Rockets still defining themselves

Rockets still defining themselves

by Randy Hill
Veteran columnist Randy Hill is a frequent contributor to FOXSports.com

OK, the Rockets, at 13-15, would like us to believe they're legitimately bad. We're eager to embrace this self-effacing maneuver, but still recall how first-year coach Rick Adelman had Jeff Van Gundy's old defensive-oriented team looking pretty sweet at 6-1.

For a better understanding of why these things happen, let's get a closer whiff of the Rockets.

It should be noted that widespread preamble to this season offered Houston as a legitimate threat to win a playoff series or two. This sort of made sense because the Rockets suit up gifted wing scorer Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming, a 7-foot-6 guy with loads of skill. In T-Mac and Yao, the Rockets have two superstars without portfolio and by portfolio I'm referring to a history of playoff success.

But it was assumed that Van Gundy had been wise to assemble title-building role players such as undersized power forward Chuck Hayes and defensive-minded three-man Shane Battier to do the dirty work while T-Mac and Yao scored most of the points.

Point guard Rafer Alston, whose leadership potential may always be overshadowed by his work on the mighty And 1 Tour, was an official reason for concern, but Houston did add scoring point Mike James, resurrection candidate Stevie Francis and crafty four-man Luis Scola.

At 6-foot-1, Adelman, whose most recent coaching run occurred in Sacramento, looked golden. The Rockets killed that notion, however, by losing six in a row. Then they won three, lost two, won two and so on.

During this process, Scola and James have been busts. Hayes is overmatched as a starter. The third-leading scorer is the historically reliable Bonzi Wells. Alston continues to prove he's no match for the point guards lining up for the conference's top teams.

And a bum knee continues to be an albatross for McGrady, who — despite Houston's 0-3 mark without him — has become the lead candidate in a trade for which many Rocket fans now are chanting.

Well, let's see if we can use a few stats to make a case for jettisoning T-Mac. Always considered an eager marksman, the Rockets are a solid 8-5 when McGrady squeezes off at least 20 rounds from the field. They're 7-3 when he makes at least half of those shots and 6-9 when he doesn't.

Is he settling for jumpers when he should be attacking the rim? Sort of, but the Rockets are a cozy 6-5 when T-Mac takes at least eight free throws and a swell 8-3 when he has five or more assists.

Yao, who — unless you favor consistently dominant rebounding and defensive intimidation — ranks as the top center in the league (I'll take Dwight Howard, by the way) may not be getting the ball enough. Houston is 3-7 when he takes fewer than 15 shots per game which makes us wonder how in the hell the Adelman can allow Yao to take fewer than 15 shots in more than a third of their games. Our best excuse should be foul trouble.

Anyway, while trading T-Mac might not seem like a crazy idea, his tender knee (a recent MRI revealed no structural damage) makes him even more difficult to move for anything within hollering distance of market value.

It also has been posited that the Rockets are suffering from a transition in philosophy from the guard-'em-and-grind-it-out blueprint of Van Gundy to Adelman, who favored a brisk pace while coaching the Kings.

But ol' Rick is wise enough to realize his most valuable player is as large as an apartment building and — while Yao is quite agile for 7-foot-6 — not quite as fleet as Phoenix big man Amare Stoudemire.

So the Rockets currently are a Van Gundy-like 22nd in scoring and fifth in scoring defense, while coming in at fourth in field-goal percentage defense. The killer is Houston's own field-goal percentage, which has slipped to 26th-best in the NBA.

http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/7604718