[CHRON] ROCKETS NOTES:Artest eyes return, Budinger practices and more.

budinger should rest. Honestly. Just rest. but he will have a monster game when he does play his first game back. you mark my words. somebodys gettin locked the F(**# up.

 

Since Budinger is an offensive talent, I'm going to choose to ignore you.

But you are correct though; he should just rest until he is 100%. This team is actually doing decent, offensively, without him.

The only thing is, he NEEDS to give Trevor Ariza rest, so we don't complain every time he touches the ball.

 

I will be so excited to see Budinger back on the court. There were a few games I feel like we could have won if we had Budinger coming off the bench to score 6-10 points. Maybe Ariza's legs wouldn't have been so rubbery that he was even worse than usual offensively in those games too.

 

I hope Budinger comes back tonight to beat those Fakers!!!!!

-RB

 

Unleash him. He's 21 years old so that ankle is good to go.

We, as fans, have to change our mindset. We no longer root for a squad full of gimpy geezers who need microfracture when every other player would just need their knee 'scoped or who break their foot running to the locker room. We have a young, healthy nucleus that actually avoids major injuries and can bounce back from the minor ones like real NBA players should.

 

Please get off Ariza back, dude is putting in the effort to get better. He's only 24 and has only played maybe 2 or 3 full seasons. He's in the perfect city to get better (Htown). He can work with some of the best ball handlers in the league who come here to workout every summer.

His shooting and decision making will get better around playoffs. You might as well support him, because he's not going anywhere. Please believe!!!

 

I know it's a little off topic, but I think the problem we're seeing with Ariza has more to do with him being too exhausted to play than just merely sucking. He's shooting way below his career FG% (not including this season). He's missing layups. These are both things that can be caused by his legs not being under him.

He's not used to playing 40+ minutes a game, and he's certainly not used to taking 20 shots a game (too lazy to look up the exact minutes and shots per game right now, but I think those are close). So with such a high usage rate and so many logged minutes, I don't think he had the endurance to keep up. It's as if he's hitting a rookie wall this season. He just wasn't physically prepared to handle the load that Coach has given him. Even though he looked pretty good at the beginning of the season.

My theory is that he'll play much better next season after using this season and the offseason to build his endurance (whether a star plays with him or not).

So yeah, let's back off of the usage of Ariza for a while until he's able to keep up with the pace of the game offensively. If our whole system is based off of a motion offense and no one player should be recognized as the one guy you want to double, then why are we putting such a heavy load on the guy?

***************************

But back on topic, if this is Artest's first game back tonight, I expect whomever he's covering to have a pretty rough night. He's well rested and I doubt that fall on Christmas did anything to make him less crazy. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if he pulls someone's shorts down while they're running down the court tonight. Just seems like an Artest kind of thing to do.

 

We could use Bud tonight against LA.

 

Air Bud better be 100% with that ankle before he comes back. Lingering ankle problems can be a killer. Yes, we need him (pretty damn fine that we need a rookie 2nd rounder!), but we need him truly healthy more. If we were at the end of the season and beginning the playoffs, I would probably feel differently. Let's hope he's 100%!

 

LOL...ok :grin:

 

Aah, yea dude, Budinger is going to lock someone up, he's our biggest defensive specialist, then we can all hop in our flying cars and follow the rainbows to the giant pots of gold.

 

i think he was referring to the ron artest quote saying someone on the rockets was gonna get locked the "f" up by him. fix that sarcasm meter son.

 

Exactly. Ricky knows what's up.

 

Personally, I'd let Bud sit for the road trip, no need to risk him coming back too soon and besides Taylor could use the playing time. I can't help but feel, that these minutes over the past few weeks actually playing have helped him along a lot better then just practice.

 

Where da GOLD AT?

 

he switched what artest said about the rockets not giving him a new deal which he said that every time he plays the rockets somebody is gonna get locked the f up...dude was being sarcastic about Chase "this bud for you" Budinger defense

 

People are so serious. It was a sarcastic post.

 

if you react to ariza shootin the ball like many of us did for rafer (when he shot a 3 i used to yell nooooooooo, but he would make it when i yelled)

 

Is it just me or am I seeing more and more of this signature under the post deal that DD usually does?

It's getting rather annoying, everyone is looking like followers.