11 replies to this topic

[Rahat Huq]

I am loath to dole out grades. I’ve never done it. Why? Because it presents a veil of finality. Not every issue is closed or can be defined by the assignment of a single character. But I’ll do it. Psychologists will tell you that people like grades because people want conclusions. Whilst casual reading, people don’t want to be left with open-ended analysis; they want a concrete takeaway in concise form. So with that, I’ll do this…for you guys. But know I hate such gross oversimplification in assessment.

We’ll start this series with Kevin McHale. I’ll work through every major figure associated with the team, or until I grow tired of the whole thing. That could very well happen as early as like the Kevin Martin issue or even last up to Hasheem Thabeet. We’ll see. Actually, I had been working on (putting off) a ‘season in review’ piece, but realized I needed to do some of the major thinking in more detail and figured this series would help. Anyways, without further ado, I present to you the Kevin McHale installment.

Read the full story here.

[pharmag]

Definitely a fair assessment. I think one thing to take into consideration with the young players, is that the guys that didn't see much play time were Flynn, Williams, Thabeet, and Morris.

Flynn and Thabeet were technically stuck behind other young players in Dragic and Hill who received the time to develop.

Williams actually got some play time early on in the season, but after falling to 2-6 he stopped receiving any play time and then shortly after that it was made known he wouldn't get a contract extension, so why would you spend time developing a guy who isn't going to be around.

As for Morris, I don't think anyone would argue that he needed the time in the D-League at the beginning of the season to learn his new position. When he did get called up, he suffered an ankle sprain and ended up back in the D-League so he could rehab it. After that, we had our rotations and were in the middle of a play-off push, so I am sure the directive was not a straight "develop our young guys" any more.

I know the argument for McHale was that you develop the young guys, but we all know Les doesn't like to lose either. Furthermore, there were a lot of young guys who needed time to develop. Technically, Dragic, Patterson, Parsons, Hill, Budinger, Morris, Williams, Flynn, and Thabeet as all young guys that need developing (Dragic is longest tenured at 3 years). Without benching all your high salaried guys, there is really no way to give all those guys time to develop so you earn your game time in practice (hence why Dragic, Patterson, Parsons, Hill, and Budinger all got significant play time, which is over half that young group). Just thought I would point that out.

[Alituro]

I think it's a fair grade. McHale may have fallen victim to a change of directives from the front office in early mid season that impacted his effectiveness as a coach. Starting the season, I'm sure he had the directive to develop the younger players and we started off slow, but as the season progressed and we started moving up in the win column and WC standings, upper management saw that there may be a chance we reach the playoffs, and therefore taxed McHale with winning at all costs. Unfortunately you can't operate under both directives at once, and the younger players suffered because of it. I'm sure with 20/20 hindsight the brass regrets changing the directive and wishes they would have stayed with their original plan, and now they'd have a better developed, young roster and a higher draft pick, all things equal. That being said, I think McHale did OK with what he had to work with, but the 6 game late skid still remains a mystery.

The days of high end coaching seem to have left the NBA there are few coaches in the league I would have scored better than a C+, those being Thibs, Pops, Brooks, and maybe one or two more, Adelman did a good job turning around the Wolves, but they still could use some defensive guidance.

JVG and Adelman were excellent coaches, but each lacked in strength what the other possessed i.e., Offense/Defense, had they both been on the staff at the same time coaching their strengths, it would have been ugly.

[Stephen]

A little harsh on the grade,but that's a personal opinion.

In a discussion elsewhere ran across some interesting plus/minus numbers.
Scola in particular. The Rockets barely scored more when he was on the court,but gave up over 3.02 FEWER points when he was on the court. The biggest margin on D for any Rocket who got significant minutes. Second was Dalembert and the team giving up 2.57 points fewer.
In other words,the Rockets were better defensively when Scola was on the court and about the same offensively. Completely opposite of what everyone would imagine.

Considering McHale won about the same as Adelman,and both had a late collapse,w/out a full off-season to work with,a B- would have been my grade.

I wonder if the Parsons/Morris playing time result tells us a lot about McHale going forward,and if so who the Rockets might want to avoid in the Draft.
If you look at the Rockets who got playing time,they seem to be ones who outwardly wanted to play,to hustle,who appeared to be playing hard. Players who didn't manifest that old-school vibe increasingly got benched.Not saying they didn't want to play just as much or as hard,just that they didn't give off that impression outwardly.
Scola replacing Dalembert,Parsons getting minutes and Morris not,Williams continual benching,not rushing Martin back in favor of keeping Lee the starter,Patterson over Hill.
Players w/a strong work ethic,high basketball IQ and an obvious desire to play and play hard,those are the qualities McHale gave minutes to.
Should the Rockets draft anyone w/a "weak motor",a low BBIQ,who only plays offense,they're going to get buried like Morris,no matter how physically talented they might be.

[bob schmidt]

For starters, issuing a grade for an incomplete season is pretty tough business. Particularly for a coach who was not in the coaching business the year prior, and without a group of supporting coaches to assist him. The reason that I call this an incomplete season is not the shortened length of the season, but incomplete because of no real summer camp, and proper training before season's beginning.

Beyond the lack of preparation time, the ill-fated trade for Gasol destroyed our team chemistry, in my opinion. It would be unfair to blame coaching for Martin's state of mind all season, or for the late season return of Lowry which seemed to affect the team chemistry negatively during our "stretch run" to possibly make the playoffs. I cannot fault the coaches, McHale included, for this season...

While each one of us who follow rahat's blog has his favorite players, and personal ideas of how to improve the team; the upcoming season is the real test for McHale. No one should be judged for uncontrollable circumstances as this past season presented. Now, we face a draft and trading season in preparation for next year's war. From my perspective, I think I like McHale's style of dealing with his players. Of course, I also want to see results. So, this year I issue him and his staff an incomplete. Next year is another subject because we have a lot of young talent, and excuses for lack of success are not an option....

[Chichos]

As we heard throughout the season Mchale didn't have a chance to institute his culture before the Rockets were playing meaningful games. And I think that hurt him a lot throughout the season. Mchale knows his basketball, but after a full season I noticed he just wanted his players to shut up and play. No excuses, no lineup chess, just lace up your sneakers and do your job. It's a blue collar approach that works with some organizations (think Steelers... those early 2000s Pistons etc). But it requires a certain culture top to bottom to get it done. I think Larry bird is trying to do a similar thing in Indiana right now. (Guess I should have listed their old school Celtics team to that list earlier)

Mchale didn't have the off season to get everyone on the same page this year. But next year there is no excuse. I think everyone knows what Mchale expects at this point. He has established his baseline. I think the players that stay over the off-season will be of that mindset. But having said that will we have enough talent in those guys to go somewhere. It takes a lot more then bringing your lunch pale to work to be successful in the NBA.

The problem is this isn't college. These are grown men doing a job and a lot of them don't really care. Blake Griffin takes half of his defensive possessions off and he has Chris Paul screaming in his ear all game. Dalembert checks out mentally so much a 38 year old with one hand took his starting job. I know we want guys who are tough and who care to play for us, everyone wants that. But the league is full of time card punchers who play big on national tv and contract years so they can coast the rest of the time. Successful coaches in the NBA balance those guys with blue collar guys and get a meaty stew of success. If Mchale's plan is to "culture" the underachievers into shape then we are going to have a long three years ahead of us.

[Rahat Huq]

I give Morey a B+ on the year. Part 1:

http://www.red94.net...hy-part-7/9671/

[Stephen]

1)Dalembert is even more defensible than you credited(even tho I too hated the signing as I didn't-and still don't-like Dally's game).
With the collapse of the Gasol trade and Chuck not wanting to wait for an offer,the Rockets were left w/the following bigs-Hill,Scola,Thabeet-who McHale would't even suit up against Dwight and Orlando-Patterson(injured) and Morris,who the team wanted at SF.
There was nothing there besides Scola,Hill and an injured Patterson.
I credit Morey for getting Dalembert at such a team-friendly contract.

2)He did trade Scola-the League just refused the trade.
After that,nobody was looking to make trades til half the season was done,at which point Morey's focus was trading for Howard. Whether Scola was to be part of the trade,or was to be Howard's sidekick,it's little wonder trading Scola separately was pretty far from Morey's mind. There was so little time left after Howard's veto it would have been hard to put together a Scola trade.(Not to mention the Rockets were in the midst of the Play-Off picture at time and trading away the only reliable big would have been hard to sell to the owner.Portland basically blew up their team at the same time and ended up w/#11 compared to Rockets' #14.Big whoop. And the Blazer's tanking took a heavy toll on its fanbase.)
Surprisingly enough the Rockets were barely better on offense when Scola was on the court than when he was off,but were much better defensively when he was on than court than when he was sitting.

3)Kevin Martin should have been traded,esp at beginning of season. There's the decent possibility the team could have gotten Pekovic from Minn at beginning of year. Once Martin went out w/the shoulder there would have been minimal interest in him.

[Rahat Huq]

Part 2 on Morey now up:

http://www.red94.net...y-part-71/9678/

[ChinaConor]

Rahat,

Given the shortness of the offseason and the fact that Morely did have a deal in place for trading Scola and Martin that was blocked by the league, isn't it unfair to criticise Morely for not trading Scola and Martin before the season? And then after Scola's awful start he was probably untradable at the All-Star break.

Given that the Thunder seem to be growing into a juggernaut, do you think that the Rockets ownership should change their strategy. I don't think people will be saying the West is wide open over the next couple of seasons.

Conor

[Rahat Huq]

Given that the Thunder seem to be growing into a juggernaut, do you think that the Rockets ownership should change their strategy. I don't think people will be saying the West is wide open over the next couple of seasons.

Conor

Absolutely - I think this is the crux of the problem.