1. When McHale left the franchise, their best two players were Jefferson (injured) and Love. This is their roster in 94/95, the year before McHale took over: http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/MIN/1995.html 2. The 55% includes years when Garnett was very young or injured, too, no? 3. Houston is much more desirable than Minny as a location. McGrady wanted to come to Houston, before then Barkley and Pippen both chose Houston. Sure they chose to join an existing star there, but places like Minny (and Cleveland) are such that even when they have a star, nobody wants to go there. Look, I'm not saying McHale didn't screw up some moves, or that he is better than Morey for sure, but it being the GM of the Siberia Timberwolves is a tough ass gig in which he is the only one who even had modest success.
If we need some silver lining... We key in on the lousy 20-43 record in the '09 season. In fuller context, McHale did alright in his 2nd stint until Al Jefferson got injured and was out for the season. He even got Coach of The Month once. At the time, Al Jefferson was having a breakthrough year, kinda like their "Zach Randolph" of this year. You can say that Adelman did much better than McHale after losing his best players to injury. But for a woeful organization like the T-Wolves, losing their best player is MUCH more DAMAGING to the team. So you can say in VERY LIMITED INTERIM WORK, McHale does alright when he has a healthy team.
Here's what I don't understand. You see people say that Aldelman did a great coaching job because he was able to post 44 wins this season. Ok, fair enough. Now, after the Rockets made the Battier and Brooks trades that Adelman was so against was the team better or worse? It's pretty obvious that they were better. So in this particualar case the Hall of Fame coach was wrong and the non-basketaball front office guy was right. Souldn't the front office get credit for the way they improved and finshed the season? If you are going to blame Morey for moves that he didn't make (whether they were possible or not ) isn't it only fair to give him credit for moves that he made? Maybe if Adelman had given the statistical information a try that would have worked too, who knows? I also really enjoy the "This proves that the Rockets really don't care about winning" posts that have been popping up lately. To an extent I'd agree, the Rockets don't care about winning...winning 42 to 44 games a year that is. Their goal is to be a championship contender not fighting for the 8th playoff spot. That's great that Adelman wanted to stick with his guys but if by doing that you are running on a treadmill and not getting better then what's the point? Did playing the veterans give us a better chance of winning more games last season? Yes it did. Would playing the young guys have potentially given us more benefit longterm? Maybe. Were we going to be a legit contender last season? No we were not. What was the only possible chance that our current roster had of developing into a contender? I'd say that it was to have some of the young players develop. Lastly I always get a chuckle out of the "Too many roster moves hurts the team" argument. We're lobbying to not break up a 42 to 44 win team? Isn't that what you are suppose to do? Fran Blineberry complained that Morey's 33 roster moves in a three year span was too much. Personally, I'd be upset if Morey was content with a 42 to 44 win team. I want him to keep making changes until we become a contender. Coincidentally, Boston made the exact same number of roster moves (33) over that same time frame. Is anyone complaing about Danny Ainge making too many roster moves? So it comes down to are you in it for the short term to maximize our wins at 40-some in a particular season or do you have higher goals and are willing to to try something with a higher short term risk but a much greater long term potential gain? I believe that the Rockets are interested in doing what gives them the best chance to become a contender and sticking with what give you the best chance to maximize a mediocre win total isn't a desirable thing. It just didn't seem that Adelman was on board with potentially taking a step backwards in the short term in exchange for greater potential rewards. I'm guessing that McHale and the other guys that made the short list were on board with those goals.
mchale sucks as a coach, and THAT IS THE REASON WHY WE HIRED HIM. This is a great move by Morey. It will gain us a great pick. Adelman was only let go because he was too good! This is a brilliant move by Morey.
McHale had a prime KG for several years and could not build a contending team around him..... ...which is why I have serious doubts that he will be able to coach a championship team built around Hasheem Thabeet.
K-Mac sold himself, convinced Morey that he bought into the system, and gave a favorable impression to Les, that's it, nothing more. Don't judge him on next year's record, judge him on player development.
i think it's fair to judge him on both. but i will atleast give him a full season before judging him too much. in the meantime i remain optimistic.
Not so much down on McHale as disappointed that Adelman's not here anymore. It seemed like Adelman didn't get a fair shake. Maybe McHale will be good, but we already know Adelman was. He just didn't have the players to get the job done.
This is a rhetorical question, right? Because the answer is pretty clear to most of us with eyes: Never. Underestimate. The. Ignorance of message board posters and clueless fans. Apparently a bad GM = a bad coach. How do you guys think Rudy T would have done as a GM? Serious question. Apparently a losing record on a bad team = a bad coach. How do you guys think Phil Jackson would do in Cleveland? Serious question. The worst thing you can possibly say about Kevin McHale as a coach would be he is unproven. Which would be the truth. If you want to be ambivalent about the unknown then be my guest. I don't see a problem with that. Personally, the fact that so many uninformed fans are so down on him and the most informed guy and most likely the smartest guy in the room(Morey) is so up on him makes me ecstatic. Because if history is any indication, the combination of those two things means Kevin McHale will probably be a ROARING success.
Actually, this is the reason why they didn't keep Adelman in the first place. Adelman is an old-school coach. He tries his best to win. He plays the guys that fit him. He always take the short-term approach to basketball. These things make sense, because coaches can't look 5 years down the road when they generally get canned after one or two bad years. And that's all well and good when you have a contender. You need that coach who can squeeze 110% from all his players. You need someone who can get a 2-seed rather than a 3-seed for homecourt, to help win that extra game for you in the playoffs. But that stuff is useless when you have a mediocre team. What did the Rockets perseverance get them these past two seasons? Nothing, really. Because the difference between 42 wins and 38 wins is a a couple of pick lower. Whereas the difference between 58 wins and 54 wins could be perhaps finals vs 1st round exit. Adelman has proven that he can take great veteran star talent and take them far into the playoffs. He has never proven that he can turn raw young talent into great veteran talent.
What's actually kind of funny is that looking closely, I don't even think McHale was that bad of a GM. I think McHale's biggest failure may have been in the cap department. He basically gave KG an albatross contract and screwed the team over in terms of getting players. This might've been okay if the owner is Cuban or Allen. Or if the team resides in LA. But when you're in Minnesota and your owner won't give you unlimited money, it's impossible to maneuver. Also, Minnesota suffered the current Houston problem, perpetual mediocrity. I know McHale missed on some players, but he also hit on some others. Overall, I think he's a run-of-the-mill GM. Not great, but not someone who consistently draft busts with top 5 picks. Overall, I find that McHale has a much worse reputation among fans than his results would indicate.
Losing those first rounders probably hurt his results as a GM as well. Should have gone to the Riley school of discretion. Lesson learned. Your results as a GM still do not reflect on your ability to coach. But if people really want to nitpick, the one possible grey area even close to overlapping could be player evaluation. Still, GMs have to project unproven players into the future, while coachs only have to evaluate players on his own team. But even with that McHale did okay with KG and Love. If his priamry failures as a GM was really in the cap department, then that would be the furthest from his concerns as a coach.
This is a good post. You might give a little more time if you have a guy like Durant on your roster, but it's clear no one we have had on this roster recently is even close to top 20 NBA talent.
I think a lot of McHale selling himself was that he brought a different fresh vibe in CONTRAST to the previous coaches. He is different than the previous stodgy, taskmaster guys before him. And it resonated MUCH more brightly WITHIN the organization than with the fans, media and anybody on the outside looking in. We talk about "players coaches", but perhaps the front office needs a "front office's coach" almost the same way.
My thoughts as well... Of course I didn't like the Robert Horry draft pick or the Mario Elie trade so what the hell do I know?...
As others have said, that's not clear at all. That's your opinion, and that now continually spread by Rockets interns like "Chris Jent MVP." He did a ton of developing. How could he not with that roster? And now he's gone. I'm willing to drop Adelman, but when people come on here and rewrite his efforts, I'll post about him. Let's talk about McHale. Here's why I don't like him: it goes back this far. <iframe width="425" height="349" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/X7r6vXeOfyQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Dude was a pretty dirty player, period. I didn't like players like that. Plays like that aren't hard fouls, they are indictments of the soul, just like the plays (actually worse than the plays) we see from Bynum these days.
Evaluating the coach cant be tied directly to winning and losing. They played better after the trade because players became more focused on their game. They were not as distracted. Their roles became more defined. Its a over simplification to say the team was better without those guys or that RA was wrong or right concerning his feelings about who he played. How well a team plays isnt always determined by who you got. Its often determined by a number of intangibles.
This ^^^^ Additionally, a coach, GM or player can have their track record substantially changed by a change in environment. Every situation is unique. Even if McHale had years of losing, he might be a winner in Houston. And sometimes you have a HOF coach or player who falls flat on a new team. I realize that people like to crunch data around here. Ones past is our only indicator on how they might do in the future. But it is not cut and dry. And isnt always accurate.
