This sounds like a lie, because everyone was singing Lowry's praises when he got the starting gig because he was a better defender, and his shot was improving.
Hey genius, they were all on the same team last few years. Now they're split up amonst the scrub teams in the NBA, what do you expect, team record-wise? And they're all having good years. Lowry for example has career high in Rebound% Assist%, Block%, Steal%, TOV%, TS%, his best year ever. He's on the bench because Toronto is a consistently garbage franchise, what do you expect? Every single one of those positions favors the Rockets or is a wash, lmao. Also, you forgot the most important one, no one ever said Dragic = Harden. SMH.
All the shots for so few points? His true shooting percentage is 16th in the league. He's having his best season in years.
Watch "Moneyball" to get a sense of what's going on. Only after Yao's injury was Morey able to assemble a team based purely on analytics. Some teams may have more talented players but the makeup of the team is key to Wins. Would you rather have two 400HP engines with all the bells and whistles in your car or a finely tuned 300HP with efficient and state-of-the-art components? Remember these components by itself looks practically benign, inferior and useless.
Lowry clowned Brooks in their matchup last night, too. 24 points, 4 assists, 3 rebounds, 2 steals. A typical Lowry line, but it seemed personal for Kyle.
I think the lesson here is that building a team to win and coaching to win makes a big difference. Even if the talent you're able to scrape together is middling at best, if your goal and focus is to eek out as many wins as you can out of them its entirely possible to win close to 40 games or so. A lot of teams, perhaps for good reasons, aren't focused on just maximizing their wins. They need to "develop" young players and any vets they may add are valued more for their mentorship off the court than their actual play on the court.
Plenty of teams lose even while trying to scrap for wins. PHX, for example, isn't exactly trying to "develop" any rookies (Kendall Marshall doesn't play). Last season's Nets were also the same age (weighed by minutes) as last season's Rockets.
If you check the per 36 min stats of Dragic and Scola are putting up similar numbers to last season. Some stats a little lower and some stats a little higher, but all in all they're doing what they did as Rockets. Lowry has improved his per 36 minute numbers a bit, but didn't have much a positive effect on their W-L record until recently when he started coming off the bench. I would say they were probably overated by Rockets fans just like fans in other cities usually overate their own non all star players. They put up solid numbers but get little to no national fan or media attention. Basically solid starters or role players but not all stars or "difference makers". Harden is playing 7 more minutes per game. He has 5 more fga, 3 more fta and his ast and stl are up almost by 1 per 36 min. His rebounds are down a little. His fg% and 3p% are down a little and his ft% is up a bit. Basically his per 36 min scoring is up by 5 because he is taking a few more fga and fta per 36 minutes. What makes Harden an all star or elite player was that he was able to go from very good role player off the bench to "the man" on a new team while his stats scaled up with his minutes.
I somehow get the impression that you didn't read with understanding, but that's ok. That happens a lot around here at times. Let me explain. Yes they were on the same team, but it is my contention that the current cast around them is comparable as a whole to what they had here in Houston. I also took Dragic and Harden out of the equation strictly to compare the supporting cast and I said that in the very part of my post that you quoted so I'm not sure how you missed that. I don't think Harden's supporting cast is vastly superior to what Dragic has and many people would agree. Not on paper at least. Same thing for Lowry. In spite of that, both those teams are bad and I wanted to raise the question of why. Why can't those guys elevate their teams like Harden has if they are the players some of us thought they were? Lots of people were saying Lowry, Dragic and Scola were borderline All Star caliber players with Lowry and Dragic poised to take that next step and become true stars. Their team records make me question that. When Dragic was beasting, Lowry wasn't even playing. I also asked could coaching be a factor or the chemistry of putting together a team full of players that compliment one another? If that is the case, credit should be given to our GM and coaching staff. Or something else? Just promoting thought and debate. Several people have given interesting feedback to the questions raised.
Phoenix provides an interesting opportunity for us. We get to see what happens when a team assembles "enough" veteran talent to chase an 8th seed in the West--including two well-regarded former Rockets in Dragic and Scola--and yet still fails miserably at it. Clearly it's not that Dragic and Scola are "overrated": Dragic has been a stud this season and the Suns still can't believe their luck in picking up Scola in the amnesty auction. Clearly there is something else going on there, some defect in coaching or management, that the Suns suffer from but that the Rockets do not. It's something that allows one team to succeed while the other flounders. *THAT* should be what this thread is about, and not some veiled attack on the sentimentality of Rockets fans.
No no no...not trying to attack. Questioning is not attacking. I opened it up for debate. I like Lowry and Dragic. They were my two favorite Rockets last year, but now their teams suck and I want to know why. I expected them both to be putting up around 19 and 8 right now. I expected Toronto and PHX to be contending for playoff spots somewhere between 6-8. I did however allow for other potential reasons as to why their teams aren't any good so I don't see how this can be considered a covert ploy to tear down our former players.
I answered you. No one on our team was even close to Harden. Borderline allstar is not the same as superstar like Harden. AND their teams are worse at every position. Your assumptions are all flawed. Let's look at Toronto since we've discussed Phoenix's roster: Davis < Asik Bargnani < Patterson (sad but true) DeRozan = Lin Pietrus < Parsons Your whole query is meaningless because it falsely assumes these teams are assembled competently when they're mostly made up of lottery busts. They're "talented" like Terrence Williams is "talented". If you just wanna look at Lowry and Dragic individually, then I don't know what you have to complain about. Dragic has equaled his performance from last year with a lot fewer TOs and Lowry is having a career season across the board. They are exactly who we thought they were.
You're forgetting Calderon, Terrence Ross, Alan Anderson, Amir Johnson, and the recently injured Valanciunus. If you substitute Kyle Lowry with James Harden, do you still contend that this team would have a losing record? Dragic and Lowry are putting up decent stats, this is true. Some people, and I'll put myself in that category were expecting them to step it up from maybe borderline All Star level to true All Star level. Go back and look at some of the old threads. The expectations were there. They may be who you thought they were, but I see them putting up numbers on losing teams ala Kevin Martin in Sacramento and I don't think the players around them are signficantly worse than what they had when they were here or what Harden currently has around him. We differ in that opinion and I think that is what you are failing to realize. Edit: Also I'm not trying to put those guys on Harden's level, but if they are difference makers, shouldn't a team with those rosters at least be around .500? I don't see why not although I readily admit that other factors like coaching may be underrated here. Crazy thought...maybe, just maybe those McHale and Morey guys know what they're doing.
Some people picked the Raptors as a possible 8th seed in the East so they do have some talent. They had a slow start with Lowry as a starter and won a bunch of games w/o him (and Bargnani). Now with Lowry coming off the bench recently they're 3-1 with a loss to the Kings. DeRozan is a SG averaging 18pts a game. So DeRozan < Harden. Lowry + Calderon > Lin + TD
Now, granted I've only been able to catch a few games this year, but is McHale playing in the 4 or 5 spot as a point-forward?
