Possible Replacements for McHale

I get why mchale's 4th year option was picked up. He's great for recruiting. Since that was a swing and a miss, next summer the Rockets will probably not renew his contract. A respectful way of letting him go without technically firing him.


Search Criteria:
1) Les wants fast breaking, high scoring. more fun for fans = more $
2) DM believes in 3's, layups, fts and wants a coach who will follow that lead.
3) both realize that harden needs someone to hold him accountable (Disciplinarian) but not piss him off (task master). they see the perfect blend with the USA coaches getting the best james harden there is, while mchale gets the lesser version.
4) personality management - dwight and james are unique personalities. they need to keep things light or they will turn off. mchale is great at that but doesn't hold them accountable. someone too harsh (like SVG) is a turn off to dwight and probably james too. its gotta be a blend like pop.
5) strategist - defense, game preparation, in game adjustments are all things that were exposed as major weaknesses under mchale. without this we will not advance in the playoffs.

Below is a fairly comprehensive list of available coaches. That is, coaches who are not currently head coaches in the nba. The list is broken up into a few categories in which the coaches are listed in no particular order.

Former HC's:

• Doug Collins
• JVG - doesn't fit what les wants on offense
• Karl - too harsh for H&H, won't listen to what morey wants
• Adelman
• Avery - too harsh
• Vinny of the black - too soft, not good enough strategist
• Mark Jackson - not good enough strategist
• Skiles - too harsh
  • Woodson - not the offense les wants
  • Mike Brown - not the offense les wants, too harsh

out of this list of free agent head coaches, only collins and adelman fit the search criteria, but i'm pretty sure both are staying retired.


Current Assistants / Associate Head Coaches:

• Ewing - Associate Head Coach with the hornets, 12 years as an assistant.
• Andy Greer - Former JVG assistant, now thibs' top assistant.
• Tyronn Lue - Former Doc assistant, also worked under Thibs in Boston. Now Associate Heat Coach for Cavs.
• Brendan Malone - long time piston assistant under Daily. ran the bad boy defense charged with stopping jordan. worked under SVG in orlando and now with the pistons
• Kurt Rambis - Long time Phil Jackson assistant. sure he failed with the wolves, so did adelman. i don't blame the coaches with rosters/GMs like they had.
• Jim Boylen - Ast to Pop, rudy T, Tom Izzo, Brian Hill, Skiles, Stotts
• Ed Pinckney - thibs assistant, credited for helping game plan thibs defense.
• Alvin Gentry - disciple of larry brown, pop, d'antoni, and doc. known for merging the brown/pop defense with d'antoni's offense and leading the suns to the WCF.
• Nate Mcmillan - was a good head coach in portland, credited for pacers defense, grind it out offense.
• Elston Turner - long time adelman disciple, credited for game plan and defense.
• Frank - disciple of brian hill, doc rivers, byron scott.
• Corbin - long time sloan disciple

out of this list, i would call Jim Boylan and Alvin Gentry for interviews. The other guys are really good assistants, but don't fit all of the search criteria the way these two do.

College:

• John Beilein, Michigan - fast paced offense that values ball movement, player movement, spacing, and finding quick shots.
• Thad Matta, Ohio State - half court offense that finds ways to get the ball in the post.

forget these names. you'd sooner pry pop from the spurs:

• Jim Boeheim, Syracuse
• Roy Williams, North Carolina
• Mike Krzyzewski, Duke
• Bill Self, Kansas
• Tom Izzo, Michigan State
• John Calipari-Kentucky
• Billy Donovan, Florida
• Fred Hoiberg, Iowa State *passed on NBA this summer by signing 10yr/$20M with Iowa
• Kevin Ollie, UConn *like hoiberg, just signed 5yr/$15M with UConn
• Tony Bennett, University of Virginia - similar to JVG/thibs, defense first, half court offense, gets the most out of players. *edit, nevermind he just signed for 7yrs at UV.
• Bob Huggins, West Virginia *edit, signed through 2023.

From this short list, John Beilein gets the call for an interview based on the search criteria.

List Of Coaches I'd Call For An Interview (based on the search criteria)

1) Adelman - probably staying retired / bridge burned when we didn't give the HC spot to turner for our rebuilding process.
2) Collins - hall of famer, but hasn't accomplished much as a coach. ECF with jordans bulls. mostly excelled at turning around crappy teams and developing young talent. probably wants to stay retired.
3) Boylen - 3 championships as an assistant (2 with rudy T, 1 with pop), but never was a HC before. That might be the only blemish on a fantastic resume.
4) Gentry - fits the criteria pretty well except for being the strategist.
5) Beilein - les and DM probably wouldn't roll the dice on a college coach when trying to get this team over the top.

Final Decision:
Unless there is a better coach that quits or gets fired, I'm going to say that Alvin Gentry becomes our next head coach. I'll say that Boylen is probably the second choice if gentry gets hired somewhere else or we get outbid for him. I'm calling it now, it's going to be one of these two guys.

This doesn't get me as excited as SVG, Hollins, Adelman, or JVG would, but I would actually be happy with either of these 2 guys as the head coach. They'd be upgrades, and I believe they are the best available that fit our needs.