And Daniels has never shot over 40%. He is a volume shooter, but a guy like Canaan might be more accurate (2 seasons 45%+ from3 at college. Daniels didnt break 40%) Daniels is certainly NOT our best shooter.
Huh? In his two most active years in college he shot 38% and 40%. In the D-league he shot over 40% plus the 48% during his NBA call up games. Combined he went 252 of 624 last year, which is insane considering that is Stephen Curry record levels while having played 25 less games. When he has been in the rotation getting burn and more importantly when the minutes have mattered Daniels has been excellent offensively. Right now he is just riding pine and taking every half open look he gets during garbage time. I don't think hes played more than 10 to 15 meaningful minutes this season. Daniels is probably the best 3pt shooter on the team given the same shot opportunities as Terry, but it would be marginal and wouldn't make up for the difference in defense and being able to run the point. On the other hand Terry isn't usually the high volume shooter, which for a team that takes 30+ 3s a game means his high% isn't a major impact. Daniels is the volume shoot who takes the deeper harder shots that Terry and others usually won't and still makes them at an abnormally high clip. So there is some question as to why the volume 3 guy hasn't had any meaningful role on the highest volume 3pt shooting team.
Which is a damn shame, really. I thought this guy would show some decent growth after his performance in the postseason last year, instead it seems he has regressed to a point where its just too costly to leave him in the game because he can't guard a screen door.
All reports for Bosh and Lowry were trash. Just use common sense, Lowry would be here if he was given a fair offer at first, and Bosh would be the Heats whenever a max offer was made. Taking a risk to get Melo or Bosh is fine, do not tell me that Lowry is not going to come to here, just see the Persons case, no one refuses to a big money, Melo, Bosh all went for big money, the rockets could offer the equal money with the Raptor, but there is not the state tax here, and our team is better at least on paper. By the way, both Carter and Bosh did not want to stay in Canada, why does Lowry want to stay there?
The Raptors might have bumped their offer from 4 years to 5 years. No other team could do that. Dwight refused the Lakers offer, but a kid like Lowry might have chosen to stay in Toronto, if that were the case. We needed to save money for a 4, instead of giving Lowry a Chandler type deal.
If you watch to Lowry's post-signing news conference, it becomes readily apparent that respect was a pretty big factor. He even admits he was close to leaving (hint hint) but the chance to sign immediately with Toronto and to be a leader was too good of an opportunity to pass up.
Wasn't it reported that he was interested in coming here, but Morey told him that the Rockets wanted to pursue Melo and Bosh first? If that's true, it was seriously shortsighted and frankly insulting to the guy. If you want Lowry here and you go to the trouble of meeting with him the moment free agency begins, make him a damn offer and see if he'll accept. If he decides to stay with Toronto, so be it. But don't undercut your chances by playing footsie with two other guys, neither of whom ever really wanted to be here. What's truly frustrating(and granted, hindsight is 20/20 on this one) is that with Parsons gone and Ariza in his place, a guy like Lowry is exactly what this team needs. Another playmaker who can take the pressure off of Harden. It would also make Bev and possibly even Canaan(or Terry had that deal still gone through) expendable in a trade for help at the 4-5 spot. I guess you live and learn. What I hope going forward is that Morey(assuming he's still the GM come next summer) sets his sights on a realistic free agent target like Dragic who can be had no later than next July instead of wasting another year or two waiting around to see if the pipe dream of Kevin Durant signing with the Rockets ever happens(spoiler alert: IT WON'T!).
Well, Morey is not going to go to anywhere, getting Harden and Howard should be good enough for his job for next five or ten years. At this point, Morey should get another five year extension if he can get Dragic, I am kind of joking around, but also serious.
Lowry said he was open to leaving toronto, in general, not to Houston necessarily. He said he had to explore his options, since he earned that right. Yes, Houston wanted to wait for Lebron's decision to come back to Lowry, but reports indicate Lowry stayed to be the guy in toronto, rather than a third option somewhere like Houston.
What's starting to frustrate me about Morey is not so much the way a lot of his personnel moves are geared around luring superstars and all-stars which fails as much as it succeeds(we didn't get Bosh and remember how we struck out on Dwight the first time we tried to get him). That's an extension of Les' moronic approach to running this franchise which is to never tank and build through the draft and to focus on acquiring stars via trade and free agency rather than building a well-balanced team with depth. No, what's bugging the hell out of me is that Morey's offensive philosophy of 3-pointers and layups isn't working. This is not the NBA of the early 90's. There is no illegal defense anymore(at least not the kind we used to have). There's no Dream to draw triple teams in the post. Even if you have great 3-point shooters(which we don't, BTW), if you don't have constant ball movement and a variety of offensive sets to create open shots, you're going to wind up with stagnation where you struggle to score against even mediocre defenses which is exactly what we've been seeing since the Minnesota game. And no, it also doesn't help that Morey believes a quality head coach doesn't matter. God help us if after this season, Les and Morey let their egos get the best of them and actually give McHale an extension rather than admit they screwed up that hiring.
You are nuts. It would have been short-sighted of Morey not to pursue Melo and Bosh and it is very short-sighted of you to judge Morey for not signing lowry less than 20 games into the first season of lowry ' s deal.
I'd rather have Canaan in right now. He's been in the Dleague enough... and has already shown and proven he can win. WTF Morey saying by end of next season??! Jeez.
Pursuing Melo was a complete waste of time. No one ever thought for a second he was coming here. He'd expressed no interest in playing with the Rockets. Hell, I don't even remember any of our players hinting at wanting him on the team. At least the Bulls had Noah trying to lure him to Chicago. He always wanted max money(or close to it) and a big market, neither of which the Rockets could offer. Not to mention that Parsons who was still here at the time played his position.
Latest on injuries? Canaan - normal ankle turn; 1-2 week timetable Pat - went through elements of practice. Hoping sooner than later Dwight - He hasn't improved (on schedule) as the doctors thought. Harder to determine. Day to day. Unlikely Wednesday, potentially Friday. Terrence - As said last week, hard to predict. Definitely longer than shorter. Steady improvement in the nerve and his ability to use that. Beverley on again, off again. That's been tricky and even trickier with Isaiah Canaan. I'll go glass half full. With injuries, if you can keep your head above water and win, which the coaches and players have done a good job, is you develop guys. Guys step up. Canaan, Motiejunas have stepped up. We'll have others potentially. We wanted to have Dwight get days off during the year. He'll get a lot of them early. Not the way you schedule it bu it should help him be more fresh later in the season. Canaan is one of those guys, you gotta have guys who can get something off the bounce. You have that with Beverley. Terry is spot up and swing player. You're missing Jeremy Lin in that sense. Canaan can create for himself off the dribble. ... That was a nice sign to see him get his swagger back from the 3pt line. Very needed. Besides James, he's the engine from perimeter that makes our team go. We get offense from Dwight and Terrence and with them out, we're struggling with ways to create. Isaiah was doing that. That's going to hurt, especially against teams like Memphis. Harden has improved on defensive end and overall. He's definitely top 5 of MVP, can argue for top 3 and even 1. He's at another level which is amazing to think about. We're just worried about putting too much on him early but we really don't have much choice. To win these games, guys who don't play much need to play well and James need to play great, otherwise we'll struggle to win, no matter the competition. Did James see that video? Did it affect him? Used as motivation? Most guys watch things. I never asked. He's spoofed it. He's probably seen my comments about how stupid it is. They've cherry-picked 10 minutes. Everyone has different motivation. James wants to be great and win championships. ... How do you measure effectiveness and improvement in season? We'll check a couple things in terms trends: how is he improving over time? On court production and off court in practice and extra developmental sessions. How a guy plays against better teams vs worst teams. How is he doing when we get to a playoff type atmosphere? How volatile is this guy? Kostas is a young player and is a very volatile player. Some games he's 5-6, 7-9, 6 rebounds & 4 assists and some games he's 1-9, 2 rebounds & 1 assist. You want to smooth those things out and improve during the season. Kostas play overall, as you said, up and down. Overall you gotta be happy. Teams that are good need a guy like Kostas. Plays both ends, plays hard all the time. I see him as Scola at the 3. He knows how to play. ... He'll keep getting better. He's young but a lot of experience. We're pretty excited about him. Behind Dwight, thoughts on the backups? You went from Omer Asik to an undrafted rookie trying to man the position. It's too much. We're putting too much on him. We just called Capela up. It will be too much to put on him as well. Dorsey came out slow (had an injury and that set him back). We need someone to step up there. We've had good minutes from Black and Dorsey (and Capela in the D-League). Clint was tearing up the D-League which was nice to see. We need someone to step up there or if not, we got ways to address it. Schedule coming up, 3 games in 4 nights & Memphis tomorrow night. One depressing thing, we mapped the schedule out and thought we needed to be 13-4 assuming healthy. Grading on the curve, you might say 13-4 with all the injuries is even better. We need to get these guys back and healthy. I like having 3 in 4 and then multiple days off. It allows coaches to see where we have issues, take a step back and then work on it. Dwight unable to go tomorrow? There's a chance but looking unlikely. Two legs fine but one leg giving him problem? It's one specific move and it's an important one. ... It's the standing in place leap off one leg. That specific pain hasn't improve like everyone hoped. We gotta get him healthy and we need him full speed in the playoffs. That's the main focus. He's had times in the past where he's played through injury and it really hasn't gone well for him. We don't want to repeat any of those issues in the past and make sure he's fully ready to go before he goes out and risks anything.
