The surprise firing of Kevin McHale took the basketball world by storm, mostly claiming that the move had no essence and was uncalled for.
People ranging from analysts, friends and former National Basketball Association (NBA) players aired their piece but the fact remained that their rants would not be heard by anyone from the Houston Rockets fold.
Apparently, the move took everyone by surprise. McHale was a pretty good coach and proof of that was he led the Rockets to the Western Conference Finals which past coaches had failed to do.
The Rockets did start out the current season slow, hardly showing any signs of their marvelous run. But then again, there were a lot of factors working against the Rockets. Some players like Dwight Howard has not been 100% and James Harden has been obviously distracted by off-court issues.
But at the end of the day, players cannot be fired while coaches can. And the unfortunate casualty was McHale.
Aside from the likes of Magic Johnson and Stephen A. Smith who totally disagreed with the move, there was one pretty close to Kevin who also let out a rant — Lynn McHale.
Lynn was pretty active on Twitter a day after the firing, although the sudden deletion of her rants was pretty much heard.
Summing up all her tweets, it was evident that she was taking aim at Harden as the reason behind the firing. Harden was no longer focused and no longer interested in following the drill and plays that McHale and company have been doing during practice.
And with that scenario, the communication and trust angle has obviously been tarnished — severely.
The Rockets actually singled that out, saying that the boys weren't responding to McHale anymore and thus the change. But rather than sulk, it seems that McHale was relieved by it, believing that the issue has grown far worse, although he respects the decision of the team to move on.
It remains to be seen if the move was a right one despite the objection of many. With that said, it will be interesting to see if Bickerstaff or any future coach in mind could live with the culture.
All that may probably be known by the end of the NBA season in 2016.
