In the beginning of the season, most people acknowledged that Houston was a team with a deep roster. Before Trade and Injuries Rafer Brooks Tmac Wafer,Berry,Head Battier Artest Scola Landry,Hayes Yao Deke,Dorsey After Trade and Injuries Brooks Lowry Artest Wafer,Berry,Head*(sucks) Battier ...... Scola Landry(inj),Hayes,Cook Yao Deke, Our starting lineup didn't get much worse. Actually it's still a good team that can contend in the West but our bench took a hit. Our bench production early in the season was amazing. When our starters were struggling, we could always rely on the bench to keep us in the game. However, there is much more pressure for the starters now. With Landry injured, it was even more obvious in tonite's game. Wafer isn't always going to produce every night. I'm okay with that, he already surpassed my expectations for this season. Berry will get 1-2 shots in per game, Deke never sees any minutes, Head just sucks, and Cook could be our Novak at best. I also don't think Lowry is a flat out scorer like Brooks so our bench production took a dive. Will this be the Rockets' Achilles' Heel?
Very interesting point. I think you'll see a lot more of Hayes and I can imagine Rick will have to play Cook and Mutombo every now and then. He usually likes a small line-up with the bench so they can run n gun, which is why we dont see Deke often now... But remember, you can always play Artest at the 3,4,5 and landry at the 3. I think the main thing is, we'll be seeing a lot more of Hayes.
I still like our depth. I knew Wafer would come down to earth a bit, but I hope what we saw in January wasn't a total fluke. His shooting has been brutal the last 8 games (28% from the field). Without McGrady, we definitely need him to be better than that. If Wafer doesn't snap out of it, it may be a good idea to give his minutes to Barry. Barry is a good guy to have on the floor with our young PGs.
I think cook can see a little time at the three. juss stand there and hit three's as long as his defense isn't too bad.
I think our bench was so strong during the first half of the year that it actually hurt the starting lineup because they were not as good as they could be.
I'm actually okay with Wafer. Never had high expectations of him so if he can go back to shooting over 40% I'll be happy. With Landry injured, our bench production really took a dip. With Artest and Brooks moving up to the starting positions, our bench went from great to poor imo. Dorsey didn't pan out for this season and Deke is hardly a bench player. Hayes still has no offensive production and Luther is a big question mark. Berry wont give us more than 5-10 points a game.
we have the best bench in the west. artest is not less lethal than terry or ginobili and ron is much better than them in defense. but ron has to start for our team because tmac is out for the season, I hope he is out for the season though. We should start wafer and still play ron as our sixth man. wafer is more efficient when he plays with yao than when he plays scolandry or hayescola in the paint. but artest is more efficient when he plays alone.
It's still a good bench. We need better shooting from Wafer but as someone else pointed out, Barry can get more minutes if he goes into an extended funk. I think Landry and Wafer are going to benefit from playing with Lowry, who is supposedly good at the drive and dish. The weakness of the backup unit is in the frontcourt. Landry is fine, but I can see him getting some minutes at the small forward spot. It would be great if Brian Cook proves to be able to contribute, but from what I've read, we shouldn't expect much right away. We need more from the backup bigs in order to keep Yao's minutes down. 40 is too many.
I agree. Yao was extremely tired late in the game last night and it hurt our team. There were several rebounds that he missed because of his fatigue. I don't blame this on Yao. I don't think it is realistic to ask him to play as many minutes as he did last night. 39 minutes is way too many. RA needs to do a better job of managing his time. With Carl out he should have given Deke some minutes.
do we have an extra roster space? we could always sign bonzi, or mike harris to give us more depth off the bench.
bonzi and mike harris play SF as their professional spots, and also play PF sometimes. but they're too undersized to play as yao's backup that we need most, they're even smaller than landry and hayes.
I knew his shooting was off but didn't know it was below 30%. I had high expectations for him, thought he was a young player that was finally breaking out. AB went through a stretch where he couldn't make anything, I hope its temporary for Von as well.
