Aaron Brooks: A+ A heavy burden was placed on Aaron this year to shoulder the scoring load with the loss of McGrady and Yao for the year. He had his troubles on occasion, but really embraced the role as 1st option, even thriving at times, almost making an all star appearance and perhaps even picking up MIP. With a mix of speed, finesse, and deadly shooting, AB was a threat just about anywhere with the ball. In the past, you would often see Brooks get blocked near the rim on his drives, but he was able to cut down on those by being more selective and precise. It is promising to see Brooks continue to develop his game by adding new tricks to his repertoire. He developed a terrific release of the ball on drives which caused the ball to spin off the backboard, allowing him to distance himself even further from lengthy big men. Towards the end of the year we even began to see a brutally effective step back jumper. The real value of Brooks was his deadly three point shooting which seems to have no range whatsoever. Many a shot was launched 3 or more feet beyond the arc and still hit nothing but net. His defense was suspect at times, mainly due to size but not for a lack of effort. Brooks was often criticized for his decision making at times, but I personally found it be adequate and even improved toward the end of the season. Homework: Develop a midrange jump shot. Kyle Lowry: A- How can you not like Kyle Lowry? The guy plays with heart, hustle and passion on every single play. Lowry was yang to Brook’s ying this season, manning the backup point guard slot. Kyle always managed to grab that key rebound or make that clutch bucket when the Rockets really needed it. He was terrific at coming into the game and bumping up the tempo by running his butt off. He created tons of contact and got to the line often. His defense was above average as usual and no one could ever accuse Lowry of mailing it in. I have two big criticisms of Kyle that deserve mention. One, he took too many three point shots while not being a good shooter. I can understand an occasional shot out of necessity but 2 a game on average is probably 1 too many. My second gripe with Lowry is how he can disappear at times if the calls aren’t going his way. He has a tendency to enter the game, grab the ball, and barrel straight into a defender. This is a great strategy if he gets the calls, but if they are swallowing the whistle, his effectiveness goes down drastically. Overall I am perfectly content with our PG players for the next 5 years. Homework: Work on a three point shot. Kevin Martin: B+ Kevin came in and did exactly what he does: score the ball a ton, and do it efficiently. As constantly mentioned on the telecasts, Martin’s mere presence on this team has sky rocketed their FT% and FT attempts per game. After some initial shakiness, he showed a terrific chemistry with Brooks in the backcourt, finding a way to play off Brooks effectively. I am reminded of one particular stretch in early March where the production from the backcourt was topping 50 points consistently. It was really an exciting time causing many of us to salivate at next years potential. Martin fits into this offense beautifully, running it as If he has been doing it for years. Martin is awful defender however, often physically over powered by his opposing counterpart, but again it usually isn’t an effort issue. It is very troubling to see him miss games with injury. Martin has been notoriously injury prone, and I am certain I wasn’t the only one hoping all that was behind him. We can only pray he holds up better than our last SG. Homework: Drink a lot of milk, strengthen those bones. Jermaine Taylor: Incomplete Taylor showed some flashes of being a very solid player in this league but not enough to earn significant playing time in the rotation. Being known as a pure scorer, he had trouble adjusting to the NBA caliber of defense. We were treated to some truly thunderous dunks on occasion, but beyond that, it is hard to get too exited about Taylor. Unless he makes a significant step forward next year, I have a hard time envisioning him being a part of this team. Homework: Scrimmage Trevor Ariza: C+ It was a tale of two halves for Trevor: pre trade and post. In the beginning, Ariza was flat out horrible, he deserved a D-. He shot the ball too much and badly at that. He dribbled too much, often losing the ball. The saving grace was that his man defense was serviceable, but still his team defense left much to be desired. He didn’t commit to rotations and often let the other team get wide open shots and layups. Post trade he deserved a B+. After Martins arrival, Ariza centered in on more of his strengths and less of his weaknesses. He started being more of a facilitator and less of scorer. He cut a little more and tried to take his defender off the dribble less. We saw less contested three pointers and more ball movement. I use to cringe every time he had the ball, but I’ve learned to accept him as long he doesn’t fall back into old bad habits. Trevor still has a tendency to gamble on defense, which does sometimes lead to breakaway dunks and fast breaks, but also sometimes gives the opponent free points. He needs to learn to only gamble when there is a back up defender in position behind him, and not an open lane to the basket. I also noticed he has a tendency to lean inward on his jumpshots which drives down his effeciency. He is a much better shooter when he goes straigh up and down. I can only hope he plays more within his limits next year when Yao returns. Homework: Take a class in operational statistics Shane Battier: B+ Shane spent the year doing what he does: playing tough as nails D, while being limited but effective offensively. Shane was a sharp contrast to Trevor defensively, playing strong team defense, always making his rotations, but struggled at times to contain his own guy one on one. To his credit however, he was often asked to guard the best perimeter player with no help whatsoever. Offensively Shane will never blow you away with his talent, but did always make the “right” play at the right time, while being in the correct spot. We would occasionally see Shane post up a smaller player or make a back door cut when his defender wasn’t paying attention but it was a rare occurrence. The three pointer was Battier’s bread and butter as usual and he did so at a decent clip. His %s were hurt slightly, possibly due to a lack of Yao in the middle to draw in defenders. Many speculate Shane will be moved this offseason if a major deal were to go down, but I also wouldn’t be surprised to see him back next year either. Homework: Heal Chase Budinger: A+ Chase caught us all by surprise starting with his terrific summer league play and then put up solid numbers when he got time in the rotation during the regular season. Chase showed us terrific range on his shot, excellent leaping ability and some thunderous dunks. He was the recipient of the majority of the alley-oops this year exploding into the air with a true volleyball style. He showed a willingness to get out there and run in the transition game and exceled at it. He picked up the rather complicated offense easily, even earning pet plays run specifically for him. If you didnt know any better, you might confuse him for a veteran out there because of how few mistakes he makes. Not bad for a second round pick, eh? He is by far the best catch and shoot player we have on the team, hitting a ton of open looks. His defense could use some work, but is not nearly as bad as some of us suspected it would be. He has shown that he is coachable and fits here wonderfully. It is possible he is packaged this offseason as cheap talent to bring back another big name. We even heard rumors Morey dangled him for Iguodala at the deadline, but this could not be confirmed. If he does manage to return as a Rocket next year, he will become a great rotational player off the bench. Homework: Work on defense Luis Scola: A+ Luis was arguably the best player on the Rockets this year with Brooks. After the Landry trade, Scola was averaging nearly 20-10 cementing his place as one of the most underrated players in the league. Luis loves to run and get easy baskets, cleaning up missed layups and gobbling up any loose ball in sight. He ran the pick and roll to near perfection, either rolling to the basket for an easy layup or shooting a jumper from the elbow. He is easily one of the most crafty post up players the game as ever seen. His footwork and spin moves are so deceptive; the refs often tricked themselves into calling travel violations because that much motion without three steps seemed impossible. Luckily the refs learned their lessons and stopped calling the phantom travels allowing Luis to develop a fantastic up and under scoop shot. I have two minor gripes with Scola, but they are easy to overlook with how polished the rest of his game is. One, he was a bit turnover prone. In the post, he will lose the ball on occasion. On his shot, he will awkwardly try to fake his defender into the air and nose dive straight into them looking for a foul. It rarely works, but doesn’t seem to deter him from trying. The second gripe is his insistence on not leaving the paint, even if the player he is defending is getting wide open threes. Scola is a restricted free agent this year and will likely get a nice raise. We can only hope that raise is not too much for the Rockets to bear. Homework: Take a well earned vacation Jordan Hill: B+ The fruit of the McGrady trade, Jordan was quite a pleasant surprise for the Rockets. The first true mobile big man we have had in quite a while, Jordan showed some flashes of greatness in his sporadic playing time. He was very good at rebounding with his quickness and height. He was particularly good at offensive rebounds, often snatching away loose balls and getting easy put backs. He was effective in the pick and roll, usually ending up at the free throw line or throwing down a thunderous dunk. We had heard rumors of a good midrange shot, but never got a chance to really see it. Not to say that he missed a lot of shots, he just didn’t take many. His defense shows a lot of promise. We were treated to a five block game vs. the Celtics and numerous other multiple block outings. Unfortunately, the aggressive defense also got Jordan into foul trouble a lot. Jordan is one guy which helped keep my interest in watching the Rockets after the playoffs seemed out of sight. He may be moved in the offseason, but if not, he will be a valuable contributor for years to come. Homework: Develop a go to post move. Jared Jeffries: B- Jeffries was a surprise to most of us who thought he would ride out his time here on the bench. His defense was great, but showed awkwardness on the offense end on that led to some really bad looking plays. To his credit, he did make a few key jumpers to help close out some games. He played hero a couple games making a ton of consecutive stops late with his excellent defense. I won’t lie, I didn’t like seeing Jared on the floor, mostly because I felt Hill deserved that time more than he did. What bothered me the most with Jared was the frequency to miss wide open layups and dunks. This speaks to a natural clumsiness with the ball and/or bad hands. Regardless, his presence here was a positive overall and I certainly don’t regret the trade. I just wish he was earning 1 million instead of 7. Homework: Layup drills Chuck Hayes: A- Hayes somehow managed to hold down the center position at 6’6 for the entire year. His defense was spectacular as usual and his offense was serviceable. Hayes is a terrific man to man defender keeping his opponents out of their comfort zones and often stripping the ball out of their hands as they made their go to move. His team defense was awesome as well, rotating perfectly and drawing charges almost every game. It was a very pleasant surprise to see improvements in his offense. His free throws have stopped being a circus act, which is great. His back door cuts and layups are respectable. He even set up the offense at the high post often because of his exceptional passing. Not only that, he has developed a dribble move to the basket when his defender doesn’t respect him, making him more than what he use to be, which was a 0 on offense. Despite being a spectacular defender, his size was also a huge weakness. If a post player was established deep enough in the post, all they had to do was shoot right over him with little or no contest. Also, missed shots were often easy put backs for the opposing team with no height under the basket for the Rockets. Overall though, Hayes was great for team this year. He has a team option this year, but with the Rockets over the tax line and Yao returning, there is a slight chance he won’t be back with the team. I doubt it, but it is always a possibility. Homework: 1000 free throws every day David Andersen: C- David Andersen was supposed to be the stop gap for our huge hole at center this year. I think we were all a little surprised by how polished his post game was, but also by how much of a non factor he was on defense and the boards. For supposedly being a good shooter, DA didn’t shoot very well. I expected a dead eye three point shooter, but he proved to be nothing more than an average one. With the appearance of Jeffries and Hill, along with a back Injury, we didn’t see much of DA in the final stretch. I don’t expect Andersen to be anything more than the tenth man on the bench next year with Yao coming back. Homework: Don’t hurt Yao in practice Coaching: B+ We can probably attribute a lot of the Rocket’s success this year to how masterful Adelman is with the offense. He is freakishly good about getting the most from everyone at his disposal, way more than most expected (Im looking at you Jalen Rose). His offensive schemes are terrific, getting the right players the ball in the right places. I did however take issue with them not reigning in Ariza sooner. He was offered way too much freedom early on and the Rockets suffered because of it. Furthermore, there were often times when obvious substitutions took way too long to make. I was dumbfounded a few times by some of the rotational moves, but overall the quality of the coaching was great. There were times when a player was on fire in the first half and would see little or no time in the second. Jeffries saw way too much time and Hill not enough. Regardless, Adelman should be back next year and I literally cant wait. Homework: Develop Jordan Hill Management: A+ Daryl Morey is a god among men. Does anyone really disagree? Getting three potential lottery picks for McGrady and snagging Kevin Martin for Landry were great moves. Draft day and Juky 1st cant come quick enough. I am so excited to have a chance to watch him work his magic. Props to Les Alexander as well for committing to the team and agreeing to go over the tax line next year. That is definatley something he doesnt have to do, but does anyway. Homework: Chris Bosh!
What about Carl Landry? Otherwise good recap. You are a little bit generous with the grades for Battier and Hayes.
Aaron has already develop a mid range shoot. He just need to work on his play making/passing ability the one he is been improving. And grow a few inches.
I look at it more as how well a player lived up to thier potential and expectations, rather than how far the team went. They exceeded my expectations, and thus I awarded good grades
as much as I love budinger, theres no way he's rated THAT high there were a period in the season, where he was really inconsistent and hitting none of his jumpers
LarsV8- Your grades are way too high. If you were correct we would now be going on to win the NBA Championship. No player on the present Rockets is worth any more than a B- as a high grade. Which would be Brooks if he wins 'Most Improved'- his game as starting Point Guard shows much promise yet leaves much to be desired.
I agree with you. I would have Jared on my team any day if he was paid only 1 million. 7 million is a bit steep. As far as Luis Scola.. You'll ask him to take a break, but he won't. He already said that he's not. LOL God, he is a work horse.
Im not sure how you can look on this season as a dissapointment and say that each player was "bad", because they weren't. We just happened to be short one major piece of the puzzle. If for instance, Yao was there, and we went to the WCF, but every other player played exactly the same, then they somehow deserve a better grade? Thats silly. The guys played well, but were just short on talent. This team could of very easily mailed it in, but they never did, even when it didnt mean anything.
Most of this board thinks that an A- from Kyle Lowry is the same as an A- from Deron Williams, so you shouldn't be surprised when you receive some criticism.
