okay, fine i would not play alston AT ALL i would never play padgett pg- vspan,head yes, I would START vspan, i know he has turnovers , but he creates for others and never gets tired,and draws fouls , and would wear out other guards tryting to guard him, that way in the fourth quarter these guards wouldnt be so freakin rested sg- tmac on offense, wells backup minutes here,possibly head also sf- battier on offense (sg on defense) ,wells backup minutes here also pf- hayes, novak backup , or battier if we want to go really small c- yao, deke thats answers your question
our record doesn't reflect our poor team performance in the 2nd half of the last 3 games!! the only good game we played was against Miami... we beat Chicago by only 1 (we were actually supposed to lose it, but thanks to the officials not calling a travel on Rafer and a foul on Battier), we beat Milwaukee by 4 (and they almost got us too).. maybe we should wait until we are 6-10 and then be "upset" ... given our poor performance and our coach's failure to do the necessary adjustments, I dont see us going anywhere... we need to beat every single "power" in the NBA at least once and win our division if this is going to be our "championship year".. we cant afford not having homecourt advantage and finishing in the bottom 4 of our conference if we this is our year... I am not saying it's impossible and I am not saying that this is our final year, I am just saying that this is the ideal year for us to win a championship: we are healthy, we added some depth to the team, great additions, people in their contract year (you know who I am talking about ) ... we cant accept blowing big leads and losing to teams after having a 19 point lead in the 3rd...
I agree with you durvasa... we shouldn't just "play" rookies randomly because they'll probably mess up and cost us the game.. but there are some situations that I dont see no sense in not playing Vspan or Novak.. for example: when Gordon went D-wade on us, he started to heat up toward the end of the 3rd quarter, why did we keep Head in?? the coach should observe the situation carefully and put in the guys that would do the best for the team.. and I see no reason for not putting Vspan on Gordon, at least for a couple of positions, to cool him down, then take him out and put Head back in.. I know that Vspan turns it a lot, but I dont expect him to do worse that Head (which, btw, is a great player, but making him run the point in critical situations is not in the best interest of our team).. when the Spurs made there run and led by 6 in the last 4 minutes of the 4th, why not play Novak?? why didn't JVG draw a play for him? simple high pick and roll with Tmac?? I am pretty sure a 3 would've fired us up and we would've probably won the game (now I know that this whole "what if we did that" thing is not accurate and it doesn't help, but it might help for avoiding further mistakes in the future) I've always defended JVG, I've always thought he was a good coach.. but I am starting to doubt his coaching abilities now.. I hope he does what he's supposed to do and silent my doubts...
Which, in this case, is true!!! It would be easy to pick ten posters on this board who could and would collectively do a better job of managing AND coaching the Houston Rockets over the last ten years. I am dead serious. Just because they are rich and famous doesn't mean they have made the right decisions, far from it. Are Jessica Simpson and Britney Spears the best singers and dancers that you have every heard or seen? The elites are not always elite because they are better. Just because one is a successful athlete or even smart in JVG's case, doesn't make them a good team manager or coach. Many and I mean many of the comments I have read on this board are much more intelligent, knowledgeable, and insightful than much of what I have witnessed coming from the front office and from the coaches.
This post is laughable. I'm sorry - but it simply is not true. Coaching a team is far more then who you put in or not. There are so many nuances to the game that 99% of JVG critics aren't even aware of. Anyone who thinks Novak should be in right now doesn't play a whole lot of basketball. I mean, you can see the guy out there just looking lost. And VSPAN? He doesn't contribute in garbage time. People will always question the decisions a coach makes unless he has 10 champsionship rings. Should Phil Jackson get fired because the lakers aren't 10-0 now?
Because NewYorker has said so, it must not be true! But the great NewYorker is well aware of them! So far, I have counted 3 personal insults without any susbtance to this post. And NewYorker's personal favorite Juwan Howard makes contributions left and right. We are talking about garbage time for Vspan? How about 20+ minutes of garbage thrown up by Juwan in regular time? *laugh* Comparing a 9 time Champion coach to one who has won ZERO! Laughable comparison at best. Once again, more personal insults that actual substance in NewYorker's post. BRILLIANT!
Would you have signed Moochie Norris? Just one question. Would you have done it? (There are hundreds more)
Ok, that's a start. So you wouldn't play Alston, and you wouldn't play Snyder also. Fine. Now, what what are some of the lineups (i.e. the actual substitution patterns). Depending on who we're facing, we'll have to put out different combinations. In general, we need to consider the following (if a particular combination sacrifices in one, it needs to make up for it in another): Ball handling (i.e. taking care of the ball) Three point shooting Ability to create shots Perimeter defense Sound team defense Rebounding Ideally, you want there to be a good balance of all of these things out on the court. What would your (or anybody else's) player combinations be, and how would they grade on a scale of 1-10 in these categories as a unit?
It's so funny that Padgett has become all purpose whipping boy. As a minimum salary third PF, he's about as good as it gets. The numbers show that he's substantially better than Howard and at this point Novak has done nothing to show that he is ready for the NBA either. HAYES > PADGETT > HOWARD > NOVAK that is the way their performance has been this year. Accept it.
I would like to know why you would discount Alston from our lineup. To me he is the best pure PG's we have in this team. He has a pass-first mentality that helps Yao on the inside. I don't disagree that V-Span should get minutes.. but starting him over Alston would not be too good of an idea, IMO. Alston clearly has more experience in the NBA, less likely to turn over; and although limited, he has had more experience playing with the big man. If it was up to me, I would use V-Span for defensive purposes at this moment when another team's G explodes on us. He gives a much needed spark off the bench on the defensive side. Just a little bit of my $0.02. Maybe there's something about Alston I may be missing here...
HAYES > PADGETT > NOVAK > HOWARD Is how I see it. Novak is shooting 50% overall and 50% from 3pt land.....he just needs a little time. But, since scoring the basketball is clearly not very important, let's just keep dragging sorry ass Juwan out there, and see how our record is in a month...mmmmkaaayyy??? DD
You cannot show anything if you are not given play time. I know preseason is a different thing, but Novak showed plenty in preseason to warrant an oppertunity during regular season. He showed MUCH MORE than Padgett. WHAT PADGETT CAN DO THAT NOVAK CANNOT? AND CAN PADGETT SHOOT AS WELL AS NOVAK?
I summerize the opinions of fans who are optimistic about Rockets 1) The season is still young, the current results are the best in the past 3 years, the team is a new team, they won't be complete gelled until January 2) Rockets have the tendancy of always starting slow and break out late in the season if the team is healthy and good roster move is made 3) Heat were doing the similar thing last year as Rockets are doing, they started slowly yet they won the championship Maybe for those fans who think the above will happen natually, there isn't anything to be upset about, just be patient and Rockets will prevail eventually. However, can those happen natually? Do you have enough confidence that this Rockets team will repeat its success in the 04-05 season (if you call it a success)? Do you have enough confidence that this team will be delevoped championship ready physically and mentally late in the season? Do you have enough confidence that T-Mac and Yao will play their best come the playoffs? Do you have enough confidence that JVG will lead this team to achieve something big this season? Even if you don't have high hope for the Rockets this year (say you only expect Rockets to advance to the 2nd round of the playoffs), do you have the confidence the Rockets will be better next year, the year after next? Do you see a champsionship team always repeats the Rockets pattern every year? Winning big is not just talents accumlation, playing hard and tough, there's a lot of factors that our fans can't do anything to affect. Only the rockets insiders can do. So Rockets fans you can support, praise, complain, critisize, do what you can do to make yourselves heard. But please don't be too upset about the things that are out of your reach (such as firing JVG).
Why are we so upset? First off is because we are rabid fans of the game and the team and we want to see our team win every single game. Second is because it is in the nature of discussion boards, call in shows and other kinds of forums to attract people who like to gripe and consider themselves experts. Third because this forum would be really boring if everyone just posted "Things are OK and trust in JVG." Part of having a free flowing discussion on anything is to have complaints and second guessing. There wouldn't be anthing to talk about if there wasn't.
Yeah, but why do you need 5000 "I hate van gundy" threads. I mean, it's one thing to make a point, it's another to beat it in every other second. It gets old quick. It's only been 10 freakin games!
although i find it disappointing that, despite these big leads they get, JVG still does not try to put in Novak and VSpan on a regular basis. The blown leads is nothing shocking. If you were a Rockets fan during the 90s, I am sure you saw plenty of 4th quarter collapses.
