Exactly. I remember the Doc's Magic beating the hell out of the Rockets for many years. All they had were scrubs. No Mcgrady. Outlaw, D. Armstrong, and Mike Miller playing their hearts out! What was Rudy's post game excuse? Hakeem was not himself. Or Francis had an off-night. Sigh...
You're saying Doc Rivers is better coach than Rudy T. The coach of the same team that has had worse records than us last year and in 2001 even though they had the 3rd best player in the league? This has to be a new low. You could have picked a better example than this. At least one that makes some sense.
Eastern Conference. There is a world of difference between the Eastern Conference and the Western Conferfence. Ben Wallace, Darrell Armstrong, Ron Mercer - 41-41 in a weak conference. And they still missed the playoffs.
No. Look at each years winning record. 55/27 92-93 58/24 93-94 47/35 94-95 48/34 95-96 57/25 96-97 41/41 97-98 31/19 98-99 34/48 99-00 45/37 00-01 28/54 01-02 42/39 02-03 The years I'm looking at start in 1999. How many years does Rudy need to whip this team in to shape? I can't believe you can actually quantify a wining percentage and equate it to consistency. Silly! How about consistency mediocre? Agreed. But to me, Rudy only concentrated on milking the "star" player. Not the supporting cast. At least not on a integral part of the offense.
DavidS I think you are going to find very little support for the idea that the Hakeemless Rockets ever had the kind of talent the Jordanless Bulls did. The bulls had good, well balanced teams, and Pippen in his prime. The best number two option we ever had was Drexler in his wane. Some of the Bull's bench players like Scott Williams and Jason Caffey and Luc Longley went on to be big minute players on other teams. Horace Grant was a highly sought after free agent. The two Rockets that went on to do fairly big things, Cassel and Horry, were one or two year players with the Rockets, far from their prime. The Bulls were deep, and yes, Phil is a great coach, but they had superior talent.
Thank you! Exactly! We need that. Depth! Not just a "star or two" and a bunch of scrubs. And the support cast has to be an integral part of the offense. Not just waste them by having them stand around (3 point line, or just sanding around).
First of all, you gotta realize coaches and players are humans. They are not robots that can perform at the same level 100 years in a row. They have their ups and downs. If a coach, like DavidS said, got the role players convinced that they are better than they are, then they overachieve for a certain amount of time. Time goes on, reality gradually sets in, the luster on Doc fades and they go back to their normal form. One can't expect that same all role player Magic team get into the playoffs every year just because they play their heart out. Overachivement come in short spurts. The 1998 Knicks were able to overachieve for one season for the same reason. The Magic team were able to overachieve in one season, drops back to their original form, which should be around .300 or .200 according to their talent level. McCrady came in, give them a boost, and they are back to a team that hovers in .400 and .500 range. Makes perfect sense to me.
What is consistency if not the ability to win year after year after year. 50 wins +/- 5 is pretty damned consistent. That was what the Rockets got. How many years? Try more than one complete season where the starters (and head coach) are around for 80% of the games. You really don't remember 1994, do you? I've been saying this over and over again. RT has excelled at getting more than adequate performance from role players. It worked with the first championship here, it worked with the star-less team USA, and, yes, it worked as well as could be expected with a rookie Francis and without Barkley and Olajuwon. I even think that the Francis-less 2001 club more or less maximized their talent. You claim they could win 40? Obviously not. Moochie played way over his head, EG played to his capabilities, and Cato also did well. If JVG can get more from those guys, more power to him. I don't see it.
Somehow the Rockets weren't busting the EC teams in that 14 game stretch. When a team don't have enough talent to compete, they gotta play on fire as a team. That way the team might get 2 or 3 wins outta ten. When you don't have enough talent, don't have fire, and can't play as a team, you are screwed like the Rockets. Can't scratch one loss off the record in over a month.
Uhh... Panda the argument that Doc Rivers is a better coach than Rudy T is extremely reaching. You are obviously a Rudy Hater so I don't think there will be much point in bickering on about it but seriously dude.... a coach that won two rings with kenny smith as his point guard.... seriously dude....
DavidS you are right we need some more depth, but the point you are overlooking is that we have plenty of time. Jordan and Pippen were well into their late twenties when they started to win. Before that they hadn't come together and the team wasn't fully established and formed. It will happen, it is a process, not something that spontaneosly occurs. The direction of this team is up, not down. If your stock is climbing, let it climb.
I remember when the Rockets would play the Heat, Magic, Knicks and we would play the ISO game (Francis and Mobley shuffle) and end up loosing to the other TEAM. I repeat, Francis and Mobley would lose to their TEAM. Uh, that's two against their five. Although Francis would end up getting 30 points (good stats). The Heat, Magic and Knicks TEAM would end up beating us collectively. Their supporting cast would outplay our supporting cast. No matter what Francis did. Why didn't Rudy see this problem? It wasn't part his offensive philosophy, that's why. And he wan't going to change. And that's why he was fired.
Yes, I agree with that. But the other part (and maybe only I can see this) is that we'd still be in a rut if we didn't get rid of Rudy. He would have continued to baby his supporting cast, overplay his star players, and depend on the ISO-simpleton offense. So, part of the problem is gone.
Doc is both a good x's and o's coach and a good motivator. He's young. Don't knock him before the fact. Rudy has his rings. Let Doc get his. Yes, I believe Doc could have done more than Rudy with Drexler/Hakeem. Not what he could have done with those players, but what Doc could have done on a team-scale (supporting players w/Hakeem and Drex).
Hate and love both cloud judgement. I don't hate Rudy. I dislike him as a coach. Doc Rivers was at that point a better coach than Rudy T. As of now, I don't know. Could be better, could be worse. If we go by rings, Red Auberbach was once better than Rudy T by miles. Now? I don't know either. Time goes by and people change. It's all in relative sense. What Doc Rivers is doing now, or what Rudy did almost a decade ago, has no revelance with what Doc did in his first season as a Magic and Rudy did in that 14 games losing streak. I'm comparing these two as they were in a similar situation but reacted differently, resulting in completedly different outcomes. It's funny though, the Rudy apologists are divided into two camps. The Heypartner camp tell people that the team is mainly about players. The coaching role is very limited in its nature. What a coach can do is to give the ball to the best player and get outta the way. On the other hand, The Rudy Has Two Rings camp tell people that Rudy is automatically better than other coaches as he's got more rings. Which one is it? I wonder what Doc can do with Hakeem in his prime.
Don't put words in my mouth. I said that continuous motion sports like the NBA, hockey and soccer (versus a much more controllable X and O sport like Football) rely more on the thinking of the players on the court. That has nothing to do with ISOs. What a slowdown game that Rudy, Pat Riley and JVG all played can do is (1) get high % possessions by working it through your star, or (2) simplify the game when you have dumb and young players who can't play Kings ball in a winning manner even if you gave them the best coach in the world. What DavidS said in this thread is Rudy Haters would rather lose at sophisticated offenses (which is exactly what Dave Cowens did with Golden State) that have busted plays all the time, than see a simplified offense that kept the Rockets in many games, but lost at the end. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but I do understand why many coaches prefer to slow it down than futile attempt fancy offenses with players who can't play it. Good coaches are a mix between strategy/system and knowing what their players can do. I believe the common denominator in all truly bad coaches is they try to force their players to do what they can't do and then blame them for it. That might work in the NCAAs when you control your recruiting and so what to keep embracing your "system," but when you can only add one player per year or trade away your stars who can't do what you want...it is bad coaching to go way against what your players can do. And that is why Hakeem did not win until Rudy got there. The other coaches just wouldn't "give me da ball."
I think what ya'll are not looking at is that some coaches are better for different teams. Look at Karl bombing in Milwaukee. Rudy was masterful with those mid nineties Rocks but yes, you are correct, he was not the right man for this current team. This team needs discipline and that is why I think JVG was the best possible pickup for us this off season. But no, Doc could not have done more than win championships, you see it simply isn't possible. No need to display your blatant Rudy dislike by saying something like "he could have won more games on the way to those championships" or something like that. Or that the Barkley years could have turned out better. Old Barkley, old Hakeem, old Pippen... do not add up to a superstar in their prime.
(1) I would be a helluva lot happier with Red Auerbach as head coach of the Rockets, even at his current age, than JVG (or Doc Rivers for that matter). (2) Olajuwon did not win under Bill Fitch or Don Chaney. Arguably "his prime" ran from the 1987-88 season to the 1996-97 season. The majority of those years were under coaches other than RT.
Yep. What do you do when your "star" player is a little on the "dumb" side? Ahem...Francis....achhem....cough, cough... Actually I remember Hakeem admitting that Rudy tried to convince him (and succeeded) that he had to trust (share the ball) his teammates in stead of competing with them. Hakeem during a 88-91 span was on constant competition with his own players.
