I would like to remind the board of how young our team is. The average age for the rockets is 24! Were the youngest team in the NBA and also have the lowest payroll in the league. Essentially we're playing with house money. We win? Great our team develops a winning mentality and gives the fans some excitement. We lose? We can only go up, our team still develops new attributes and gets a higher pick. I wanna see what people think are flaws and positives of each of our players. I'll start with what i've observed so far. Omer Asik Positives: Amazing rebounder duh. -Defense is jawdropping imo. In today's day and age your big men have to play more pick and roll defense. Omer not only can hedge and has the foot speed to slow down guards but he has enough bulk to bang with anyone in the league. -He changes shots all the time. - Decent footwork and uses body well on offense. -Sets man screens and only gets called for moving screens when the guard goes too early. - Becoming a reliable ft shooter Negatives: -Post game footwork is great hands are bipolar. He'll catch jeremys bullets one play fumbles the next. Yao and Griffin use a tennisball drill to develop that aspect of their game. Hope Asik does the same. - Puts the ball on the ground too often instead of going straight up with the ball and drawing fouls. Patrick Patterson Positives: -Post defense. I don't think most people have noticed but his ability to bang and move people off the block is impressive. moved lamarcus and made things incredibly tough down low - Range on jumper. - Money midrange. Negatives:- Pick and roll defense is terrible. I don't know if its by design, but his hedges are weak or he ends up switching. He's let people get around his hedge way too easily this year -No box out on rebounds whatsoever. - Needs to pull trigger at all times when he has space on midrange. develop that mentality - Weak screens Chandler Parsons Positives: -Swiss army knife -Great rebounder - Good handle - good vision - cutch as all hell - good positional defender Negatives: -Needs to take the ball up stronger when he goes in instead of contorting - Jumper was consistent at the end of last year is getting it back now - Brainfarts on defense sometimes. WIll go under screens instead of over. leaves man, gives too much space. He can't lapse like this though since he's our shutdown man James Harden Positives: -Gets to rim at will -Vision is elite - Plays passing lane so well - Mixes it up on the glass - Great stroke when open - Offense is amazing - Draws fouls out of thin air Negatives: -Plays too much like 2k13. All 3's and at the rim. I like the mentality but the D knows this and is packing the lane. He needs to learn the stop and pop and keep people honest. - D is loading up on him and in late game situations he doesn't adjust. he'll force it too much. i don't blame him though. i blame coaches. with the ball d's are focused on him. without we can get him free more easily and have him score in motion. - if D is loaded he'll look for the contested 3 at all times. needs that stop and pop midrange if he wants his efficiency back. Jeremy Lin Positives: -Great rebounder -Active hands on defense -Great foot speed and plays offensive players to the help d - Elite court vision.... yea i said it elite court vision. He's playing like a true floor general this year. throwback to the old school point guards - slashing ability is still impressive - ft shooting Negatives: - off ball defense. doesn't keep head turned to the ball, gets burned on simple pass and gos. - shooting touch is off this year - finishing isn't there, but i like that he's taking what the d is giving him
Nice post indeed. A good breakdown. I'm not ready like 90% of the forum here to say Terrence Jones is better than Patterson, but it's really worth giving him some minutes for a look. If you can find an excuse to put Toney Douglas in for the whole of OT, with his track record of incompetence, you can find some time for T Jones within the course of the game where the game isn't on the line.
Ok, PPat does not have bad PnR defence. Actually, it is great. Seriously, sometimes I wonder if people just make up reasons to hate him.
Team defense is alot easier to learn than offense. Players with defensive ability will fit nicely into McHale's game strategy and get PT. DMo, Machado, and White were the worst defenders during preseason and look where they end up? DLeague! If McHale is offensive oriented coach, Machado would be our backup PG and DMo would see more time at 4. PPat has his flaws but is a better defender than Jone. I don't mind seeing Jones playing but only under specially circumstances when opposition 4 is small.
I said I'm not sure if its by design or not, but he does not hedge instead he'll switch the pick. If its the guards or coaches communicating the switch then I cant fault ppat. I actually like the guys game except for a couple aspects. As stated I hate when he switches. He allows the dribbler to cut the angle and drive the lane too easily. I'd rather him sag 8 feet off and let them have a jumper. I'm thinking specifically of the LBJ drive and a couple others in the PDX game. Like i said before the other aspect of PPats game i wish he would shore up, is boxing out. I don't even care if he gets the board. He needs to just put his body on his man. He's huge he could easily push out his man from the paint. If he could fix this issue i'd like his game so much more
I can agree about the rebounding, which has disappointed me because I thought he could rebound the ball. But his PnR defence is one of the best in the game. I am not sure what you are seeing. Yes people will still score and he is not perfect, but he defends it so well. He switches because he can move his feet well. People remember the one made shot, but do not remember the many misses before.
+1 POSITIVE well, at least coach sampson learnt something! Don't pull this stun again. Theory was put to the test and it FAILED.
