(Grantland) Ready to Blast Off: Don’t Sleep on Ty Lawson and the Rockets

Thanks!!! it was a good read

 

Kinda backhanded throughout really.

- Harden isn't as good as CP3, Durant, Steph, Davis.
- Dwight and Harden aren't as dependable as Gasol, Z-Bo
- Everyone hates Dwight because he likes snakes and guns.
- Everyone hates Harden because he can draw fouls
- The rockets brand of basketball was ugly last year
- "say what you want about Morey"......what do people say exactly?

Its mostly just repeating what we already knew with a "well I guess we have to write about this" attitude.

 

grantland called harden a f**kboy! so f**k those f**ckboys

 

Agreed there were some backhanded complements, but the middle two bullets were just him reporting common criticisms and he implied right after that they weren't legitimate basketball criticisms.

 

not an original thought or any kind of journalistic unearthing in that entire piece. sharp should find another line of work.

 

I really don't understand the criticism about Rockets playing ugly ball. Only Harden could create and so he had to have the ball a lot, and it worked. No one on earth could argue that any other plan could have netted a 2nd seed and a WCF appearance. It was obviously a brilliant choice and the fact that it was ugly is because of health/personnel.

I've also never heard the word ugly used about a high scoring team. Maybe mid range J's look cool, but is that what defines the entirety of beautiful basketball? Or pre-determined offensive sets? Is that more beautiful than a team creatively finding ways to score tons of points? It's all perspective. Looked beautiful to me.

Anyhow, we're going to play absolutely gorgeous basketball this year and still win so it's all good.

 

Haven't read yet but Sharp is a well-known Rockets hater who won't compliment the team without some sort of underhanded insult thrown in. And he's not a good enough writer to have the subtlety to get away with it. He's really pretty useless at Grantland.

 

Posting the article so you don't give this (seriously) backhanded Rockets article any more hits.

I love how he starts it by talking about the Warriors and every other "good" team in the West.

Ah well, just have to show them again what we're made of this season.

 

And then saying "Harden and Howard are surplus".....that is so far from the truth that it borders on lunacy. The Rockets aren't in the playoffs without Harden (let alone the 2nd seed), and they might lose to Dallas in the 1st round without Howard.

Howard has been THE dominant force in the paint in every playoff series he's been in with Houston. THAT is consistency.

 

Zach Lowe in yesterday's podcast said he believes too in the Rockets to win, tho as an underdog because he has questions about the characters (Lawson). And he said he will write an article about it. So I'm waiting for him to write his analysis- nba Rockets preview.
Btw you should listen to the podcast very interesting.

 

It's funny how we're still an on-the-fringe "almost" team when we were in the WCF, and only got better. Clippers are penciled in to make the WCF, KD is back and OKC is a contender, Spurs got LMA and they've already won the title it seems...Memphis plays an ugly brand of basketball and they get praise for it.

 

Seems like the media really wants the Pelicans to be good. I have seen several writers throw them into the mix with the other contenders.

They just aren't at that level, no matter how much they want them to be.

 

It's because people really hate the Rockets and will do mental gymnastics to give them as little credit as possible.

 

Yeah, I don't see it either. Other than AD, all their players are who they are. Asik isn't suddenly going to be anything other than a defensive wall and a guy that sets screens on offense. Anderson isn't more than a stretch 4. Cunningham and Pondexter are JAGs. Gordon is a talented but consistently injury prone player. Evans is hero ball without the "hero". Jrue Holiday is a good but not transcendent player with ongoing injury issues.

New Orleans doesn't see it right now, but their best move is to dump almost everyone and play the free agency game, with AD as their major selling point. They've got 6 years to get another superstar to pair with AD. They need to stop trading away their picks and investing into established role players.

 

Thank you FLASH21 for posting the article so I don't add to its clicks. I remember this writer; he goes beyond douchiness to make a not-so-subtle point. He hates the Rockets, calls Harden a flopper but gives heroes like LeBron and CP3 a free pass (go to Youtube and find flop videos of these guys; the WORST).

 

Another nice part of the Lawson trade is that we added to our stable of "most hated" players. Those new black uniforms looks sweet, we need to make them our regular away uniforms.

 

I'm with you on that one. Only thing prettier than raining 3's are blonde bombshells

 

It's like these writers finally looked at the roster. Now we're getting all these new/late articles.

 

If you put our roster in Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, or Miami...every media member out there considers us among the 2-3 title favorites, and not "sleepers" or "pseudo-contenders if everything breaks our way".

The power of the media is palpable.