04/20/24
November 18, 2015
SportsFilter: The Wednesday Huddle:
A place to discuss the sports stories that aren't making news, share links that aren't quite front-page material, and diagram plays on your hand. Remember to count to five Mississippi before commenting in anger.
And he wasn't even 0-11 to start the season, like another coach we could name.
posted by billsaysthis at 10:41 AM on November 18, 2015
But he did have to coach Dwight Howard.
Which makes him a bad coach .. until he gets an opportunity to coach a team that doesn't have Dwight Howard.
posted by cixelsyd at 11:23 AM on November 18, 2015
Coaches relieved of duty while Dwight Howard was on the roster:
Orlando:
Johnny Davis
Chris Jent (interim)
Brian Hill
Stan Van Gundy (during off-season before Howard left)
Los Angeles:
Mike Brown
Bernie Bickerstaff (interim)
Houston:
Kevin McHale
Five real coaches, two interim coaches, and four of the real coaches were fired mid-season, and the other one (Van Gundy) stated that he was told he was fired because of Howard.
posted by grum@work at 01:26 PM on November 18, 2015
McHale was fired after a particularly bad loss to former teammate Danny Ainge's Celtics. As suggested by some, perhaps Kevin was being nice to Danny in hopes of getting a different job?
posted by Howard_T at 04:13 PM on November 18, 2015
"We're building around James Harden and Dwight Howard," Morey said. "We know they're winners. We know we can win with them. I'm not concerned with them."
Guess management and ownership were on vacation and missed last year's playoffs.
Harden was easily reduced to a player the opponents wanted to possess and shoot (or turn over) the ball. Howard was better than usual but still carries the tag of someone without a burning desire to win.
posted by cixelsyd at 04:44 PM on November 18, 2015
Harden was great in last year's playoffs. He was nearly unstoppable in games 1 and 2 of the conference finals and the Rockets lost those two games by a combined five points because Golden State is really good and doubly so at home. When Harden has bad games they can go really bad but he was the primary reason the team went to the Western Conference Finals and, on the whole, had an excellent playoffs. Howard played that series with a torn MCL and did pretty well for a guy without a burning desire to win. Again, the team went to the Western Conference Finals, I think they've proven they can win.
posted by tron7 at 05:32 PM on November 18, 2015
Doug & Darren Flutie's parents die of heart attacks in Florida
posted by tommybiden at 05:51 PM on November 18, 2015
Not even Thanksgiving and we already have our first NBA head coach firing.