Stop giving credit to McHale. Rockets got lucky last year. Nothing to do with coaching staff. Rockets were struggling to win with authority against scrubs all season. Were down 1-3 to Clippers that shat the bed.
If our players disowned McHale after a WCF, any half-brained coach would know this job leads right off the edge of a cliff. They would want to be hired in the summer to lay down their system and earn respect.
OMG DD come on man. Don't start this Le$ crap again. How many times has a team fired a head coach twice in a season and had success? Actually when has a team fired a coach and had radical success? Usually there is a punch that the team sees at first, and it sparks a run, but the underlining issues are always still there. Firing McHale when they did was a already the hail mary pass because all the data was already showing that you can't contend with a start like that. If the Rockets can't contend then with the poor start they had, what would make it worthwhile to make yet another hail mary pass? The moves they make, coaches, and players needs to be about the greater good and longevity for a solid franchise beyond this year. I'm okay with hiring a longterm coach whenever the best one is available for the long term haul beyond this year. I'm sure Morey & Les feel the same way too, but likely that coach isn't available right now, and it makes no freaking sense to change coaches yet again to who exactly???.... Chris Finch? Do you REALLY want to go out and get Ty Corbin??? Because THAT is what you are going to get at this stage if you go outside the franchise. You know how stupid they would look if they did that? Its not about money dude. There is nothing substantial you could say to bring evidence to this nonsense gossipy drama rumor starting narrative.
This. Besides, JB is not as bad as some of you think. He's an improvement over McHale. And very few coaches, if any, could have motivated this bunch of players. The moment they decided to fire McHale 11 games into the season, they were stuck with an assistant-turn-interim. The better question is, why did they extend McHale in December 2014, way before we got to the WCF? Was it Morey's or Les's idea?
I bet the biggest reason is that part of our bid to get Durant will be that he will get to choose the coach.
I would bet that they decide before then. Most NBA teams make the decision right before the draft, and the Rockets have always done so in that timeline. However I do think that they will find a way to communicate (Tampering police I know) with Durant's people about who he wants, and will pursue. But there is no way they are going into that July 1st meeting (if they even get one) without a coach. That actually makes them look less stable, and without a style of play/system they can sell Durant.
I disagree. If it's part of a Durant pitch I would also tell him his team will be allowed to help design/finalize new uniforms.
Hey Durant, come help design new uniforms, pick the new coach and you can play on a lottery team with friend James Harden! Or you can go to Golden State, stay in Oklahoma City... :grin:
I mean Morey got Les to spend $3 million to upgrade the locker rooms and training facilities just for Dwight. Probably spend $2 million to "sign" Hakeem to be a "coach" for what was it, 3 weeks out of the season? It did convince Dwight to choose Houston over Golden State :grin::grin::grin:
No, they were not lucky. They were a good team last year. You find out how good a team is over 82 games. They won 56 games and they were good. The year before they won 54 games. For some reason certain players or player have gone into shut down mode.
Thank you. I've lost count of how many times I've explained how last year was fluke extremely similar to the Astros' World Series appearance. Had nothing to do with McHale. --- As to the point of the thread, when you fire your head coach so quickly into the season, you should be either conceding the season or looking to salvage the season. I can understand why a new coach wouldn't want to come in at this current point in the season. However, bringing in a new coach early in the season might have given the team some time for the team to gel with him by the midpoint and hopefully show an upturn in the second half of the season. Maybe you don't make the playoffs, but the upward trend is probably more important. Maybe you can pay enough to get whatever coach you want, but what player is going to want to come to a team whose entire season was a mediocre disaster? We can hire a new coach in the offseason. Maybe we even get Thibs, who seems like the best fit. But who's going to want to play with us with zero evidence that the new coaching regime has been effective? I think they should have made a heavy coach-recruiting push as soon as they fired McHale so early and just accepted that rest of the first half of the season was going to be a transitional time where they lost a lot. Also, if they're waiting to pick a coach to try to snag Durant, Morey's dumber than I ever thought possible. Durant would have to be the stupidest player in the NBA to come here given our current state. He's going to make the max from any team; he probably wants a ring. The Rockets are not securing a ring any time soon.
You do understand that other teams are looking for coaches too... You do understand firing a coach early in the season will limit your opportunities to find a coach, much less a good head coach, mid season.
The truth is usually somewhere in the middle over the last 3 years. We are probably nothing more than a middle tier play off team but that isn't good enough to win in the NBA.
