At least it is not a huge issue to address. This Rockets team would be much better if D-Mo could just make a league average percent of his threes.
Motiejunas in last 8 games: 28:45MIN - 9.3PTS - 30/66 FG (45.5%) - 5/16 3FG (31.3%) - 9/12 FT (75%) - 7REB - 1.25AST - 0.9BLK - 0.9STL - 3.4PF - 2.3TO He still need to work on his habbits to foul out early, and he's doing too much turnovers for a big men. Everything else seems ok, he's 42.9% from behind the arc in last 3 games, rebounds well, does all dirty work both on defense and offense, his AST stats may raise a bit in a year or two - he has good court vision and may eventually join Noah and Diaw company. Still need to work on his lower body, he's already strong enough to guard big mens in the paint, but quick forwards time to time gets an easy baskets against DMo. In conclution, he has very good potential, he will reach his top at 26-27 years and I doubt Rockets will trade him, especially when Rockets pay him like 2M per year. He can be that X- Factor in a year or two, not sure if that's the case for this year.
Confidence is DMO biggest issue, I really dislike when he touches the ball and doesn't even look at the rim and plays hot potato to get the ball out to some one else. That irks the hell out of me! There are so many times on those hand offs, laterals or whatever you want to call it if he would just get in triple threat he can add a dynamic not only to his game, but to the offense to make it less predictable.
We've had D-Mo for a couple of years now. I'm not getting my hopes up. He's done a decent job the last several games. He's done that before. He needs to keep this up for 15-20 games and then we'll talk. Give us some good rebounding, 50% FG, 35% 3PT, and good defense. That's what it takes, and I think he might be able to do it. I do, however, hope McHale uses D-Mo's scoring skills inside a bit more now that we're so thin at PF/C and don't have many shot creators. I think D-Mo can give us some good offense against backup bigs in the paint.
Now that Howard is out, I really hope they run some plays for DMo down low. I want to see how it works. If it fails, then I can be convinced that it won't work, kind of like the TT experiment with Asik last year. I remember that McHale tried to force feed Patterson in a stretch of a few games. PPat looked pretty bad as a post up player. So I was convinced that he was better off being a jump shooting stretch 4 than a back to the basket kind of big. I want to see if DMo can be a reliable low post scoring option. For now, I still don't see them setting him up that way, even without Dwight.
I agree with most of this , especially the part where you said he has done it before . I think further than that he has kept up his good defense the entire second half of last year into this season . I think he really is a consistent , solid defender now . As for the offense it comes and goes . I do think your expectations are a bit too harsh. There are only 9 power forwards in the game right now ( according to nba.com) that are shooting above .500 from the floor and .35 for 3's . Outside of Ibaka , I wouldn't say any of them play particularly good defense . Hopefully dmo keeps going strong and continually improves because his maturation alone, if he can achieve his potential, makes us that much more dangerous .
Even if he shoots 30% from 3pt it would be good enough. Especially since hes already playing good defense (though he still needs to work on his rebounding).
IMHO all D-Mo has to do to become incredibly effective is hit a league average % of his treys. At that point the PF/C guarding him cannot sag to the paint to help on Harden drives so easily. As one NBA coach said "Above 32% you must be able to close out on a three point shooter".
It seems like the game is starting to slow down for him. He is played at a very solid oace the last 3 games. I am encouraged
I think all he really needed was time to develop and consistent minutes on the court, he's getting both and it's starting to show results.
It's probably been mentioned but he really needs to go up and finish strong. He gets blocked with regular monotony at the rim when he goes for the layup.
The problem is that he was playing out of position this whole time. He should be playing point forward and be the 7 foot version of white chocolate.
Well, I've been critical of the big unco giraffe - but things are starting to look pretty good for him! His confidence looks to be way up, hopefully we get our bigs back, and he plays 30m off the bench.