It's not a lack of effort - that's just a symptom of guys not buying into a game plan or truly believing. The passion isn't there and it takes passion to keep up the level of intensity necessary to win consistently. This team has many many problems. The biggest one is that they don't have the right personnel around Harden to exploit his best talents. We are an awful 3 point shooting team which should be our strength given the number of open looks created. We also don't have any passing skills outside of Harden or the little used Lawson. Our defense is atrocious at times. And it's not just effort - it's the whole philosophy. How can players give effort when they don't buy-in to the defensive philosophy? When players are consistently making mistakes and giving up easy buckets it's a sign that there are very deep problems. This team needs a significant overhaul from top to bottom. You keep Harden but I wouldn't count on him as a leader. Instead bring in a super star that complements Harden well and can serve as the leader - someone who works harder, has a strong voice, and burns with desire to win a ring.
You would NEVER see Kobe or Wade at the club the night after the self proclaimed best two guard in the game torched them...
The burning question many of us have is: Why do players completely stop believing in a coach (McHale) who just lead them to the WCF and one of the best Rocket seasons in history? It makes no sense anyhow and says more about the players than the coach. And also, the mistakes we make on defense are brutal, no defensive philosophy can be that bad that players completely give up and rather do their best drunken bum slapstick impressions on that end of the court. It just doesn't make any sense for a WCF team to completely abandon their coach and system right after and I've never seen anything like it.
Both Harden and Klay Thompson are too cocky for their own good. They are not near prime Wade or Kobe's level.
Because he didn't have solutions. When the solution is always to play harder, the players slowly start to feel like they always take the blame when sometimes the coach should take blame too. We've never seen anything like it because it's a new generation of players. Philosophies appear and disappear in the NBA and McHale's coaching philosophy is done. These guys are now all aware of advanced stats and reading them regularly, imagine how primitive it looks to have your coach clapping his hands and saying come on guys over and over again when you know advanced defensive and offensive stats and you have access to information which tells you what has been working and what hasn't. These guys spent the offseason team building and working out together. You can not realistically say that they came into the season not motivated. Everyone was real clear in the offseason that they were going to put in extra work to exceed last year's performance. McHale did a tremendous job for his time here, but he reached the limit of what he can do with these guys and we don't have 2-3 all-world talents to overcome the areas where he's lacking. There are plenty of similar examples, just look into how many Coach of the Year winners get fired shortly after. Did they suddenly lose their ability to coach? No. What they did was scream their ass off for a year to scare the **** out of the players and make them give their all. But if you're screaming all the time, the players start tuning it out and assuming it's normal. Coaches need to save their claps and antics for unique important moments in the playoffs and big games. I'm not surprised the team finally gave up on him. I'm not sure JB is much better but at least he saw how this team failed and can learn from it. Plus he has time to improve. If by the playoffs he's able to learn lessons quickly and improve as coach, then even as a lower seed we'll be in a good position. I wouldn't want to have McHale in this year's playoffs, he can't get these guys into another gear because he was going top gear all year long.
Lou, I love your response, but the question is who do you bring in? What player out there would Harden listen too? Right now Harden is at that stage where he feels like know one can tell him anything.. Coach or Player... Even now he doesn't feel as if he's doing anything wrong.. The NBA and the Rockets have put him on a pedestal and he feels as if he's doing everything right. So who do you bring in to set him on the correct path? The only way Harden will listen is once he falls off of his pedestal... Until then you're going to get what you get from him.. T_Man
My suggestion would be to move whatever assets we need to move, including Capela, for a guy like Smart or Oladipo, young 2-way players that defend at a high level and can create offense. Then go get Durant in the summer if possible, and re-sign Dwight to a fair deal. It's not a matter of what player Harden is going to listen to. It's a master of having a good to great 2-way player that can make all the plays and defend too. Harden would respect that and Hardens defensive intensity would increase if paired with agood-to-great 2-way perimeter player. Besides we need to get that guy anyways in case Harden continues to spin out of control even worse than he is now.
I wonder at this stage of the game if Harden would even listen to Durant... Once the little brother thinks he's better than the big brother he stops listening to him.. Personally I don't think Durant will sign here... I have a feeling Durant will try to get away from guards like Westbrook and Harden.. Just my own personal opinion. But I hear what you're saying basketballholic... T_Man
I think Durant either stays in Okc or goes to the Warriors. Warriors have the perfect system and players to complement him. He probably plays better with Curry too.
It is dumbfounding and makes me sick. I just have my own theory that Harden was THE reason McHale was fired. Most of the team players liked McHale, and now they distrust Harden even more for getting McHale fired. Harden may become known as "coach killer" before the end of year and that will make attracting a really good coach more difficult. The team has so many problems and issues so that complicates finding a solution. There will have to be several solutions to getting this team back together in the right direction, if that is even possible.
Don't know why Durant would sign here. His situation in OKC is about just as good, if not better. In any case, this team just neeeds to play a lot better and look a lot more alive to be attractive to any if the top FAs.
McHale got fired because his team became complacent. The warning signs were in training camp. It was his job to build on the momentum of the WCF. His job to mentor Harden and explain how this upcoming summer could be one to rest and have fun, but he'd risk losing his edge and that if he wanted to win a ring, here's what Larry Bird did, here's what all the other greats do. It was his job to send Harden videos of Stephan Curry trying to get better. I don't know if McHale did that or not. But I do know that Harden never got that kind of message into his head for some reason. And that was the failure. Harden sets the tone, the problems begin with him, but they don't end with him. Someone has to take responsibility. First it's often the coach, next it's the player when you can't blame the coach any longer. I don't know to be honest.
Good response... I too don't know who that person could be... This is Dantley all over again... T_Man
