Thank you. The reason I consider Alston 20-25 is because I use a skewed stats method for all JVG players. I believe he would be 20-25 under Adelman. JVG affects all players on offense and his entire coaching resume supports this from stats analysis. As for Spanoulis I agree 100% and believe JVG simply destroyed him to try to make him a control style point guard. It didn't work because Spanoulis is just as stubborn. Be prepared for the typical SamFisher responses jopatmc.
Uhhh...isn't it just as easy to say that Houston played like crap for 7 games, shot the ball horribly, Yao Ming was not 100%, Head disappeared completely, Battier played maybe 2 good games, and TMac acted like he was hiding half the time...and they still took Utah to 7 games?
Using historical context data (or playoff stat trends) I concluded the following and predicted Utah would win in 7 games 1. A small rotation throughout the year like the one JVG used typically equals a first round exit. 2. A very small playoff rotation like the playoff one JVG uses historically in his career typically results in a playoff loss against a team that uses a more traditional playoff rotation and a bigger rotation during the season - ala Utah. 3. Based on defensive stats Luther Head and John Liucas III are absolutely horrible defenders. Because JVG wanted to keep playing them and being that it was against big point guards like Williams and Fisher I concluded that Houston needed a bigger guard on them. JVG would only use Alston though as was clear before the series. Alston is a good defender based on stats but his one stat that is terrible is he always by percentage lets players have their way on the pick. Against Utah this is murder. 4. Boozer and Okur by stats is a very poor matchup for Houston because Boozer would need to be guarded by Hayes, but Hayes would be a liability on offense in the playoffs playing the JVG style Hayes would be expected to average 3 to 4 points a game. This would lead to perhaps a problem, making Yao move to guard Boozer in order to get someone else in with more offense Howard or Battier cannot guard Boozer. Because you need Yao logging more minutes and other problems, Yao may end up on Boozer. This is caused by Hayes offensive weakness and JVG offensive system, something JVG would surely understand, he simply could not allow the team to be outscored by 20 points at that spot. Yao cannot guard Okur on the perimeter (stats and the obvious show this). The stats show Alston will allow Williams to penetrate, and this will cause problems for Yao on D and make him play "soft" to avoid fouls. 5. JVG used McGrady as a point forward or point off guard as the stats show. But in the playoffs stats have historically shown that the team's top volume shooter and scorer must play off the ball to be successful against a good half court defense playoff team - ala Utah. I could go on and on. All in all I gave the Rockets 7 games simply because of Yao, T-Mac, Battier and being a team that would D up. But that was 7 games in futility based on stats, in other words making it a competition without really having a serious chance. Not 7 games where you truly have no idea which team is better.
Alston plays 40 minutes of prime time and V Span (totally irrelevant to the Rockets now, I might add) played ultimate garbage time. JVG only put him in when there was like a 30 point margin. So V Span (totally irrelevant to the Rockets) whooped up in garbage time? Bon voyage!
Legit question. In my mind, and I hate to admit it, because I do have a great respect for Van Gundy's coaching ability, specifically his defensive coaching ability, but in my mind, Van Gundy never got the matchups right. He should have had Hayes on Boozer, and when Hayes got into foul trouble, he should have ran Deke in with Yao on Boozer and let Yao stand out there on Okur. Hayes was our best post defender/followed by Deke. But, this would have required out of the box type thinking for Van Gundy, which he seems to struggle with. So, in my opinion, the reason why Yao and McGrady looked so bad against Utah had more to do with coaching than it did with them sucking it up. We had no matchup for Harpring coming off the bench (Bonzi was somewhere sucking down Everclear) and we had the wrong matchups against Booz and Okur.
Yes, which as I posted above is caused by his short rotation. This has historically been shown to be detrimental in the playoffs.
Just a few Spanish articles I found that said the following after the best translation I could do: The Argentine player of the TAU Luis Scola has communicated the president of the club, Hustle Querejeta, his intention to leave the vitoriano set to give the jump to the Houston Rockets in the NBA. In an official notice, the TAU explained that in the next hours the agent of the player will put itself in contact with the club to make specific the details of the exit of Scola." http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/259745/0/scola/tau/nba/ "Luis Scola will be the sixth Argentinean who will play the next season in the NBA. The wing-pivot, of 27 years and 2.06 meters of height, sealed a bond by three seasons, after terminating by 3 million dollars the contract that united it with Ceramic Tau, of Spain." I know its not necessarily stuff we don't know already. But I'm a cynic, so I won't celebrate until we know for sure that the Tau contract is dead.
Lack of talent and injuries is more detrimental. It's not like Van Gundy had Jerry West and Otis Thorpe languishing on the bench.
That's an excuse IMHO. It has been shown historically by playoff results that teams should play some more players during the REGULAR SEASON giving up a few victories to keep the STARTERS fresher. That whole argument about the bench doesn't fly IMO because it's actually two separate arguments. If he wanted such a short rotation in the playoffs, JVG NEEDED to use a larger one during the regular season to keep the starters fresher. Fighting for home court advantage is just as big an excuse IMO, in fact it did no good as it turned out. It has been shown through the league that you cannot play such a small rotation in the regular season and get away with it. Anyone should have been able to deduct this and predict a breakdown in the playoffs, which is exactly what players like Yao and McGrady had. Van Gundy simply wanted to win as many as possible in the regular season because he was in a contract year. This is countered by the argument that Yao went down so he could not play a bigger rotation, well that is of course nonsensical because that actually made the players that much more tired and worn out. Traditionally this is when you INCREASE the rotation not make it smaller, that is when a star player goes down. Again this should have been something that most Rockets fans would have caught as a red flag that the team was not going to get past the first round, because Van Gundy simply bucked the historical trends as to what is needed to be done in regular season in order to help insure advancement in the playoffs. The Rockets could have still made the playoffs as a 6th seed without running so many players into exhaustion. Some fans will counter with the "they didn't play so many minutes," argument, but some fans seem to fail to understand what a short rotation does to players. It causes the starters to have several lax periods of down time during games. Anyone that has played at a certain organized level is aware of this factor.
So what if the Spurs pick up Ime Udoka (he was on my Free Agent wish list as well as several others we never went after....)? All that means is that the Spurs, who already have the same team that won a ring this year, will have everyone back + Udoka. Sucks for us, but it sucks just as much for everyone else in the Western Conference. Hopefully the So-called B-ball experts at ESPN, FOX and elsewhere will stop acting like Dallas and Phoenix should be seeded ahead of San Antonio this year!!!
Dream Comes True Jul 14 - "We're working on the contract, but we've got a basic agreement, an understanding," George Bass, Luis Scola's agent said Friday. "He's so excited, he probably didn't sleep a wink last night. He's thrilled, this has been his dream for five years." The Rockets quickly reached an agreement on a contract worth approximately $9.3 million over three years, with a large payment upon signing from that total to help Scola pay the $3.2 million buyout from his contract with Tau Ceramica. The Rockets will also contribute $500,000, the most allowed by NBA rules, toward the buyout. "There is nothing we would anticipate being a problem," Rockets GM Daryl Morey said. "We have to sign him to a contract. He has to finish getting bought out of Tau. But we feel good about both of those things happening." -- Houston Chronicle deal for the most part done
So, do ya'll think that Luis Scola is going to be the starter at power forward? He is a 2 time Spanish League MVP, one of the better basketball leagues in Europe, per my Opinion. Yao, (Next seasons League MVP) Scola, (real high ceiling) Battier, (1st team defense calibur) McGrady, (Top 10 player in the League) James, (He's back -- and a better player than Alston, but maybe not better than Brooks) That is a strong looking starting 5.
I don't remember where I saw it, but I'm pretty sure I already saw a quote of Morey saying he expects Scola will be the starter with Hayes being the back-up..... Unless I dreamed that. I'm pretty sure I saw it though!
Scola will come to Houston on Monday to sign a contract after his buyout is completed. http://www.lanacion.com.ar/deportiva/nota.asp?nota_id=925633&origen=rss
Let me stop you right there. It's not an excuse, it's reality. With McGrady being injury prone and missing time already last year *and* having Yao out for over half the year, the Rockets were in no position to test out the bench. Factor that in with Snyder's broken hand and Bonzi's broken belt buckle, Van Gundy could not afford to let young players with issues work out their kinks on the court. The playoffs weren't guaranteed. I also think you are wrong about the rotation issue. I am defining being in the rotation is consistently getting at least 10 minutes a game). Let's go to the numbers: 1996 Chicago Bulls, NBA Champions-7 to 8 player rotation (Jordan, Rodman, Pippen, Harper, Longley, Kucoch, Kerr and one of Brown, Salley, Buechler, depending on match-ups.) 1997 Chicago Bulls, NBA Champions- 8 player rotation add Bison Dele to previous year. 1998 Chicago Bulls, NBA Champions- 7-8 player rotation..drop Dele, add Buelcher and Scott Burrell splitting minutes. 1999 San Antonio Spurs, NBA Champions- 8 player rotation (Robinson, Elliott, Duncan, Elie, Avery Johnson, Jaren Jackson, Malik Rose, Steve Kerr) 2000 LA Lakers, NBA Champions- 9 player rotation (Kobe Bryant, Shaquille O'Neal, Rick Fox, Fisher, Rice, Horry, Harper, Shaw, Green) 2001 LA Lakers, NBA Champions- 8-9 player rotation (add Grant, subtract Green, subtract Rice, split minutes between Lue and Shaw) 2002 LA Lakers, NBA Champions- 7-8 player rotation (subtract Grant and Lue, add George) 2003 San Antonio Spurs, NBA Champions- 8-9 player rotation (Duncan, Robinson, Bowen, Paker, Jackson, Ginobli, Rose, split minutes between Claxton and Willis depending on match-ups) 2004 Detroit Pistons, NBA Champions, 8-9 player rotation (Ben Wallace, Hamilton, Billups, Rasheed, Prince, Corrliss Williamson, Okur and minutes split between Hunter and Mike James) 2005 San Antonio Spurs, NBA Champions, 7-8 player rotation (Duncan, Parker, Ginobli, Mohammed, Horry, Barry and Nesterovich during the season, not so much in the playoffs) 2006 Miami Heat, NBA Champions, 8 player rotation (Wade, O'Neal, Walker, Williams, Haslem, Posey, Payton, Mourning) 2007 San Antonio Spurs, NBA Champions, 8-9 player rotation (Duncan, Parker, Horry, Ginobli, Oberto, Finley and split minutes between Vaughn, Berry and Elson). The Rockets used a 7-8 player rotation in the playoffs, just like the 2005 San Antonio Spurs, 2002 LA Lakers, 1998 and 1996 Chicago Bulls. None of the championship teams from the last decade regularly played a deep rotation (more than 9) and definitely not in the playoffs. You would also notice that none of the championship teams from the last decade had a starting point guard like Rafer Alston, or had their best player out for half of their season during that year. Van Gundy shortened his roster out of necessity and common coaching practice. If you think Adelman is going to make the Rockets work a 10 man rotation then you can keep dreaming.
I'm cautiously optomistic about next year. The Luis fellow does appear to be an upgrade over Juwan Howard. So that's a nice thing to have. Hopefully hayes will learn to stay out of foul trouble. I still think we need a true 1 though. Neither Rafer nor James are going to get many 10 assist games. And Rafer and James shoot way too much and Rafer is a liabability cause you can just leave him open and he's still shoot under 40% - meaning double teams on everyone else. T-mac needs to find his outside jumper - it's been missing for a couple of years now. That or we move him to the 3 and find a 2. This would put Battier on the bench where he belongs. This is good progress. We're not contenders by any means at this stage, but we're looking like we might at least get out of the first round at last.
