I love being a sports fan, I really do. One of the best aspects about being a fan of teams for a long time is to watch the hystrionics fevered fans are capable of, and given the smallest of opportunities. On this site alone, the weekly ride of highs and lows would make a rollercoaster designer blush with envy...A long time ago, a coach of mine told me a cliche which, like many cliches, held a lot of truth; Never get too high or too low, because you're never as good as you seem when things are going great, and you're never as bas as you look when they're not. I think that it's important to look for patters in players and teams, and to guage the implications of those patterns. So far this year the only things which stand out to me are that Steve seems to be making something of an effort to adapt, Mobley does not, Yao seesm stronger, and Cato and JJ are JVG kind of players. Oh...and then there's Moochie...but I am trying to avoid hystrionics myself, so I'll avoid Moochie's play, which often inspires them. I remember a couple of years ago, when Eddie had a few good games, and people in here were discussing how he compared with the like of Duncan, Rahim, and Garnett, and most found those players wanting in comparison. I was as excited as aynone about the acquisition of Eddie, but I remember reading that stuff and writing in here that I wondered what the comments would be like when a significant weakness in Eddie's game became apparent, as it inevitably would. Calls for public lynching? We get too high and too low, that is obvious. Whether or not it's wrong is not clear, but it makes for interesting reading at times. I think that Mobley's evident continuation in long established patterns might be the only thing evident so far this year which betokens something significant, as there has been no evidence whatsoever of an attempt on his part to fit into the scheme we are supposed to be running, and I must confess that I am unsure if Cat will ever make an effective compliment to Steve in a center-focused offense. But the comments about Steve after one bad game are blowing me away...He had one game where he was clearly trying to get the ball to Yao when he was on the floor, and one game where this was less clear; that's going to happen, the man is attempting to make a shift in his game so substantial that it defies his entire basketbal experience up till now, and I, for one, have been impressed with his progress thus far. If a month of so from now we are still talking about one game where he plays the system and one where he doesn't, then we've got a problem...but after one bad game? Come on... Same goes for Yao...he played dominant in Asia, was veey forcefull in pre-season, and the fact that he has been a little tentative so far, in two games, has people up in arms. I agree that he has developed, or shown, anyway, an odd tendancy to lean away from the ball when rebounding, but aside from that, he, like Francis, is a work in progress in this offense. It will not happen overnight, but everything we've seen from the two players who matter so far indicates that they are trying to make it happen. Mobley, maybe not, Moochie, firing squad at dawn...oh, wait...contradicting myself again...damned Moochie, why do you bring out the mean in me like that? But, seriously guys, have a little patience. As the man said, don't get too high or too low...the predictions that we were a championship contender because we beat Denver, or the protestations of doom because we lost to Memphis will both, in all likelyhood, look equally unrealistic in a couple of months. It makes for a fun ride, these Parades and Funerals in the immediate wake of final scores, but just don't take them all that seriously, or you won't survive the season...
Hey MacJag.... you kow that common sense and level-headness is not wanted here.. hope you have your firesuit ready... btw...I agree..one game does not a season make.
I agree. I sometimes expect too much myself. This was our team's SECOND regular season game with the new coach. I think we should give it 10 games before we can consider anyone responsible. I fully expect everyone to know their roles 10 regular season games, 6 preseason games and a training camp into the season.
i agree with you mickeyb, but... part of the fun and responsibility of being a diehard fan of your hometown team is to poke fun, love the good times, and hate the bad. i see where you're coming from with the "patience" thingee and i agree whole heartedly. i get mad sometimes at the team when they lose (okay... fine... a lot ), but it's all part of being a fan. i guess i'm a southern version of a philly, ny, or nj fan that boos when the team doesn't do well. it's just wanting to see your team do well because you know that they're more than capable of exceeding the 9th seed chad ford expectation. it's just as long as you don't lose faith in them... and i never will. i started watching basketball in the late 80's (pistons/blazers final) and have been a rocket fan since then. no reason to give up hope after two games. i've always been impatient... i know that. as always, good post. i wasn't trying to start up an anti yao bandwagon or anything. actually i'm probably starting to become a closet yao only fan.
Though I didn't get to watch the games 99% of the time (time difference, no rockets' broacasts, etc), I'm still following the games fervently, whether it's waking up at 8am on a Saturday morning to 'watch' the 'colour analysis' in Clutch chat room, or cheering loudly at work while following the live stats. We have 80 more games to go, and I'm looking forward to beyond 80. Like what MacBeth said, I already went through an emotional rollercoaster during the first 2 games. I was in such a bad mood that day when they lost to the Grizz. There ain't many true basketball fans here in Singapore, let alone rockets fans. Luckily, I get to celebrate or let off some steam through the interesting posts here
I thought you were out of the closet.... really, I know some dont think it is true about me...but I do get very upset when we lose or play stupid...but I have been watching this team for so long that I can tell you that times will get better.. No way we continue to play that badly...no freaking way. VG will make the adjustment, and the team will eventually get their **** together... If you think this is bad.. Some people need to get a sense of perspective... try being a diehard fan back in 82-83 You want to guess how many wins we had back then? try 14-68 and then...lets look at the team right after I started being a fan.. 71-72 Season 34-48 72-73 Season 33-49 73-74 Season 32-50 Patience folks...Imagine being a fan of a team that didnt make it to the Finals till 1986. that is damnnear 16 years of being a fan till your team even makes it to the Finals...much less having to wait 23 years to actually win a Championship. I guarantee you that we will win at the very least a few games over what we had last year..I personally believe we will win 5-10 more. Patience is a virtue.
Right there with ya MackieB... For those of us who seem to have basketball coursing through our veins, it is just so maddening.. to be watching a game, able to see what needs to be done, knowing who should be doing what, seeing the open man, watching our players run the opposite direction away from a rebound that hits the FLOOR, and is picked up by the other team, watching a player dribble into 3 defenders when there is a wide-open teammate ready and calling for the ball.. sigh.. it's frustrating, because WE can see it, when the world-class millionaire athletes (who don't have ANY other real responsibilities in life) can't or won't see what we can. Granted, it's harder to do it than to watch it, much harder. But still, one would have to think, if a player were actually taking to heart what the coach had been preaching, then the player would at least once in a while exhibit some of the desired behaviors. That's why I agree in part with what so many other posters have already said - if we are 20 or so games into the season and Mobley has not begun to exhibit the desired behaviors, then he has got to GO. To me, it's rather like the Griffin situation.. what is the message sent to all the other players on the team who HAVE begun to exhibit desired behaviors, if one player has not and still remains unchallenged? What little fledgeling team chemistry we have will be shot to heck. Best case scenario - Mobley pulls his head out of his orifice and plays within the scheme, or else he retains some of his current style and is the 6th man, coming in for immediate scoring punch off the bench. But he can NOT continue to play the way he has as a starter on this team. It's been said often enough - a good coach designs a scheme which best takes advantage of the strengths of the available players.. and I do actually think Cat is an asset, BUT only under the right circumstances. JVG has designed a scheme which, on balance, seems to take advantage of the strengths of his two 'big stars', and the rest of the players are simply going to have to adapt. It's just so frustrating when it seems apparent that a player is unwilling to adapt as he should.. it's that frustration which drives us to have the funerals, the rioting, the effigy-burnings.. and also leads us to sing the praises of the same player when he does the things we all expect of him. He is, after all, one of our own. He just drives us crazy. ciao
MacB - Well said, as usual. I jsut wanted to add... Highs and lows? IMO, Swift and Wright combining for 14 of 24 and 31 points is very close to their combined season high (and there were very few dunks). The Rox must have missed minimum 5 point blank shots. Knowing beforehand that Gasol would be 6-16 with 12 points and 2 boards would have delighted most posters. Francis and Yao are progressing. Learning post entry passing, proper (good) passing angles, solid postioning (sealing a defender on your your hip as the ball is rotated for example), re-posting, the reversal of the ball back to the weakside and the associated timing and postioning...not things learned in 6 pre-season and 2 regular season games. A WIP. Mobley at this point to me is an enigma...I have never questioned his desire to win...only his methodology. IMO, he has some serious design flaws. The most obvious of which are the heat check shots. And as has pointed out on many, many occassions, his skill set is almost identical to Francis. But there are others. Moochie? I'm not going to get too upset over Moochie whether it's 2 games or 20 games. His bar will be more accuratley positioned by Van Gundy than any of us. With no improvement in say 12 games or so...Wilks gets PT. If Wilks can't handle it, there are probably plenty of CBA, NBDL and/or FA options. Further downstream are the trade exception and leaving Moochie unprotected in the expansion draft. All in due time. Contrary to popular belief, Mooch didn't single handedly lose the MEM game.
Don't get me wrong...I'm not decrying fan passion, merely suggesting that we ackowledge the difference between emotional reactions and substantive ones, and keep it all in perspective. Lord knows I can get p*ssed off at tough losses myself. But that in and of itself isn't going to make me think that we need a personel change, that Steve has no hope as a point guard, etc. I think that long, passionless examinations of patterns is the only way to arrive at productive solutions to problems, or even to accurately identify whjat the problems are themselves. Similarly I don't buy into it when people are claiming that it's a given that Yao will be way better than Ewing ever was, let alone better than Kareem, Sabonis, etc. I see potential there, and I see a great attitude, but I haven't seen enough long enough to make claims like that.
Its still going to take ONE more Game of Rudy Ball for JVG to realise that he needs a traditional Point Guard to play the inside outside game. Our guards are poor passers and have a score first mentality.Yao Ming should not be pampered anymore, he needs to demand the ball and play a more rugged game, if he does'nt he will never gain respect on the NBA Court.
I am being completely sincere when I say this team NEEDS a trad ebecause it is structurally flawed. We are becoming the Knicks in that, JVG doesn't care what players we have, he just turns the current players into whatever he wants, and that doesn't always work.
Hey I bet you mearnt hysterics. Right? Anyway, it is NOT one game. I don't have short memory. But here is hoping that JVG turns it around tonight.
Nice post, MacBeth. It is a rollercoaster around here after games. I'm guilty myself when we lose a game that's clearly one we'll look back on as thrown away if we miss a crucial seed or (heaven forbid) a playoff spot. They all count, obviously, and although it would be hard to be any earlier in the season, this is a game we should have won, imo. It's difficult not to quickly get in a lather about inconsistancy, however. That was a hallmark of last year. But I wanted to respond to Sane's reply. I don't disagree that a trade may be necessary, Sane (inevitable might be a better word), but I do disagree with this: "We are becoming the Knicks in that, JVG doesn't care what players we have, he just turns the current players into whatever he wants, and that doesn't always work." We've had a major overhaul in personnel. Two of the vets we added are still not playing. Both could be playing big roles had they been healthy... Piatkowski in particular. If JJ's shot's not falling, who have we got to substitute? Boki? He's coming along, but he's got a long way to go and plays like it. Pike would have been a nice substitute for Jackson or, after another stretch of playing outside of the offense, Cat. AGriff is another option we didn't have. Eddie Griffin is a player who was planned around and now is halfway out the door. If anything, JVG made more changes to the personnel than I could have wished. I'd like to see Terence Morris on the bench. We could use him right now. (where is he??) Like you, Sane, I expected, and still expect, a major trade. Griffin's implosion may have thrown a wrench into that, but I still think we got the exception for a reason. I hope we're planning on using it to bring in an impact player this season (after JVG see's who can fit and who can't) and not next summer or, god help us... that it was just a salary dump. When the injured players come back, we may see some major changes in roles. If Mobes doesn't "fit" the system better, he may be the odd man out for a trade. He would be a great 6th man, but I'm not sure he'd accept that and he's a valuable trade chip. We'll find out more about the team over the next several games, especially after Piatkowski and Adrian Griffin start playing. I think the 4 spot may be adequately covered as Taylor gets into shape and Cato continues playing well. But Cato playing the 4 is another huge change. Hell, a huge surprise. Norris is hard to talk about (groan) and Wilks is unproven, so a move there may happen. We'll have to wait and see. I wonder what the rollercoaster ride will bring tonight, MacBeth? Up or down?
Good post. 1. Re: Francis. Have you noticed that Francis is also better about getting the ball to Yao when he personally and the team is doing well? It's understandable, in one respect - Francis still envisions himself as the leader of the team. When things aren't going right for the team, he wants to carry the responsibility of righting the ship. Unfortunately, this also shows he hasn't entirely bought into the inside-out game and loses confidence in it either. And then when the team is doing well, but he personally isn't... he seems to sometimes forget to play team ball, as if he feels the need to do something spectacular to make up for his mistakes. Something else that needs to change.... and it's more than a little ironic, because when the team absolutely most needs to play inside-out, Francis doesn't. 2. Re: Mobley. How long do you give him? There are already plenty of trade Mobley threads. If it's evident by mid-season that he still considers himself the #1 option (or at worst, #2 behind Steve), should we dump him? What about benching him every single time he takes a bonehead shot when teammates are open? Or what about simply never, ever playing him when Yao's on the court? (instant offense off the bench, only) 3. Re: Cato. Did you notice the way that Cato gave Gasol a ton of space? Just curious to know if you think this was coaching or just Cato's own mistake. While Gasol certainly has the ability to face Cato up, all to often, Gasol was able to get the ball far too low in the post because Cato played too far back. JVG defense seems more aggressive than this, so I might question the idea that Cato is completely a JVG player.
I know what you're talking about. I was there. And if you were also a diehard Oilers fan. . . and the Cougars. . . arghhhh, how did I get through the 80s as a Houston sports fan???
Great post MacBeth, I'm not sure this post fits in this thread but its the only "reasonable" thread I could find. I have a theory about the game against the Griz. The game started out rough for the Rockets and was really the first period where the Rockets new game plan was tested. JVG didn't seem to want to coach a lot and in fact didn't do anything in the way of personel or matchup changes hence the 8 man rotation. JVG saw early that the Rockets were going to resort to their old style of ball at the first sign of adversity and he let them. Can you imagine the conversations with the team while reviewing game tapes from the Grizzlies game. I think JVG wanted some live ammo to throw at a team that has not fully bought into his style of play. Its just a theory but it kinda makes you wonder. How many times will he let the team do its own thing before he benches the whole bunch and lets the non guaranteed players have it cause he knows they will follow his lead.
Nice post, MacBeth! I can see the benefit of not getting too high or too low with any single event, such as keeping yourself from going insane and spending all of your free time on the BBS, for example. But I also think that life is too short not to get too high or too low sometimes. Of course, we'd all like to be high all the time, heh heh, but living for the moment in all of its intensity, through the peaks and the valleys, makes the good times so much more special. I think it'd be pretty special for us to make the playoffs this year, for example, after missing it for 4 years straight. And I can't wait 'til we spank the Bulls tonight.
Horrible post, MacBeth. Not really, I'm just trying to be different. I don't get as high after a win or as low after a loss as I used to. The Oilers leaving changed everything for me. Maybe it sapped a lot of the passion from me, although I'm still very passionate. It's just that my life doesn't depend upon wins and losses like it did in my younger days. I was clinically depressed after the NC State game, the Buffalo game, Game 6 against the Mets in 86, and Game 7 against the sonics in 93. I try not to set myself up like that anymore. I just can't take it. I'm a much more level-headed sports fan now days. Maybe that will change when the Rockets and Texans become contenders.
