if he didn't get cancer, and I expect nothing less than that from JVG. Why fire an icon for status quo. We shouldn't even question if we make the playoffs this season. The only question should be which seed.
we were a championship team that made one last run with barkley and then even made one really last run at it with quitten. we then essentially had hakeem, barkley, and drexler retire for nothing and had quitten talk his way out of town. some franchises would've just collapsed and sucked for a really long time, much less pulled 2 winning seasons out of the last 4, with injuries being the reason we didn't win the other two. you can question the strategy of not rebuilding earlier i guess, but to expect anything more than the last 6 years after having 4 HOFers (and one MFer) leave for virtually nothing is naive. look at the celtics after their titles, took a decade to get back to respectable. the pistons after their titles: horrible then sorta good with hill then mediocre again before finally getting good again. the bulls haven't even been above 30 wins yet in five years. and then there are teams like the clips, warriors, nuggets, nets before kidd, grizzlies, and cleveland who would've killed for 6 years like that, much less knowing those were six of the "bad years" and that many good times were ahead. i guess i get sick of people projecting what they feel to be an underachieving year last season into 4 years of underachievement. really JayZ, when hakeem and barkley went down, you were thinking "yeah, this is still a playoff team." then when virtually no one had us picked to make the playoffs the next year, you still expected it (incidentally, bill simmons aka the sports guy, a non-rocket or rudy homer, just an nba fan, picked rudy as his coach of the year that year, couldn't have underachieved too bad could he?). then when we lost mo t and rice for the year and steve missed 25 games, you were thinking "yeah, still a playoff team." really? last year is the only year people should complain about and for what, maybe 2 more wins we should've had (and if you wanna add all the cellar dwellar losses, then i'm taking back all the wins against the lakers/kings/spurs). when we look back on this era of rocketdom (and for any franchise and any era really), we'll wonder did we build ourselves into contenders and did we take advantage and win the title, not did we make good 8th seed fodder in '03 by winning 2 more games. rudy has shown he can build championship chemistry and we know he knows how to use a big man. to me using 1 off year to fire him when we know he has at least shown the goods is wrong. maybe i'm just weird in that i don't blame the players or the coach really. i feel like we're pretty much where we should be, and are moving in the right direction on the court and in personnel decisions. i hate when people blame steve and cuttino for "iso ball" as if rudy has never been about "give it to your best player and either score or pass off the double," and it was just evil steve and cuttino who brought it here. i hate when people act like our top 3 backcourt just has oodles of talent around it yet somehow can't win despite a terrible forward rotation, a rookie center, and a terrible bench. i hate when people say jvg will get yao involved as if it never entered rudy's mind and he's never given it to a dominant center before. no chance yao was one tired mofo who proved it by having nothing left for the last month. i hate when people don't have patience and have a sheep-like mentality (much like heyp's 5 choices) when rushing to criticism. i'm not even saying jvg is a bad guy to have here. i like him. i think he'll do good. i like his attention to detail. but i also think rudy would have done good as well and i hate when people act like we would've never done good with rudy as if he has no experience winning. oh and i also don't like when rudy is given no credit for the titles as if he walked into the greatest team ever. we were under .500 i believe when he was hired and won 55 a season and a half later and two titles right after that. did cassell/horry/elie really make all the difference or was it rudy knowing what needed to be done and getting it done? of course hakeem is THE reason we won, but that's true of all titles. players win them, but good coaching sure helps. i hope some of that made sense, probably the longest post i've ever written. i'd say he's kept us on track. do you really think we wouldn't win at least 48 or 49 next year with rudy, as if we'll just stagnate in place forever no matter how good yao gets? 50 wins should be mandatory before anyone even starts to say jvg is the reason. if we win 55, i'll build a golden statue of him in my yard and worship it, but 50 will just be the progress i expect. if we win mid 50's for the foreseeable future, again what analyst doesn't have us being a great team for the future? we were almost universally seen as on the rise with rudy. for jvg to not get us there would make him lesser. i don't expect jvg will fail and when he doesn't, rudy better at least get a little credit for putting it all together.
It's fine to have your opinion and I also hope RT fully recovers from cancer but - let's not rewrite history. 1) Neither Chilcutt nor Jones was on the 93-94 team. 2) Pete Chilcutt appeared in 68 regular season games for the 94-95 Rockets and averaged 19.8 mpg. Not "major" minutes by my standards. His total minutes were 8th on the team and he averaged fewer mpg than Chucky Brown for the season. 3) Charles Jones played a total of 36 regular season minutes for the 94-95 Rockets. About half of what Bostjan Nachbar played last season. I know you said "guys like" Chilcutt and Jones, but c'mon...
Hmmmm, 19.8 out 48 is ~ 40%, if you don't count that as major minutes for a guy of the bench then i don't know what does. Btw that's more playing time then Cato and Moochie last year. Yeah, Jone's was unimportant but what about Chucky Brown, you know the guy that started the for us during the second championship run? Yeah he's a real star alright, boy I sure wish he can continue being our starting 4 Also remeber we won both Championships with a Kenny Smith as our point guard. Ok, maybe we didn't have those 2 "scrubs" for the first championship, but we got solid productions from guys like Elie, Carl Herrara and made mad max look like a star and also got unexpected producton from late late first round pick. Hmmm, guess Rudy had nothing to do with that. I agree that Rudy might not be the right coach for this team and he isn't a great X and O's guy, but he can definitely put a winning team on the floor and yes create a team that uses the star players' capability to the fullest. People like to say how Jerru Sloan is a genius for being able to win with many different players, but remember he still had a productive Malone and Stockton both of whom never had a major surgery. Before Hakeem had his surgery (which I still blame his at the time 18 year old wife), we were getting into playoffs with guys like emanuel davis, sam mack, mark bryant, tim breaux, the cat at point guard, rhoderick rhodes and the guys mentioned above. Part of that is Hakeem, Clyde and Charles, but part of that is Rudy recognizing which players complimented them on the team. I still contend that we would've made the playoffs last year if Ming wasn't on it (even though the longterm outlooked wouldn't be nearly as bright). But hey, that chapter is closed, let's move on. Rudy's no longer our coach but give the man his props where it's due.
Why don't you Rudy defenders tell us under what condition will you consider firing Rudy? Let's see, ok, a year that the team only wins 30 games without major injuries to the key players? Let's face it people, this team is too talented to lose that many when healthy. Or a year without any change in the roster yet the team lose ten more games than last year? Sorry, not gonna happen, each year Rudy or CD brings in either an overpriced/over the hill big name player(Pippen, Rice), or sign players now and pay them big later(Shandon, Taylor), or give fat ass contracts to low performance players(Moochie, Cato), or gets young rookies and blame the failure of the team on these unimportant players for their youth and inexperience, which is debunked by JVG. The management shuffle the roster every year to keep that factor fluctuate. It's harder to pinpoint the coach, or easier to make excuse when the roster changes every year. Or a year in which none of the other teams improved, so we can just lay back and blame the relative incompetence of our players? First of all, teams aren't gonna wait up for you. Second, ever heard of improving the coach position to get better? Yeah, tell me how many years of mediocrity will make you finally say that's it Rudy you gotta go or what's the chance of a miracle happening that's free of any other factors and opens no door of escape for Rudy T? Why don't you guys just lay it all out instead of painting a senerio in which it's impossible to fire Rudy? Rudy isn't the best coach in the world, he should be fired whenever there is a better option, even he has done a good job which is a long shot to say. Les made the decision. He thinks JVG is better. I do too. History indicates that JVG is a competent coach. The risk is small and potential payoff is big. So let's just see what JVG can do in the next season.
Look at the past couple of years, when this team wasn't just completely injured bugged, they werent' that bad. Mediocre, but not bad. This is after we basically lost cornerstones of this franchise for nothing. The only team that I've seen rebounding with out much problems are the Spurs. It takes a lot of investment into the now mentality to build a team capable of winning a Championship. After the late Magic era of late 80's, Lakers were a mediocre team until about 5 years ago. Look at the great Bull's Dynasty, they've been rebuilding as long as we have and look at where they are now. What about Detroit Pistons? Made a great run last year but was a mediocre team ever since Isiah retired. This team's rebuilding project has turned out a winning team (W-L record) within four years. Yes we're plagued with 4 straight no - playoff appearances, but this is one of the few time in NBA history where concentration of talent is so obviosly clustered in one conference. Look, I agree Rudy's time here is up, he didn't have what it takes for this particular team, but to discredit a man for doing imo a pretty decent job is complete udder bs.
The reason I said Chilcut was because I was watching game 7 of the Phoenix-Houston series last night, and guess who started against Charles Barkley. None other than Pete Chilcut. 20 minutes means that he was definitely a rotation guy, and in the case of game 7, he was the starter defending Charles Barkley. Charles Jones was Dreams backup in the playoffs and finals. He had to cover Shaq and DRob. I'm not counting the regular season because we didn't really start playing until the playoffs.
as would I, but it wasn't really an option because Steve is a BYC player. I think the game plan is to give it two more years with Steve. We will know then if he's coachable or not. He's the most physically gifted, most inherently talent laden point guard in the league, but for basketball IQ he's in the back of the pack. If he will take coaching, he will be one of the great ones. If he doesn't, he'll be the next Nick Van Exel. Either way, in two years, when Steve's BYC status is not a factor, we will trade him if he has not bought into coaching as expected. If we had been able to trade Steve, Cat and Moochie and gotten back say Brand, QR, and Dooling (as an example), I would have favored keeping Rudy. Give him two self starters with good fundamentals in the paint, and Rudy could win. He is a very poor disciplinarian, so he needs team leaders who don't need that.
