[Chron] Rockets countdown a look at the point guards

I really can't tell, you are joking right?

 

You are just basically saying that Jeremy Lin is a top 10 PG if he had the opportunity.

And my point is there are at least 10 PG that are objectively better than Jeremy Lin, with entire seasons worth of data to back it up. Again, not an insult to Jeremy Lin. Just the position is stacked.

No, Jeremy Lin is not going to contend with Derrick Rose for a top 10 PG spot, if that is what you are insinuating.

 

you're again missing my point. nowhere did i mention that lin is a top 10 pg right now based on production.

I'm saying that outside of the 6-8 standouts that you mentioned, it's a pretty subjective opinion on who's better and once you're past that group, you have a handful of players that have the talent to break through if given the right opportunity, with lin being one of them. he could be anywhere from the 10th best pg to 20. case in point - holiday. and based on what lin has done when given the right opportunity? yeah the odds are good that he could be. he's shown that in ny AND in houston. the talent gap between starters isn't as great as you think outside of a few standouts.

and lastly, my point about derrick rose is exactly that. we have no idea how he will play after coming back from his serious knee injury. we do know that his production depends a lot on his athleticism and if there's any drop off in that, he may not be close to what he was before. and my point has nothing to do with jlin.

 

Hopefully his health particularly that ankle is also in its prime. I want AB to resurrect his career here in Houston. If he can get his act to at least 80% of his former self then I'd consider it already a success. However, ankle injuries especially for players that rely on their quickness is always a red flag.

 

I actually read the "Beverley will close games" comment as something along the lines of preparing Lin's fans for what is to come, so that they don't get angry when it happens.

Better to tell people now than have them mad and not prepared when it takes place.

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Good piece. I agree with Carl Herrera that looks like more small ball is on the way.

Brooks is key because he's insurance if one of the two guys ahead of him goes down. Or if someone gets traded.

This team is now a legitimate contender, or close to it. In that kind of situation, you don't want to have an injury (or other circumstance) derail your season. So if the owner will pony up the money, you try to get insurance and have viable back-ups. Especially in a situation like this, when neither of the two guys in front of the third-stringer has fully established themselves in the league yet.

 

Because of Harden? Regardless, Harden can't do it all. He's primarily a scorer and not a playmaker. Unless we're going to get PJ suddenly as our coach then we still need a play making point guard regardless if Harden is already a play making SG. His energy is best served elsewhere (e.g., scoring and defense). Playmaking for him should only be done from time to time or else it affects his stamina so much.

Lastly, Parsons playmaking shouldn't be relied on also. Like Harden, he got in his position some of the toughest-to-guard guys in NBA. He's better off just scoring and defending, let the opposing SF's work their butts. I have high hopes that he'll be the 3rd star we are looking for.

 

Bevs a good pg but of course you want a playmaking point guard to give harden a break and to put pressure of defenses at all times from multiple locations. Morey said this on the radio - he prefers the scoring point guard over the assisting point guard generally for the above reasons. Jeremy scores and assists better than Patrick. 2+ assists per 33 minutes is wretched and I don't know him many times he was turned away on a drive to the basket that I have seen Jeremy finish. Having said that I understand on a dollar for dollar basis Jeremy costs much more.

 

Very true. We need a second playmaker. Whether that is a PG or not doesn't really make a difference. But we need that second playmaker, that second guy that can both score the ball and create for others. And Lin is the second-best playmaker on this team right now. Really Lin is the only proven playmaker on the roster outside of Harden. At least until and unless one of Canaan or Beverley proves himself a more capable playmaker. Which is not a given.

This is my biggest objection to simply trading away Lin for expiring contract(s)/draft pick(s). If we trade him we have no proven playmakers outside of Harden. So, we should hold on to him unless we can trade him for a superstar or we find another significant playmaker on this roster capable of filling that role when Harden goes to the bench.

 

So let me get this straight.... Brooks(a player that was JUST SIGNED) was signed to just be trade bait to a team that only wants to cut him right way so he can then sign with the team he actually wanted to sign with in the first place???... why wouldn't he have just signed with a team like that to begin with???? I think you're really stretching here man.

If Brooks is on the final 15 man roster, left with zero playing time, trades don't go down, and the team is lucky enough to have perfect health throughout the regular season, why wouldn't Morey just do Brooks a solid out of professional courtesy and waive him so that he would be able to seek employment where he then chooses to go??

Why would another team waste assets(assuming that's why Morey would trade him instead of just waive him) to trade for Brooks when they are just going to waive him shortly after?

There is no benefit to that team unless they are shedding salary in the deal... which doesn't make sense at this point to assume since so many teams are going to have a boatload of cap-space anyways going into this summer, and the the Rockets are over the cap so in a Aaron Brooks trade i believe they could only take back something like 1.5 million in salary if my math serves me right. That doesn't seem like a cost cutting deal that would get the Rockets back any sort of asset that would be worth making the deal.

So.... in my opinion its more likely that Aaron Brooks is here because he wants to be HERE in Houston, the front office does think that there is a chance for him to play at some point(with injuries, trades, and playing 2 PG's off the bench at times being likely to happen), and its very unlikely he was brought in to be trade bait.

Could he be involved in a trade.... of course. But is he trade "bait"??.... logic would tell me no. If he was such a hot commodity why wouldn't that team that wants him sign him a few weeks ago instead of letting him come to Houston for the vet min???

 

You probably out of your mind. Who's going to do play making in case Harden got injury? Beverley?

Last season, Lin leads the team and win two important games when Harden got injury which later on became key element for Rockets to enter playoff.

By losing just one of those games, Rockets can't even get into the playoff.

 

Morey may indeed do Brooks a solid and waive him during training camp. Which will leave a bunch of you shaking your head at how dumb Morey was to sign him. Because you don't understand what went down to get Brooks here to begin with.

 

Why in the world was he dumb to sign him??? the Rockets were over the cap, will probably have injuries during the season, will probably have trades later on, and as you said yourself just a few posts ago....

Brooks might not be the guy YOU want, might not be the ideal candidate long term, but at the vet min, Morey could very well have been thinking its the best he can get at this point with what is available on the market right now.

If Les didn't care about him risking a million dollars that doesn't hamper their long-term flexibility then why was it a mistake to bring him into training camp???.... because its going to make Covington or BJ Young work harder to make the final roster cut???...

Look, if Covington or Young look really, really good in training camp then yes, its a real possibility that one of Brooks, Brewer, Casspi, or Williams could get cut.... Great. Nobody is going to shaking their head out of disbelief if one of those two un-drafted rookies are good enough to beat out a veteran player like Brooks.... good for all of us.... we should be so lucky for one of those two youngsters to truly be that good.

However, that's besides the point you have been preaching for weeks now that "Brooks is trade bait" or "Brooks is the 16th man", etc. etc. If you hate Brooks than that is fine... just say so, but state your logic as strickly what you are want and your opinion. Please don't act like the organization is secretly telling you in private as a Rockets insider or something.

 

Look, the stigma of traditional theories of basketball, such as:

"PG should run the offense"
"SG should just shoot open shots"
"PF's belong in the paint"

are old and outdated.

Are play making skills nice to have? Sure. If Harden goes down it would be nice to have a capable backup, but it is not a priority, and not something you game plan for.

This team is built around Harden and Howard and what fits best around that. You don't build your team expecting an injury. If Harden goes down for an extended period, our championship aspirations are over. Jeremy Lin isn't saving us with his play making. A PG in this system is going to be more valuable as a spot up shooter and defender, not a play maker.

 

I think this is my favorite thing about Morey, his roster churn is unbelievable. It's highly likely that every player that gets cut by our team when we trim the roster will be picked up by another team. Also, undrafted free agents that make this team will have to do so by beating out seasoned profesionals that are not going to let some rookie take their lunch money. They will have to be tough and will be well versed in professional basketball player 101.

Oh yeah, and all of the above mentioned players are almost zero risk to the Rockets future.

 

Nash and Parker are getting old, Lin is still 24. 40 year olds and 50 year olds can't play basketball no matter how good they are.

I would argue that Lin is better than Rubio/Dragic, but a lot of you Dragic fans won't see this, despite Lin putting up similar numbers when Dragic was given reigns to his team's offense, and Lin embarrassed Wall in the summer games long time ago. I honestly believe Wall is overhyped and given free keys to do whatever he wants with his team's offense, and thus, given room to grow, while Lin is limited in this team's offense and "stunted" from growing

Of course, some PGs like Paul, Rose, Westbrook are always going to be better than Lin, and they are quite young too. But to be in top 10 in the future, he doesn't have to be as good as those uber-elite PGs. He just needs to be better than the likes of Holiday/Conley, which he might be possible in the future

 

Parker is light years better then lin. It's not even close.

There isn't a gm in the league that would take Lin over Wall or Rubio either. Nobody cares what happens in summer league otherwise Donte Greene would be the NBA scoring champ.

 

Lin's value isn't just if Harden goes down. I agree is he does so do our championship chances. The point is that having multiple playmakers at multiple positions puts stress on the opposing defense. With Harden, Parson and Lin, you can have 3 points of attacks where all 3 can shoot the 3 ball respectively and slash, and Lin is clearly the second best on the team at that. With Dwight in the middle (or leaking to the middle behind a slasher), the attack will be very effective. If a team closes out on the 3 well it will be important for the spot up shooter to drive (or drive and kick), something Lin clearly is better at than Beverly. Keep in mind Lin isn't just a good pick and roll player, he's a top 5 top - top 10 pick and roll player. Far better than Beverly.

In addition, while Beverly is the better man on man defender (I love his energy on defense), Lin is actually a very good team defender (see Sampson article today from Friedman). He's very good at steals (2 per game), passing lanes, help defense. His man on man weakness is made more acceptable now by having Dwight and Asik behind him at all times to correct blown coverages (i.e., his weakness hurts us less now). And Lin actually shot at a 36-40% clip from the 3 the last 3 months - as good as or better than Beverly from the 3.

If Lin worth $8M a year? Maybe a little more, a little less. I've got to see how the team fits this year. But he's worth a lot more than people give credit for and I wouldn't move him unless we got a clear upgrade on a area of weakness (LA, Love, Ilyasova, not Ryan Anderson).

 

I agree with this. I think that realistically Lin is probably in the middle tier of starting point guards (between 10-20, depending on your needs, and closer to 15-20). However, the differences between point guards are much smaller after you get past the first 3-5 point guards bc pg is a very deep position. So while we don't excel at the PG position, I'm very happy having perfectly adequate PGs in Lin and Beverly at that position. Also they both have upside still. Both have flashed and I don't think they've plateaued in any way. If someone other than Lin had scored 38 against the Spurs defense, people would be freaking out about his ceiling. Let's accept that Lin is still unfinished and has good potential, but is at least adequate to pretty good. We have two top-10 players already. Getting pretty good everywhere else will get us to championship contention level. I'd rather shore up our PF position than spend time worrying that Lin or Beverly aren't good enough.

 

If Harden goes down for an extended period, our championship aspirations aren't over at all... as long as the period doesn't include the playoffs. With Lin we should be able to win enough games to keep us in the playoff hunt. That's the point of having a competent backup for the playmaking skillset.

 

The second best playmaker on the team, by far, is Dwight Howard. People shouldn't be confused just because the Lakers used him as their Tyson Chandler. That was the Lakers' downfall and a big reason why Dwight left to come here. While the offense this year may not be completely centered around Dwight like his time in Orlando(a successful offense, mind you), he will be a key feature nonetheless, rather than relegated to a mere sideshow and garbageman/pick and roll finisher.

With that said, Jeremy will still have an important role as clearly the 3rd best playmaker. As we've learned with Tmac and Yao, the more points of attack the better, especially in the playoffs.