Houston Rockets: Kevin McHale On The Chopping Block

Coaching in the NBA has a big impact on the team’s success. It’s not uncommon to see how previously successful coaches’ influence can turn things around for a franchise. We saw it with Phil Jackson‘s Chicago Bulls and Los Angeles Lakers, Chuck Daly’s Detroit Pistons, Dr. Jack Ramsey’s Portland Trail Blazers, Red Auerbach’s Boston Celtics.

However, as important as coaching might be at the NBA level, the previous teams’ turn-around(s)/championship quest(s) were not achieved solely by their coaching staff. All of them had some elite help too. Jackson’s Bulls had Michael Jordan, Jackson’s Lakers had Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal, Daly’s Pistons had Isiah Thomas, Bill Laimbeer and Vinnie Johnson, Ramsey’s Trail Blazers had Bill Walton, Red’s Celtics had Bill Russell.

In the present Internet era in which statistics emerge as one of the most important and relevant parts of the NBA, coaches and GMs of unsuccessful NBA franchises are subject to the excessive and often dumbfounded public scrutiny. Eventually sitting on a mythological “hot seat” that could cost them their job.

More from Houston Rockets

The Houston Rockets are not the exception. After improbably landing Oklahoma City Thunder’s former under-appreciated sixth-man James Harden and ~~infamous traitor~~ Dwight Howard, the Rockets’ performance/season outcome, as they embark on their experiment’s second season, will continue to be the subject of said scrutiny.

The reason is simple, with a more statistical approach to the game, teams have more weapons and information to attack their flaws. If they’re not patching things up, the coaching staff is not looking at the information.

Or at least that’s what the general opinion is.

Coming into a star-less Houston team, Kevin McHale took over a depleted Rockets roster which featured Goran Dragic as their best player. After barely making it out of the 2011-12 lockout season with a .512 winning record that didn’t even land them a playoff spot, McHale, just three days prior to the start of the 2012-13 regular season, was blessed by the Thunder’s inability to see past James Harden’s eventual price tag and welcomed Harden into his roster via a trade orchestrated by none other than basketball-mastermind Daryl Morey.

Things immediately started looking up for McHale and the Rockets, under Harden’s leadership the Rockets made the Western Conference playoffs for the first time in the last four years before eventually getting trounced by the first-seeded Oklahoma City Thunder. Regardless, it took only one season for things to get better in Houston.

Prior to his second season as the Rockets’ head coach, another highly unlikely arrival happened for McHale. After a failed 2012-13 season, the Rockets, with the NBA’s 28th-ranked defense (per opponents points per game), were desperate for a defensive presence that could turn them into as much of a defensive threat as they already were offensively. Luckily, Dwight Howard’s and the Lakers’ relationship didn’t turn out to be as fun as both parties expected and, after an injury-plagued season (by the Lakers roster in general), they decided to split up.

Howard, looking to improve his future title chances, joined rising superstar James Harden and three-time NBA Champion Kevin McHale on the Houston Rockets.

As of today, the Rockets’ Harden & Howard experiment is still due to get past the Western Conference Playoffs first-round, as the team runs out of options, someone needs to pay for their lack of success.

McHale’s strategy, even with one of the most physically imposing/gifted players in the league in Dwight Howard, has failed to establish a defensive approach able to match up against the superb Western Conference.

The Rockets’ defensive effort, or absence of it, has, single-handedly, rendered their high-octane offense helpless against the rest of the league. Unfortunately, even with a .578 winning percentage, in the NBA’s superteam era, it is McHale who’ll pay for the Rockets’ eventual failure.

For more on the Rockets defensive struggles, click here.

Home/Houston Rockets