Sorry if this is old news... Thought this littel tidbit about Keith Jones was very interesting. I didn't know he was so highly respected around the league. Odd as it sounds, their biggest off-season issue may be finding a medical regimen for Stevie Francis that controls his migraine headaches. They've also got to make sure some other team doesn't lure away trainer Keith Jones, whose contract is up for renewal. Jones is seen by other franchises as a potential player personnel director, so wide is his scope of influence among players and agents. http://foxsports.lycos.com/content/view?contentId=493134
Don't know much about Keith Jones but the Rockets sure have been one of the most injury riddled teams for the past few years. I can't think of a season when someone hasn't been out with injuries, ie. Hakeem, Barkley, Drexler, Francis, Rice, Taylor, etc. Of course these aren't all his fault but the correlation is striking.
Hakeem Rice Drexler Barkley = OLD Taylor = freak injury Francis = migraines? c'mon already. The shoulder injury came from carrying this freakin' team!
Its all about conditioning and injury prevention. Stockton, Malone, Payton are all pretty old too. The Rockets seem to have alot of freak injuries though.
I seem to remember last season either Doc Rocket or Oeilpere stating that Jones's duties for the Rockets extended FAR beyond conditioning and player health. He seemed to think that Keith was a very necessary player personell employee, and that the Rockets would be stupid to let him go. Judging by what this snippet says, I am inclined to agree with that. So with that said, I suppose that, despite the injuries of last season, I would be sad to see Keith go.
what exactly does an nba trainer do anyway? seriously, if his job is to keep our players in shape, make sure they eat and live right, and stay in peek physical shape, he's downright horrible. motay - out of shape cato - out of shape cat - needs to put on weight griff - needs to get stronger francis - needs to stop drinking during the season langhi - needs to put on weight collier - got fat kt - had his own personal trainer to get in shape in the offseason rice - no comment. walt - out of shape that's just the current roster...and i'm probably missing some. so what exactly does keith jones do? seriously, i want to know.
I remember that. I would also be dissapointed to see him go because he is friends with many of the stars of the league and he helps lure free agents to us. We could move him to a different role rather than a trainer because he's not very good at that.
Cato - Lazy and unmotivated. Trainers can't do much about that. Cat - Not underweight by much, if any. Griff - Very young, and only having been under Jone's tutelage for a year. Too early to tell. Francis - A superstar that has the right to drink during the season. Jones can tell him not to, but if Steve wants to anyway, Jones can't stop him. Langhi - Needs to put on weight. But he doesn't really have a frame that would support a great deal more weight than he currently carries. Plus, he really sucks. Collier - oft-injured, which makes it tough to stay in shape. But this does partly fall on Keith's shoulders KT - Good for him, but that KT did this on his own doesn't really reflect too much on Jones, I don't feel. KT might have just wanted more individual attention, fitness-wise. Rice - Again, injured a great deal. This is partly Jone's fault, but how long did we even have Rice before last season started? Plus, Rice is rumored to be in great shape for this coming season. This might be partly due to Jones. Walt - Walt is not in the best shape of his life, but I don't feel that he is necessarily terribly out of shape. The problem is that he is old, and not as quick as he was when younger. Fitness might help that, but I doubt it in his case. Overall, I think the only situations that I feel Jones could have done something more on are Mo Taylor and Jason Collier. That Jones might have allowed MoTay to balloon out to 300 lbs does seem very irresponsible...but that weight has not really even been confirmed yet, so I will wait and see.
Raven, Cato: here's what you do...schedule that lazy, unmotivated SOB to workout as much as he needs to (in addition to attending big man camps...but i realize that's not the trainer's responsbility). if he absolutely refuses to do these things, then he has concretely proven to be a player who will not do what it takes to better his game, and thus the team. then you get rid of him by any means necessary (including the possibility of cutting him. cancers must be extracted, not isolated). Cat: cuttino is slightly underweight. really, for the amount of penetrating that he is capable of, i'd like to see him add another 10 pounds of solid muscle. i thought the same thing in his rookie season, but haven't noticed any gain at all. notice how easily he gets posted up. nba 2 guards are getting bigger and stronger. cat needs a more solid foundation to keep the q-richardsons, t-macs, kobes, etc. from getting such easy positioning. the same goes for his defense on penetrations. these guys aren't necessarily quicker than cat. they're flat out stronger and can bump him just enough to put him off balance. that's all an 2 guard needs in order to get his shot off. it's also the reason cat takes difficult shots. he's shorter than his man, and weaker. yes, he's faster, but they know this is his prime advantage so they concentrate on taking that away from him. add 10 pounds of solid beef to him and i bet he can bump some of those defenders off and get off a solid pullup jumper off of deep penetration. Griff: no reason why he couldn't put on 10-15 pounds during last season. none at all. no reason why he can't put on 10-15 this summer, either, but i'm willing to bet that he won't. Francis: again, i'm purely speculating on the role of a nba trainer. but i would think that "babysitting" is part of his job description as well. probably under his vaunted "personnel skills section." steve has a right to, but keith needs to be on him about the team that he is jeopardizing via his actions. Langhi: BS. langhi could easily[/b] put on 20 pounds. EASILY. he's 7'0" tall with skinny upper and lower body. 20 pounds ain't much on a seven footer. he could have, but he hasn't. who's responsibility is this again? Collier: catch 22. i say he's oft injured BECAUSE he's out of shape, not the other way around. KT: it absolutely does. if he is the guy you work out with during the season, why on earth would you switch trainers in the offseason??? the individual attention could have (or at least should have) been given to him by jones in the regular and off seasons. damnit, isn't that his job? it's not like the dude has 40 people to work out. he has 15....15 maximum! for the money he's making he can give ALL those guys individual attention, from nutrition planning to weight lifting to individual counseling. it just takes dedication. Rice: i left rice off of the list, because he was fat and hurt before he got here. all jones could possibly do is rehab, and i can't speak to the results of this until i see rice. Walt: walt williams doesn't have a damn muscle on his body. i'm surprised his calves are big enough to hold his socks up. oh, i forgot, he wears double knee pads to help hold the socks (and his knees) from falling apart. quickness can be gained via training. jump rope, running in the pool, etc. these things have been well documented. still, walt plays like he's wearing concrete nikes.
This isn't highschool or even college. You can't make a 30 or so year old man get into shape. It's just not gonna happen. Players have to take their own innitiative and get themselves into shape. The trainer can only help and make sure they are doing things right. The shape of the players are a complete reflection of the players, not the trainer. I feel we should keep Jones as long as possible. He is one of the best. And he also wears those cool glasses.
so basically, you're saying he doesn't do dick, but he wears cool glasses... ok. as long as i know what the team is paying him for, i guess i'm satisfied.
Yes, BubbaMac, he's the guy that looks like a pimp, which is one reason we should keep him. Verse, I wouldn't say that I know the complete job description of a trainer and especially Keith Jones at that but so many teams and players can't be wrong when they say Jones is among the best.
I posted something about this last year during the RMR. I did a little interview with Jones between games. He is very personable and seemed very willing to accomadate my questions. I have some notes somewhere, but would probably have trouble finding them, so have to go from memory. I basically asked him what were his duties with the Rockets. He said that in addition to his duties as trainer, he also acted as liason between management and the players. I don't think he gave me any specific examples, but told me that if management had some issue to deal with concerning a player, they would go to Keith and then Keith would go to the player. Same thing if a player had some issue with management, he would take it to Keith, then Keith would then take it to management. He said he also had other duties, like making travel arrangements. I can see the benefit of a position like this. A lot of players don't complete their college and probably don't put a lot of effort into academics the time they do attend. If a player had an issue, he could talk to Keith, whom they relate to, then Keith can present their position to management in a professional, business-like manner. I'm sure this would greatly reduce the potential for misunderstanding and emotions to get out of hand and complicate things. Players are assets and providing a means of smoother interaction between management and the players is a means of protecting those assets. Keith also told me that he wanted to learn more about managerial aspects of the team. I am involved in "head-hunting" type business and I can see the value of person like Keith, beyond the trainer aspect. I think he is a value to the Rockets and hope they can keep him.
verse, You seem to be a lot more willing to make this a huge discussion than I am, so I will just say a few more things and be done with it. This discussion is very much subjective, too, because we have no real way of knowing how much of what you say Keith should be doing is being done (?). He may be trying to get Langhi to gain weight. He may be riding Steve's ass to not drink. He may want to trade Cato (but really, the fact that Cato has not been traded can't AT ALL be viewed as Keith's fault, I don't think. Keith trains em, he doesn't deal em). There could be lots of reasons why KT chose a different trainer during the offseason. How much work does Jones put in training players during the offseason? I wouldn't think much, as most go off and do their own thing. The players get time off, shouldn't the trainer? So maybe KT ju took some initiative and got more work done during everyone else's vacation time. As you say, Catch-22 on Collier. More subjective speculation on both our parts. In regards to Griffin, I think the weight training that players would have to go through to put on 10-15 pounds of muscle during the season is looked down upon as over-strenous. I can't remember the last time a player noticeably bulked up DURING the season. All the major changes I see or hear about occur during offseason. Concerning Walt Williams, you yourself admit that his knees are falling apart. But then you blame Keith Jones for not training him to have more quickness. I think Walt's knees prevent him from undergoing the strenous exercises he would need to develop more quickness. What we see from Walt now is probably all we can hope to get from now until the end of his career. The tall and skinny of it is that Keith does a lot of things that we of course never see. And the results that we CAN see do seem to indicate that something is wrong with our player's conditioning and training. But it is definitely possible that these results we see are not in any way Jones's fault. Every inside source we hear from seems to indicate that Jones is highly thought of throughout the league. This snippet JayZ posted seems to confirm this. I will take their word for it over any blind speculation I might could conjur based on what I see on the court alone.
Verse, not trying to single you out or anything, but based on this thread and some of your comments on Steve Francis, My question is, do you like anybody currently on the Houston Rockets team? just curious.
