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Anthony Leon Tucker Is Officially Awesome

Discussion in 'Houston Rockets: Game Action & Roster Moves' started by Carl Herrera, Feb 7, 2020.

  1. Carl Herrera

    Carl Herrera Contributing Member

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    No stats
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    All star
     
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  2. J.R.

    J.R. Member

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    Small-ball and sacrifice: Why the Rockets’ P.J. Tucker deserves your respect

    Everywhere you look these days, key members of the Houston Rockets are seeking a little extra spotlight.

    James Harden and Russell Westbrook showcased their sartorial splendor on the GQ cover. Owner Tilman Fertitta told the Austin-American Statesman how their small-ball strategy was “working” and even announced that his team isn’t afraid of the Lakers or the Clippers.

    The hype is understandable, what with the Rockets having won six of eight games since general manager Daryl Morey decided to go all-in on this approach that is so perfect for Mr. Seven Seconds or Less himself, Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni. They’re 38-20 in all and fourth in the West, just two games behind second-place Denver with 24 games to go. Their remaining schedule is easier than that of all but seven teams.

    But if anyone should be front and center right about now, telling anyone who will listen about the massive part he’s playing in this grand hoops experiment and why his days of being underappreciated should finally come to an end, it’s the 6-foot-5 center who’s in the middle of this league-wide debate about the future of the big man: P.J. Tucker.

    Even before this latest roster revelation, the time had long since come for Tucker to get his just due.

    He has been one of the league’s most versatile and physical defenders since his days in Phoenix and Toronto, yet has somehow never made an All-Defensive team. He hasn’t missed a game since April 2, 2017 (265 consecutive, regular season and playoffs), and has played in 661 of a possible 670 games (regular season and playoffs) since the start of the 2012-13 season.

    He has cornered the market on corner 3s, with all those Harden and Westbrook kick-outs leading to Tucker’s current ranking as the NBA’s top shotmaker from that spot (per NBA.com/stats, he has hit 74 at a 40.7 percent rate; Detroit’s Langston Galloway is second with 64). And then there’s the stuff beyond the numbers that has been part of his profile since he signed with Houston in the summer of 2017: His role as respected leader and resident truthteller in their locker room; the old-school toughness that is on display every time out — never moreso than Game 7 of the 2018 Western Conference Finals, when he underwent three root canals before tipoff against Golden State and wound up finishing with 14 points, 12 rebounds and four steals in the loss.

    “It was insane,” Morey remembered. “(The procedure) sounded horrible, and I was just amazed that he was still playing.”

    Truth be told, these were all topics that I planned on highlighting months ago. Tucker and I discussed his career in late December, with D’Antoni and Harden both weighing in to share their perspective on the unique way he had influenced their title-contending team.

    “Well, he’s just as important as anybody,” D’Antoni had said. “(But) he’s not sexy. That’s what it is. I’m talking about names, and fame, reputations. I don’t think (reporters) do deep dives on what is really happening (when he’s on the floor).”

    Added Harden: “Yeah, I think he’s been overlooked. …You talk about a guy who plays that role and a glue guy who does what he’s supposed to do every…single…night. He’s at the top of that list. Not a lot of people love doing that role if it’s not showing up on the stat sheet or if it’s not looking flashy, like the dirty dog, diving on the floor, taking charges, those types of plays that win games. He loves it. He embraces it, so I’m appreciative of him.”

    None of this has changed, of course. If anything, the Feb. 5 trade which sent Rockets big man Clint Capela to Atlanta and brought three-and-D talent Robert Covington was a tribute to everything Tucker has to offer. Tucker’s impact is evident in the early going, as the Rockets have a net rating of 13.6 since the trade with him on the floor and are minus-3.2 when he’s off.

    As Morey himself would be the first to admit, they could never have gone down this unconventional road with the roster if Tucker wasn’t willing to come along too. There’s a reason this small lineup was nicknamed “The Tuck-wagon” long before it became a full-time affair.

    Still, an unanswered question loomed in the aftermath of the deal: Was Tucker, who was now being asked to defend the league’s biggest and baddest men every time out so that the Rockets’ superstars use all that extra space to dominate, on board with this plan?

    His age alone was enough to make you wonder if he might have some reservations about the new job description, if only because of the impact of all the extra pushing and shoving. And considering some of the ground that was covered in our first conversation, when Tucker admitted some frustration that the Rockets hadn’t granted him an extension last summer, it was fair to wonder how he might have processed all of these complicated components.

    Even though the Rockets had rewarded him recently by picking up the partially guaranteed final season (2020-21) of his contract (worth $7.97 million), the lack of a long-term deal was clearly a point of contention (per CBA rules, they can’t negotiate again until this summer). What’s more, Covington’s arrival now means that Tucker is the Rockets’ fifth-highest paid player (Westbrook is its highest at $38.5 million this season, followed by Harden at $38.1 million, Eric Gordon at $14 million, Covington at $11.3 million, and Tucker at $8.3 million). Tucker is widely known as the consummate team player, but money can complicate matters sometimes when it comes to a player’s spirit.

    In pursuit of his updated perspective, another trip to go see him was in order. So it was, then, that we reconnected at the Warriors’ Chase Center on Feb. 20 in San Francisco.

    But to the surprise of no one who knows the way Tucker is wired, he laughed — like, really laughed — at the idea that he might think twice about embracing this latest challenge. As Tucker made so abundantly clear throughout the course of both conversations, his relentless mentality will remain so long as he gets to enjoy the privilege of contending for a title, no matter his role.

    “(There was) no doubt about it,” Tucker told The Athletic when asked about his reaction to this new role, and the reality that his willingness to play it would empower Harden and Westbrook like never before. “That’s an easy decision. That’s not something that (was in question).

    “I get (the question). I have to tell you that. But it’s not a choice. It’s like when people ask me why I play so hard. Like, it’s not a choice to play hard. I don’t have a choice. That’s what you’ve got to do. Period.”

    An exclamation point is more like it. Isn’t this the very thing that fans want from their athletes?

    “You’re just holding it down no matter what, with everything that’s going on,” Tucker said about his initial reaction to the trade. “You don’t really have time to sit around and process what’s going on. And at the end of the day, I don’t think it really mattered. Not for me, with how I play and what I bring to the team and what I look to do.”

    Yet to understand why you haven’t heard Tucker complain about this assignment, and why he’s willing to guard Zion or Zeus or any other mountain of a man so long as it gets him closer to the Larry O’Brien trophy, you have to go back to the summer of 2016. Or thereabouts.

    By that point in Tucker’s career, he had already made stops in Toronto (the Raptors drafted him 35th overall out of Texas in 2006), Broomfield, Colo. (the Raptors’ D-League team location at the time), Las Vegas (a brief stint on the Cleveland Cavaliers’ summer league roster in 2007), Israel (playing for Hapoel Holon in the Israeli Premier League and later Bnei HaSharon), Ukraine (BC Donetsk), Greece (Aris BC), Italy (Sutor Basket Montegranaro), Germany (Brose Baskets Bamberg), Russia (Spartak St. Petersburg), and Phoenix (he signed with the Suns in the summer of 2012). In all, that’s 11 teams in eight countries over the span of six years — and a whole lot of humbling perspective gleaned along the way.

    He found his NBA footing in Phoenix, where he established himself as a bona fide NBA player who was always willing to do the defensive dirty work. His first NBA payday came in the desert, in the form of a three-year, $16.5 million deal he signed in the summer of 2014.

    There were some good times on the court, too, including a 48-win campaign in 2013-14 where the Suns fell one win shy of the playoffs and were edged out by Dallas for the West’s final berth. But the losing, as Tucker shared in our December discussion, took its toll on his basketball soul.

    There was the 23-win campaign in 2015-16, and more of the same the following season. When Tucker was traded to Toronto during the 2017 All-Star break for a miniscule Suns return —Jared Sullinger, two second-rounders and cash — Phoenix was just 18-39. The questions about his basketball future had been creeping into his thoughts for quite some time by then.
     
  3. J.R.

    J.R. Member

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    At the time, he was a 31-year-old with millions in his bank account and waning motivation to keep the ball bouncing. No playoff appearances meant no meaningful hoops legacy. Maybe it was time to move on to the next stage of life.

    “I had a reckoning of loving the game again,” Tucker said. “I got to a point where I kind of got content losing, in not making the playoffs. I had like the third-longest streak of games played without making the playoffs. It was bad. And I had to refine myself, and my love of the game.

    “It was more like a (question of) ‘Why? Why play? Why am I doing this? I’ve made enough money, made a lot of money, and I’m fine. …You have to have another reason (to play). You’ve got family, so you’ve got to play for that, but there’s got to be more than that. If it’s just that, then you won’t be successful. You won’t even play well.’”

    This wasn’t the first time Tucker thought about walking away, either.

    “I’ve contemplated it a few times before, even before I came back to the league (in the summer of 2012),” he said. “It’s something as an athlete where you have to look yourself in the mirror, because if (you don’t) your performance is not — you’re not going to be able to do all the stuff that’s not on the stat sheet. You’re not going to be able to do that stuff, because you don’t love it. That stuff is for love. You want to win. You’re fighting to win. That’s love of the game.”

    The Toronto experience would bring him back from the basketball brink.

    As Tucker learned with the Raptors, his hoops love was nurtured in a whole different way when he had his first taste of the NBA postseason. The ironic part about his first foray into playoff basketball? He was asked to guard an imposing big man who would go on to become the league’s MVP: Milwaukee’s 6-11 “Greek Freak,” Giannis Antetokounmpo.

    The Raptors downed the Bucks in six games during that first-round series, and were then swept by LeBron James’ Cleveland Cavaliers. After averaging 25.1 minutes, five points and 5.7 rebounds during those 10 games, Tucker would sign a four-year, $32 million deal with Houston in free agency. As Morey shared, it was the combination of Tucker’s defensive prowess and his versatility that compelled them to make him a priority.

    “Even in Phoenix, before he got to the Raptors, he was — defensively — making a big impact, which we track in multiple ways,” Morey said recently. “Through scouting, and various things we measure (they grew to like him). …It’s a little hard to translate guys playing more of a defensive role from Europe back to the U.S., so we missed on him (earlier in his career). But from the moment that he came back to the NBA, we had him playing at a very high level defensively. And once there was enough of a track record there, when he was a free agent, we were pretty comfortable, obviously, putting out a lot of money — $30-plus million.

    “Obviously we love guys like him, who sort of had to fight and claw. We had Patrick Beverley, who sort of had to take the Europe route and back. We really track guys who we think will fit well with James Harden, obviously, because James is unique in his greatness and unique in (that) we feel like surrounding him with the right kind of guys is important, so P.J. — from a personality perspective — is tough, he’s hard working, and a really good personality in terms of bringing a winning mindset to everything. We really try to track those guys.”

    Especially when they manage to slow down your best player.

    “One interesting thing that made us pay attention is how well he guarded James, and that’s not easy to do,” Morey continued. “We figured worst case, if he came to our team then he’d no longer be guarding James, and we’d always have that positive.”

    Or, perhaps, Tucker would become the best version of himself yet. His Rockets revival had officially begun.

    “My first year with Houston (when the Rockets went a league-best 65-17 and lost in those Conference Finals to the Warriors) was a year where I’d finally seen it, you know?” Tucker said. “That was where I was like, ‘I want to win, and I am the person I thought I was, who I thought I could be, on a winning team. I always wanted to be able to go to a team where I could do what I’d been doing for years and be able to have a chance to win a championship and have an effect and play a bigger part to something much bigger. And that year, I was finally able to see it, and then I’ve been able to grow in that role every year.

    “Hopefully it continues to get better and we can do something special this year. I think as long as I continue to get better, then I can do that, and now it’s just something where wanting to win a championship is the end. If I can get that, that’d be a pretty amazing story that I could tell for years to come.”

    We circled back on this part after the trade, too, just to make sure the added duties hadn’t tainted his view of why this was all worth it. Of course, it hadn’t.

    But what about the prospect of battling bigger men every time out?

    “So what? It’s basketball. It’s part of it. I’ve done it my whole life. I played center in high school (in Raleigh, N.C.). I’ve always been the biggest, the strongest. I was the same size then. It don’t matter. It’s still basketball. …I think that’s more for headlines, for people to talk about.

    “It changes nothing I do. I still do the exact same stuff I did at the three, at the four, at the five, it doesn’t matter. On defense, (it changes) a little bit, but that doesn’t matter for me. I think it’d be more of a task if it was back when I first came in the league, when you’ve got all these back-to-back (games) with bigs. It might have been more (taxing) on my body, when you’re having to bang. Because now, you bang when you’re boxing out and stuff like that, but you don’t have to guard Shaq. There’s no Shaqs.”

    Even guys like Rudy Gobert, the Utah Jazz center who’s coming in at 7-1 and has a wingspan of 7-9?

    “How much does he weigh?” Tucker asks.

    “About 265,” I respond, barely missing the mark.

    “We’re the same,” Tucker, who is listed at 245 pounds, says with a grin. “I’m 250. That’s nothing.”

    And that, as the Rockets know so well, means everything.

    “It’s the big picture,” he explained. “There’s no two ways around that. When you’ve seen what I’ve seen, and done what I’ve done, it don’t matter. None of it matters. It’s just getting the job done. That’s all that matters.”
     
  4. ashleyem

    ashleyem Member

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    No skill
     
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  5. DeBeards

    DeBeards Member

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  6. apollo33

    apollo33 Member

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    Why is his name PJ. His name is Anthony
     
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  7. J.R.

    J.R. Member

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    Pops Junior
     
  8. Will

    Will Clutch Crew
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    FLASH21, Jontro, naldodiaz and 7 others like this.
  9. xaos

    xaos Member

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    Panthony Jleon Tucker
     
  10. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    Or, perhaps, Tucker would become the best version of himself yet. His Rockets revival had officially begun.

    “My first year with Houston (when the Rockets went a league-best 65-17 and lost in those Conference Finals to the Warriors) was a year where I’d finally seen it, you know?” Tucker said. “That was where I was like, ‘I want to win, and I am the person I thought I was, who I thought I could be, on a winning team. I always wanted to be able to go to a team where I could do what I’d been doing for years and be able to have a chance to win a championship and have an effect and play a bigger part to something much bigger. And that year, I was finally able to see it, and then I’ve been able to grow in that role every year.

    “Hopefully it continues to get better and we can do something special this year. I think as long as I continue to get better, then I can do that, and now it’s just something where wanting to win a championship is the end. If I can get that, that’d be a pretty amazing story that I could tell for years to come.”

    Love this

    Rocket River
     
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  11. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    (P.J. stands for nickname Pops Junior)

    This might be one of the best things I heard since a NBA guy calling himself PIG MILLER

    Rocket River
     
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  12. lionaire

    lionaire Member

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    He has to be on an All-defense team this year, there's no way around it. He got screwed last year and barely missed it after getting edged out by Kawhi, who barely played.
     
  13. apollo33

    apollo33 Member

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    That's quite random
     
  14. Voltik

    Voltik Member

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    He’s easily one of my favorite rockets ever. Dude is just so gorydamn THICC.
     
  15. tycoonchip

    tycoonchip Member
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    Man he is my favorite Rocket. Just like Elie was when he was here. Broke my heart when he signed with Spurs though. We need to win one and hook him up with a check.
     
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  16. DM'sVP

    DM'sVP Member

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    It’s going to be very interesting to see what kind of extension or contract he gets in free agency. Don’t get me wrong. I hope PJ retires as a Rocket, but he could be looking for a big payday as a 35 or 36 year old and Father Time is undefeated. It will be interesting to see what teams are willing to invest in him. I’m thinking that he should get somewhere between 16-20m for 2 years. I think that’s what the Rockets will offer him and idk if he would be willing to accept that or if he’ll opt to test free agency.
     
  17. Sweet Lou 4 2

    Sweet Lou 4 2 Contributing Member
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    PJ is Phat Jam
     
  18. Dr of Dunk

    Dr of Dunk Clutch Crew

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    It's "Pop Junior" ... his dad gave him the nickname. Kinda cute and makes sense to me... I think.

    From Wikipedia because "The Wiki Don't Lie" :

    His real name is Anthony Leon Tucker Jr., but his dad called him "Pop Junior," hence PJ.
     
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  19. jcf

    jcf Member

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    wTF?
     
  20. JamalP.

    JamalP. Member

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    Trade him and E. Gordon for Al Horford and 1sr rounder this offseason.
     

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