Talked To Rudy's Wife

Pretty decent job for you. Let me tell you something why RT ball sucks.

We are not winning and entertaining.

We are not winning and boring.

We are not losing and entertaining.

We are stalling and boring.

I'd call it BS.

I take a different approach to the rebuilding process. I don't use making the playoffs or not as a criteria in judging a player or a coach. Too many random factors are involved in making playoffs. IMO, We are mediocre because there is many areas to improve, and they can ONLY be improved by better coaching. We are mediocre because for whatever reason we lack intangibles that makes for a team with spirit and identity. I just wish the whole team can be wiser, more focused, well prepared, no slacking off, less dribbling in circles, force more TOs, set and defend decent picks, no more freaking 3 guard lineups, stop overpaying players, more cuts in isolation, stop making slashers like Pippen, Anderson and Posey stand there and take 3s, run better fast breaks, get back on defense, know how to rotate, play D 24/7 instead of in spurts, good plays after timeouts... those things, are not dependant on in which conference we play in, how fast do other teams rebuild, do we have injuries or not ... Again, coaching is the key here.

The Rockets need to look within themselves without making excuses. Rudy T has past his prime. He won't be making a good coach on a young or old team. He is out of touch with the basketball world. His team lacks in both mental fortitude and tactical finesse. Rudy T is senile, uninmaginative and undisciplinary. I wish he get well as a patient. I'll be glad if other team pick him up. I feel good because a mirror of the past Rockets will be playing against us with their little dribblers and three guard lineups.

 

Wow, I usually hate people quoting a long post. But this post is worth being repeated.

Preach on, f4p!

 

F4P,

That was the post of the year IMO. Dead on balls accurate. Thank you for taking the time to summarize how many of us feel about the team's state of affairs.

Two thumbs up!

 

Oh, please. I can understand an argument that sometimes you can't fire or trade all, or most, of the players so you change the coach... that's a reasonable argument, although it can, and has been argued that Rudy is not your typical coach as far as the franchise is concerned. This, however, (excuse me) is just a bunch of crap.

Hell, this isn't worth getting into. Haven't we had this blowup already? I'll stick with what I posted earlier in the thread. I'm glad RT is taking a break. I hope he quickly gets well. And I believe he will have his pick of open jobs when he's recharged his batteries and is ready again for the grind... a grind he spent most of his life in as a Rocket.

I think I'll see if anyone discovered what Eddie Griffin has been doing over the summer. It's a mystery to ferret out... there is no mystery about Rudy's abilities as a coach. That will be plain enough when he decides to take on another challenge.

 

To be honest. No. I don't think we'd win 50 games with Rudy. Yes, we'd get 45 to 48. But is that really improving? We had 45 wins in 2000-2001.

Some excuse would be used to justify it. Yao is tired. Or Francis is young and learning. Cat is injured. Rice is still fat. Our backup point guard pulled his hamstring (yes, Moochie). Some excuse would be brought up that would "seem" acceptable. Of course the Rudy apologist would say, "See, we're improving! We won 48 games!"

Rudy has never been a consistent winner. He's done his best when people count him out. He likes being the underdog. Why? Because it lowers expectations; no pressure. He hates to be "the best" and then prove it. That's too much pressure for him. He'd rather have low expectations and then surprise everyone.

The key is NOT depending on your stars all the time and being able to incorporate a winning attitude without your supporting cast. That's what TEAM ball is all about. Rudy never believed in that. He depended on the star too much and put in simplified offensive sets. Plays predicated off of the ISO from the "star."

JVG and Phil Jackson were able to win with undermanned teams. Why couldn't Rudy? That's because Rudy never believed in team oriented passing. Never believed in a team oriented dynamic offense. Why? He didn't know how to implement it. Too complex for him. Maybe his expectations for his "stars" were too high, and his expectations for his "support cast" were too low.

Thus, we have the dependence on the simple "star" ISO offensive. With that, comes mediocrity and inconsistent winning records (Hakeem hurt, the team sinks. Francis hurt, the team sinks).

If JVG gets 55 wins or more for the next 3 years, what will people be saying?

I'd call that consistency. The difference is that JVG will actually have the talent to pull off some great things. Something he never had in NY (a leader: Francis).

Let's hope Francis can hold up his end of the bargain. Because JVG will get the team over the "hump." But Francis still has to make plays during those "butterflies in the stomach" playoff times.

JVG's philosophy should bring us that consistency and stability that Rudy could never bring. Because of that "stability," Francis/Yao and friends will be our winners.

 

Let me put it to you guys this way...

We should be a 50+ win team WITHOUT Francis.

We should be a 40+ win team WITHOUT Francis and Yao.

This has nothing to do with how good Francis and Yao are.

This has to do with how much importance does JVG places on the rest of the TEAM to perform on a high level every night. Yes, the rest of the team should "step up." But JVG needs to incorporate this into his philosophy and make it know to the team: let them know what's exepected of them. Higher expectations from your supporting cast.

That way, when your star playeres go to the bench (foul trouble, rest, or injuired), the TEAM is able to "hold up ship" until the star comes back.

This doesn't mean that the style of play changes that much. It just means that the offense becomes more team oriented while the "stars" are not availble. This gives the stars of the team some rest time and help.

So, when the star and the "very good TEAM" are put together, they are nearly unbeatable.

What's when the phrase, "The whole is greater than the sum of its parts" comes into the play.

 

I disagree that a change had to be made. The Rockets were ahead of schedule. I think any historical look at how long teams traditionally take to rebuild from the ground up will show this. Impatience won out.

I also thought that was a great post, f4p.

 

Were you around in '94? The big difference between the Don Chaney Rockets and the RT Rockets was the *trust* in the supporting cast. The Mario Elie's, Sam C's, Kenny Smith's and Bob Horry's were collectively as responsible for the championship as Hakeem Olajuwon.

Look what the guy accomplished with a seriously undermanned team USA. Heck, he is the favorite of many people to take over the gig *permenantly*, "Dream Team" or not.

Further, despite "Clutch City," the Rockets *were* the favorites in the West in 1993-94. They won 58 games that regular season.

As far as consistency, try a .638 winning percentage over five+ seasons, and a .617 winning percentage for seven+ (including the lockout-shortened season).
Conversely, JVG's .590 record for five+ years is OK, but is skewed upward by a single 57-win, .695 season.

Undermanned? You can't possibly mean "Phil, I've never won a damned thing without Michael Jordan or Shaq" Jackson."

"Gee, look at those pigs go! Amazing how they evolved wings in eighteen months!"

 

U discounted JVG's best year.
U omitted Rudy T's worst.
Then u compared the 2.
U ought to go into politics!

 

I think it really boils down to one main thing with Rudy T, his system.

With Olajuwon, Horry, Sam, Mad Max, and the team they had, it fit Rudy's system to a T. They were also a good veteran group mixed with young players. His style worked for that, he let the veterans coach on the floor

Rudy struggled a little once Olajuwon 1) got older and 2) left the team, as well as the general influx of younger players. His more subdued coaching style didn't work with the new mix of players, because the veteran leadership was missing, ie the coaches on the floor. We had veteran players, but none that were leaders out there like Elie, Dream, Clyde and Chuck.

Rudy's a great coach, and I wish him well, but he wasn't a great coach for the current roster of Rockets. Will JVG be the answer, I'm not Nostradamus, time will tell, but JVG has struck me as more of a teacher of basketball, with attention to detail and defense than Rudy, which is what this squad needs.

 

I did not discount JVG's best year. The .590 is his *entire* career with the Knicks, including the 57-25 season. Subtract that, and it goes down to .565

As far as RT goes, I did not "omit the worst." I included five (or seven) contiguous seasons to prove consistency.

 

Granted, they WERE an UGLY team to watch and Rudy T shares the blame. Granted, the team had stagnated under Rudy T over the past 6 years. I think Rudy T was sacrificed for the failures of the entire organization. The fault is not his alone - I think CD and the entire scouting staff should have been shown the door as well. Their drafts have been mediocre at best and downright bad at the worst (I know they drafted Yao but that was a fluke). And let's not even talk about their record on free agents. Because of them, this team is YEARS away from being a serious contender in the West.

So Rudy T is gone and now we get to see what JVG can do with this batch of underachieving boneheads. I wish him lots of luck because he'll really need it.

 

Really?

Actually, you're right thinking about it one way.

There are two ways of looking at how long it takes to rebuild.

#1 - how many years it is between the end of one successful run and the first truly successful year (playoffs, I guess) of another.

#2 - how many years it is from the beginning of the creation of the cores squad that eventually becomes the new successful team.

Under #1, the Rockets were ok. Lots of teams go for a long, long time in between successful runs. But the problem with this is that usually, there are several different rebuilding attempts (Clippers being the rule here...).

Under #2, it's really not that long. Just scanning the list of teams in the league, excluding those who get their franchise player through FA (like LA), very few of them underwent a lengthy maturation process (Philly's the b iggest exception that I see). A couple of years, and then it clicks... or it doesn't, and it's time to try again.

 

Consistency?

Please, show me those years?

 

Mike? Try 1994, with Pippen, Armstrong, Grant, Cartwright, and Paxton.

55 wins. No Jordan!

I don't get you. You blame Phil if he did not win, yet you blame him for winning.

That's like saying that Rudy never won anything without Hakeem. It goes both ways.

 

That's not undermanned. And that's not winning.

And that 50 wins without Francis, and 40 wins without both Francis and Yao is just stupid. You have a seriously skewed perception of the team's talent to think that a team of Moochie, Cuttino, Rice, Taylor, Cato would win 40 + games.

With crazy expectations like that, no wonder Rudy got fired.

 

55 wins is not winning. Ok...

Guess that means when Francis is hurt, we are supposed to just tank the season?

Please, more excuses...

Seriously skewed? Perhaps you don't understand the concept of raising your expectations of yourself, and playing hard evertime you step on the court. Moochie, Cuttino, Rice, Taylor do not play hard every night. That's Rudy's fault. He had his chance to motivate his players.

So, you can keep your expectation low. You'll aways be mediocre.

By the way, my name is not Les Alexander. I did not fire Rudy. So, not sure what you mean about "my expecations" being the cause of Rudy being fired.

Rudy was fired because Les felt he was unable to get the job done.

 

That's ok, because you don't understand the concept of talent. This is the WESTERN CONFERENCE. A lineup without Francis would NOT win 50 games, a lineup without Francis and Yao cannot win 40 games - it is impossible.

You can blather on about "team play" and stuff like that, but talent and star players win games, and win championships in the NBA. Rudy just realized that, and implemented a system that put the ball into the hands of his star player over and over again.

And so did Tex Winters.
And so did Gregg Poppovich.

Hell, the Spurs stole the dump-it-in offense.

 

dude, you left Kukoc off that team. That's a huge oversight on your part.

55 wins was with Pippen, Grant, and Kukoc in their prime and Cartright...as well as BJ, and Longley in their relative primes.

dude...Pippen was a 28yr old ?? HOF to be. Clearly better than Francis.

Now, look what happened the next year when Grant left and it was mainly Pippen and Kukoc. Phil's team imploded to barely .500, until Jordan came back. look it up. They were spiraling down. The trend was most definitely going down.

I mean, you canNOT even begin to compare the Bulls 94-95 talent with the Rox in 99-00 and 01-02

Also, what Knicks team was undermanned more than those two Rockets teams again?