I know he was the butt of a bunch of jokes over the past few years, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't partake as well. But I was always a bit perplexed that the team just sort of gave up on him, after what I consider a relatively small sample size. If you look up his percentages online, recently they've been horrendous. But since he was originally traded away from Houston, this percentage is only on 51 attempts! Now that's another subject altogether, perhaps he is taking fewer attempts due to lack of confidence. Fair enough. But c'mon, the guy shoots 38%+ from 3 over 3,400 attempts over his career, and then a slump of ~50 attempts and then his career is over? Seems a bit harsh if you ask me. I understand he's not great on D, but I feel like due to some opponent shooting luck, over a small sample size of playing center of course, his impact on defense has appeared worse than it actually is. Defensively, you can play him as a center and he can at least somewhat contest shots and provide some semblance of rebounding. Unless the opposing team has an elite superstar or iso player, I don't think he's going to just score on Ryno every time, even if they can get the switch. Kanter, supposedly a horrific defender, still gets 20-25 MPG over the past decade and he doesn't even stretch the floor whatsoever. And offensively I think he'd be great at stretching the floor. Remember those double teams other teams throw at Harden basically every single play? Well how bout flyin' Ryan Anderson waiting to catch a pass 4 feet outside the 3-point line for an open shot? Or when teams guard Russell Westbrook with their 7' tall center, who is going to contest Ryno adequately? I think Ryno would be a nice depth piece in this small ball roster, in certain lineups and rotations. But for reasons I'm not quite sure of, I feel like the Rockets gave up on him way too quickly.
Ryno was playing like arse though, the first time he was traded, bad teams gave up on him as well. Bad teams preferred developing projects over him, logical thing to do. That is telling.
Ryan Anderson confidence was shattered since the Golden State Warriors 2017 Series, Stephen Curry wanted Ryan on a switch every time Ryan was on the floor. Ryan can't move laterally, lack of speed. Same thing with Clint Capela with Draymond Green, Draymond injures players and destroys and humiliates confidence of players while referees enjoy watching Draymond injure Rockets players, like James Harden Eye. Austin Rivers was leveled on a dirty pick at the end of the game on a Warriors loss, Referees, NBA and Broadcasters ignored.
He lost his confidence and stopped shooting. If he’s not shooting, he’s unplayable even as a specialist in situational minutes.
“Why did we sell on Ryan Anderson when he still had some value left, instead of later, when he was completely worthless?”
He can't guard on the perimeter and worst of all for him he can't shoot in Toyota Center's deep red lower bowl.
