you hinging the success of the team on one player sounds more absurd, especially considering he came off the bench.
Considering our starting lineup was actually one of the better ones in the league, it was our bench that failed us for half a season. But then, as if by magic, they stopped sucking after the deadline. Well, we don't call him the Wizard for nothing. NEXT.
a 6'6" center qualifies as having a better SL in the league? Have you ever seen that on an NBA team before? If not do you think theres justification for doing so. Mad props for to chuck for holding it in there, hes just too limited physically. Thats too big of a hole to fill CxBBy, you can't say someone giving up a foot at the most crucial position in the game, given the fact the baskets come within 5 feet most of the time ( a high %) doesn't end your argument right there.
ugh, this cont member stuff has to hurry, I hate double posting. But it seems you're far too enamored by Morey and his play name to analyze the entire plateau. I won't convince you, but do realize that Correlation doesn't = causation. Just because the events took place at the trade deadline doesn't mean it was the trade itself. Chemistry , conformity , and peace of mind have a lot more to do with it. Just look at the mental breakdown brooks went through.
Hey Troll, I have a personal rule of never responding to trolls more than thrice in a fortnight. Kind of like saying Candyman's name 3 times in front of a mirror before he comes and stings your ass to death or whatever. I am not talking about your cookie cutter conventional what looks right lineup. I am talking about facts like the win% of the starting lineup which was one of the better ones in the league. 6'6 center and all. Like I said, three strikes and your time is up buddy. NEXT.
I actually have it on REALLY good authority that Yao is going to be traded to move up in the draft. Bookmarking this, we'll see after the draft.
The troll in my eyes is the internet tough guy that pretends to be funny in order to gain brownie points and can't even do that.. I won't waste my time with a response like that, no substance whatsoever, just an irrelevant outburst for the sake of sidetracking. But what amazes me is the fact you actually believe you're relevance stems beyond the IP address you're behind. Nobody gives a crap about your three strikes crap, you're not doing anybody a favor , or at a level of importance people are disdained by you turning around. If you can't carry a discussion in a mature manner, then by all means, take your virtual status with you as well.
Do you honestly think Brooks was "by far our worst player this year"? Really? I had my share of criticism toward Brooks. I have always thought he's overrated on this board. But he is hardly "by far the worst player" on the court this year. I don't have time to look for the numbers. I remember Budinger playing like crap during a long stretch of the season. I remember Lee being extremely inconsistent before the deadline. I remember Hill looking lost. I remember Patterson sent down to the DLeague. Sure Brooks was a negative factor. But you don't think those guys playing much better after the deadline was the MAIN reason for our run? The trades did nothing to make those improvements.
If Brooks was such a detriment, it's on Morey anyway. He chose not to pay Brooks AND not to trade him until the end of the season. The only alternative to Brooks was an undrafted rookie. It's hilarious that Morey gets all this credit for turning the season around by moving Brooks at the deadline when he created the situation to begin with by not making the right call on Brooks and all the constant trade rumors all year (along with Brooks' injury, which also wasn't caused by Rick).
What I mean by "worst player" is oncourt effect on the team. Guys like Patterson or Jermaine Taylor weren't on the court so they couldn't hurt the team. Budinger did play like crap for a long stretch and I bashed the hell out of him. Hill didn't just look lost, he was actually by far our second worst player. Lee? Really? It took some time for him to find his place in the system, but even at his worst he hardly hurt the team. If you want to get technical about it Yao was actually our real worst player, but the sample size was so small and he hardly played enough to cost us that many games. Brooks on the other hand, using any metric you want as far as measuring contributions to wins, is up there at or near the top in dragging the team down. If you really want to argue about it then it might have been a toss up between him and Hill. But IMO it was Brooks by far since a lot of his minutes came during the "high leveraged" moments where winning and losing was decided, which the numbers won't even factor in. Now obviously this was because he was hurt at first. And then butthurt later. This isn't a AB SUXORS rant. I understand there were reasons behind it and he has a chance the turn it around and return to an average player instead of a terrible one. But the fact remains that while his time in Houston THIS year, he was the biggest negative on the court. The biggest case of "guys playing much better" was Lowry taking his game to another level. Some of that was just getting more minutes though. Guys like Lee and Budinger didn't play any better, they too just got more minutes with an open spot in the roster. Net net losing Battier and giving his minutes to those guys was a negative, but not nearly as negative as I would've imagined. Everyone else played the same. The entire starting lineup got worse post trade-deadline, DESPITE Lowry blowing up. You yourself have quoted those stats that show this. That is a testament to Battier's impact on the team. That leaves the bench. Who on the bench got so much better post deadline to be the MAIN reason for our run? Goron Dragic was really our savior in those 10 minutes a game he played? No. He was merely competent. Which was a HUGE step up from who he replaced. AB's other minutes went to Lowry and some to Martin. Like our friend Kev said, the best players played more, and got to close out games. That is DIRECTLY caused by shipping out AB, and the MAIN reason we played better.
So your argument is just Brooks being traded. You even admit that Battier's trade made the roster weaker? So talent-wise, did the roster get better or worse post deadline? You were disputing my statement that our good run had little to do with playing better players. So your argument is just Brooks? On Lowry and Brooks: After the trade, Adelman was forced to play Lowry 40+ minutes a game, just like the time when Brooks was injured. You think the coach really enjoyed working his starting PG to death? What choice did he have apart from playing Brooks? Ish Smith? Back to the point. If the roster was weakened, then the argument of Morey's trades made Adelman play the right players is just wrong. The run was caused by a lot of players stepping up. Those players were already on the roster before the trades. Again, they stepped up because of at least three factors: (1) a more stable rotation -- the players said it; (2) better chemistry; (3) less distraction -- again the players said it.
Better or worse? Better! I just explained to you how bad Brooks was and how much he hurt the team. By subtracting him the level of play automatically shoots up. So much so that by giving his minutes to Lowry and Martin, it covers what we lost in Battier, AND THEN SOME. Making us a much better team, enabling the stretch run. No one forced Adelman to play Lowry 40+ minutes after the trade, and he had plenty of choices before the trade. If the reason why he played Lowry 40+ minutes was because he was so concerned about winning, then why the hell did he play Brooks and Budinger and Hill so much when they hurt us at various times throughout the year? If the reason is because he had a bigger picture in mind, then bringing Dragic along a bit quicker wouldn't have hurt us ANY more than running Brooks out there 25 MPG. Before the trade, he also had choices. It's one thing to play Brooks here and there to spell Lowry. That isn't what he did. In many games Adelman ran Brooks out there to close the game, many times instead of Martin. That is what Martin meant by now they are playing the best players after the deadline, he's talking about himself. It was a conscious decision on Adelman's part, and the result was it cost us many games. I get that it was for the big picture, to instill confidence in Brooks and maybe he will help us later on. It didn't work out. Either way my point is Adelman did have a choice, and he chose to bet on AB. I would just like you to point out specifically WHO these players are, that stepped up. Like I said, Bud and Lee merely played more minutes, their production was consistent with what they gave us the prior months. Lowry is the only player that stepped up, and that was in part due to more minutes as well. And more confidence. Either way, any improvements from Lowry you can attribute directly to trading AB as well. The roster was not weakened. It was strengthened. Addition by subtraction. I don't care what the players say out of their mouths, maybe they just don't want to throw AB under the bus. What I care about is what they did on the court. And what they did on the court was the starting lineup was WORSE after the deadline than before. While the bench was infinitely better than before because... back to where we started... THE WORST PLAYER on the team this year was replaced.
I agree. I thought he was commenting on a misperception that he had managed to hoard a large amount of assets for future use. I didn't think he was commenting on his referring to players as assets. Just as an aside. I always though being called an asset was a good thing. You know, "You're a real asset to this company Mr. Jones."
Morey didn't fire Adelman. Neither did Les. His contract was over, and they decided to go in a different direction, with a different coach. So they didn't rehire him. That's a LOT different than firing a guy. You might not want to rehire someone if your short-term goals are different now than when you first hired him, as in this case.
I don't understand why both you and True Beaner can't understand what Cxbby is saying: brooks was costing us a lot of games whenever he was played 20 minutes a night. You keep talking about players stepping up however can you name which player specifically stepped after the deadline? I really can't think of anyone, Hayes and Lowry were steadily raising their games the whole season and IMHO weren't really affected by the deadline "troubles". I'm not a stat geek but the rockets were one of the few team who a positive net differential (meaning they were "winning" over opponents overall) but were 5 games over 0.500. That meant we lost a ton of close games, and surely Brooks being played 20 minutes a night despite playing like crap. I won't bother posting all of his games for you but you can look at his game in, game out performances and see for yourself: Typical Brooks statline of the night since the time he lost his mojo: 9 pts, 2-7 FG, 2 TOs, 20 mins of play, horrible D http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/b/brookaa01/gamelog/2011/ Most of our losses were under 10 pts, you can bet more than half of those would have been wins if Adelman had benched Brooks for Courtney Lee much much earlier.
