I think his mechanics are terrible, and that's why we don't play him. Not a reliable catch and shoot guy - and you need to be in this offense. I can clearly see why people are unusually interested in his progress. He is one of those players who developed his jumper to literally LOOK good. Everyone wants to shoot like that and be good at it. Williams is not good at it. On the plus side, he has a few things going for him. Great energy, decent passer and decent defender. He can develop. I was disappointed to see there was no improvement in his form over the summer. He shot well, but the shot selection was terrible and he seemed to shoot worse when left open. Maybe he has not shot well in practice, who knows. But right now is not the time. I don't think there has been a season in Rockets history where the difference between 2nd and 3rd seed mattered so much. We don't want to be on the road in the western semis, and our opponent sure as hell doesn't either. I always said my only problem with having Corey Brewer on the team was his salary.
For a guy to get 6 threes in his debut and look good occasionally, I’m sure wondering how he has not developed into a spot minute guy. I’m also wondering what MDA tells him, if he can even earn minutes on the court and what they are looking for when he gets minutes. MDA somehow is worse than McHale with youngsters.
Who can ask coach Mike D'Antoni to give this guy some minutes off the bench? If the injury to Mbah Moute is a chance for him to play, still it will all depend on D'Antoni whether to play him or not. I think Troy Williams should be given a chance. Now that the Rockets are on top the Western conference and a key rotation guy is injured, what other reason would coach D'Antoni have not to play the guy? I would like to see how Chris Paul can help him develop into the role player Daryl Morey envisioned him to be when he signed Troy late last season.
Troy just not seem to be developing very rapidly for whatever reason. Even in the G League he does not show consistent dominance, which seems to indicate true NBA talent. A very low basketball IQ? Would a couple of years overseas help? Maybe just some more work on his shot. Maybe Tucker can advise him how to develop?
MDA is just going to spread the minutes around the current rotation. This tweet is a brief explanation, and he makes it more clear in expanded quotes. Here Feigen is paraphrasing MDAs take on Troy, and reminding us he's coming back from injury. Hasn't even played for two weeks.
I really, really wish he would keep the rotation intact, and give someone a shot to prove themselves. Leaning on vets like this is VERY Thibs-like and I just hate it.
Troy is coming off an injury. Even if he were worthy of playing NBA minutes with the hopes of developing, he first needs play some down there. imo, it's one thing developing someone who exhibits knowledge of the system, it's another thing putting someone on the floor who looks lost. Like Wiltjer last year running around with heads cut off, getting into people's way. Coaches know who understands the system and who doesn't. I'm willing to bet Troy gets lost on defense, too. High-quality switches is not based upon athleticism, and even Pops would bench a poor shooter if he lost him man. He wouldn't have much patience. I'm a firm subscriber that scrubs at least have to exhibit BBall IQ in practice, before they get real play time.
I'm not the biggest fan of Troy Williams, but after getting a few glimpses of Briante Weber's defense, that's the guy I would go with. He seems to have an extremely high basketball IQ, and this group of Vets that starts slow and turns it on when needed, could absolutely use a shot in the arm that a young guy can give, imo. I hate complacency. Our team is 22-4. If the end of our bench is complete trash, let's find out now and shuffle the roster. We can afford to take a closer look and make sure that we have some guys that are promising at the end of the bench, especially the 10th, 11th and 12th Man down come playoffs. (GSW/SAS is already in the process of weeding, and has been from very early on...) Also, the benefit of having CP3 and Harden is that they can make athletes look way better than they are. Hell, Harden made KJ look like Gerald Wallace for a couple months. If you aren't relying on these guys to do anything but defend and finish, I think they can be plugged into the system and be just fine. If it is a question of comfort and IQ, I'm down to give Zhou some PF time, because we all know that Mike LOVES him some Zhou Qi.
I see fans say this all the time...."Let's find out" "Take a closer look" A lot of the basic requirements of real NBA play can be assessed without fans actually seeing the player on the court, especially with G-League and previous NBA minutes (in the case of Weber). Remember, Weber has been cut by 4 different NBA teams. But I sure hope he makes it, too, like you. I also don't like constant comparisons to GSW or SAS. They can do what they do, because they are not in the process of creating all-important team chemistry from the addition of 3 new key players (+ Black). A scrub can screw that team development, which is vastly more important than any individual development of a questionable role player who we can still scout in practice and G-league. Also, keep in mind SAS was without 2 starters for 20+ games. And they aren't really giving young guys looks. A lot of their "new" guys are old like Brandon Paul (26yrs), some with plenty of NBA experience already, or played for them last year. Their Two Ways and their 1st round pick aren't really playing more than Weber, Demetrius or Williams have.
I disagree entirely, and I'd appreciate the evaporation of the "I see fans say this all the time" condescension. SAS is absolutely in the process of "creating all-important team chemistry". The fact is that Gregg Popovich is the master in this regard, and the Rockets need to steal as much from the Spurs as they possible can. It's true that the SAS have been missing starters, but that doesn't mean that they haven't had a much larger emphasis on developing in house than D'Antoni has for his entire tenure as an NBA Head Coach. They are absolutely incorporating new players, and part of the reason those players are seasoned now is because SAS takes a certain amount of lumps every season, for the sake of defining and redefining the back-end of their bench. Take a look at these minute splits. Spurs: 8th man- 18.7 9th man- 18.1 10th man- 18.0 11th man- 16.0 12th man- 11.8 13th man- 11.0 14th man- 10.9 15th man- 9.8 16th man- 9.1 17th man- 7.8 Rockets: 8th man- 25.2 9th man- 14.3 10th man- 8.5 11th man- 6.1 12th man- 5.3 13th man- 5.0 14th man- 4.3 15th man- 4.0 16th man- 3.5 17th man- N/A You can go back several years and see essentially the same thing. Pop keeps everyone involved (Or at least the illusion that everyone is involved), which is a fantastic way to "create all-important team chemistry". Everyone works harder because they know that it is possible that Pop calls their number for significant minutes. These guys stay motivated, and they continue to improve, and the Spurs machine continues to churn out quality system players because of it. Sure, they don't win 70 games in a season, but that shouldn't be the end goal to sustain your franchise for decades. TLDR: Steal the good **** from our opponents, and then put our own Morey-Stamp on it so we can kick their ass in the playoffs. Stay as far away from the Thibs model as possible. Are you telling me that the Spurs 10-17 are clearly more talented in practice than what Daryl Morey can find from 10-17? If that's the case, we have an entirely different problem.
Our 3rd string players have shown no promise. Troy seems to never improve, even after spending so much time in the G-League. Zhou Qi looks completely lost out there and his physique still at least 2 years away from being NBA ready, he always looks like he's pouting on the bench, even when he's clapping he shows no sign of happiness. Probably won't stay long in this league because he's treated like an All-Star in China but he's just another bench warmer here. Bobby Brown is only in the league because he's built friendships with the players. The rest of the bench are so bad that their names don't even come to mind. We should've signed Jameer Nelson when we had the chance.
We never had the chance. Jameer wanted playing time and he was getting zero with CP3, Harden and Eric Gordon taking up all 96. With the Pelicans he has that chance. It's Chess, not checkers with Popovich. he has more lineups he can go to in the playoffs because he experiments more throughout the season. He has a backup plan to a backup plan to a backup plan. If Mike's 2nd or 3rd adjustment doesn't take hold, does he have a 4th, 5th and 6th adjustment in him? My perspective is that Mike is a "We do what we do" sort of Coach, which IS FANTASTIC for defining a style of play and winning a whole lot of games, but when the playoffs rolls around sometimes you need to adapt more than you would like. At 22-4, maybe we should plug a young player in for Mbah a Moute, and see If we can discover something that can help us down the road. It doesn't matter who it is and I really don't care, but I would HOPE that Daryl Morey has his eye on some sort of promising prospect down in Rio that he can plug into the system.
I think giving 5 mins off the bench to a young player couldn't hurt too much as long as Harden/Paul are setting them up.
If it's about winning games then I ask this question . How likely is it that plugging in a new player for 10-15 minutes will cause us to lose games ? Compare that to playing an 8 man rotation. -We will be at more of a disadvantage in B2b games than playing with a 9 man. - The longer it takes for Luc to come back , the more the minutes wear on the players who pick up the slack I'm mainly worried that if we want Ariza to start playing 36 a game ... It's eventually going to kill his legs and shooting . Shooting is so important to us . Furthermore , given how much Mike loves playing small ( and granted we are great at it) that further increases the stress we feel from Luc being out . Let me explain . It's one thing if Ariza and PJ are only responsible for the 3 minutes and the 4 mins Ryan doesn't play .... But when we start playing Pj or Ryan at the 5 then the minutes obligation increases ... Then we also might shift harden to the 3 and play with Gordon and Paul . If those 5 are playing at the same time , then no one is coming off the bench fresh . Which is fine for closing games , but not if you are going to that lineup early in the 4th and a lot of those guys have already been on the floor for a long time. We picked up Tarick black ... It's important to use him for this ... We need about 48 min of C play. Going to our death lineup should only be done in the last 4-5 minutes
