Before you guys get too deep into the discussion about player defense, you should understand there isn't a lot of open source defensive NBA stats. Companies and teams have lots of them, we the public, do not. I mention this because you are going to spend a lot of time trying to be for or against something without having any data to back you up. Very sadly, defensive contributions just aren't recorded in conventional box scores, so any advance defensive open source stat comes with a lot of caveats. For those that believe in RAPM (I am one of them) here are the top defensive players on the team: Omer +4.83 Delfino +1.01 Lin +.78 Parsons -.62 Patterson -1.0 Harden -1.01 Harden's defense has been slightly below average, but not a liability compared to other players on the team. Compared to other players mentioned in this thread: Kobe -1.06 Lebron +.71 Durant +.70 While RAPM Isn't a good measure for a partial season, if you have 3 seasons of data, the numbers have been know to correlate extremely well with performance and what I like most about this stat is that is also a very good predictor of future performance. By the end of the year, I do expect these numbers to get better, though not significantly better. The only player that has made a marked improvement on the Rockets in the past 20 games is Lin, going from a -.09 to a +.78. I've been following this stat since the season started, it's one of the biggest improvement by an NBA player thus far. Same for Lin's offense going from +.91 to +1.66. It's like he's a different player from the first 15 games of the year. One final fun note. If you combine Harden's +4.99 on offense with Asik's +4.83 on defense, you have the best NBA player in the game with Lebron a very distant 2nd.
Wow, a young team with young players and at 19-14 right now. Many NBA cities would love to have their teams doing that, especially when their young team rank #1 in offence and consistently steam-roll past even established teams. The D will come when players get more experience playing together. JLin will mature much like Nash & Parker. Rondo, Parker, Kidd... these pgs all had no outside shots when they started. So have some patience on JLin and likewise the other young players. Just think our hot Rox with a good D & maturing players wasting teams with 120+ points nights in and nights out. The eastern teams will be scared to death to meet Rox at home and be wasted and humiliated like what they did to the Knicks and the Bulls.
He played poorly last night in the first half....THATS IT. hes played really well over the last 10 games and last night when the game was on the line he scored 6 in the 4th and had what 3 assists that were directly responsible ofr the rockets seperating themselves from the Bucks.... Get it under control Lin is playing well he just didnt play well for one half.....and they won
nice thinking... i wouldn't traded anybody from this roster...we dont need no Cousins Loves and other stars...just stick with this team 2-3 seasons and save the cap for resigning expiring contracts of Omer Lin and Parsons...theres no doubt we will be a team consisting of stars and stars alone
Hey guys does anyone have the Comcast Sports Network (Houston) HD feed? The guy working the camera for houston put us on camera. We were on the 2nd row baseline (the tipsy asian dancing). Would like to be able to find the footage.
