Listening to various podcast about this upcoming season (yes, I am that big of a nerd), I was listening to Nate Duncan and Danny Leroux talk about various team's strengths and weaknesses. That got me thinking about Houston's Strengths and weaknesses. So far, the only weaknesses I can find for this team is the lack of depth at the center position. Really wish we could have signed one bonafide center to back up such as Larry Sanders of Justin Hamilton. Other than that, I can't find any other weaknesses in this line up. We have a legitimate defensive wing who can contain most players, a super star, an offensive pg, a defensive pg, a plethora of wing depth, 2 starting caliber pfs, and a still dominate defensive center. Every position beside back up center is a strength. I think we are in for a fun season.
We might be the deepest team at center in the league. Scratch that, since DMo can play center when healthy - we are the deepest. Defensive rebounding to me is still our #1 problem.
Our lack of depth is guaranteed for game 1. We'll be missing three of what will probably be our starting lineup by say game 10. -Dwight -Lawson -DMo Hope we don't get tripped up by Denver.
We haven´t seen one game of these guys, we really don´t know. Now, on paper, I`m still not sold on our PF rotation. We don´t know when Dmo is back, so our rotation right now has some minutes at the 4 to either a 3 rookie (Dekker), a 3 (Ariza) or a non shooting undersized PF (Harrell)
It all depends on health and more importantly, health during playoffs time. If both are healthy, I actually trust our PF rotation. With the back injury of D-Mo and possible lingering issues with Howard and T-Jones though, there is a lot of question marks we really won't get answered until we at least see them in action.
Defense at the 4. If D-mo is able to get and stay healthy we will be OK, because he is a great defensive 4. But I don't trust any of our other possible 4's defensively. Really, if this team is fully healthy come playoff team, I see no true flaws.
Biggest Strength: Depth and Quality of the roster Biggest Weakness: Coaching and Free Throw Shooting.
The biggest weakness is lack of focus and mental sharpness. The only person I can truly count on for serious professional attitude is Trevor Ariza. The rest: James Harden: mega celebrity dating a Kardashian Dwight Howard: clown Ty Lawson: don't even want to start here... PatBev: made his money being a dispeptic maniac on the court. Got paid now. What to expect here, I don't know... DMo: goofy kid in the body of a 7 footer TJ: too quiet, might be mad and dangerous, not sure... Brew: a goof... GSW and San Antonio are the truly serious, focused and professional teams. HOU and the Clips are talented, but lots of issues upstairs. Talent wins, but it needs to be properly channeled and focused. Counting on Coach here, not an easy group to lead to a championship...
I wouldn't call Harrell undersized. He's a weird case. He's only about 6'8", but he has super long arms. His standing reach is 9'1". For comparison, here are some other big guys' standing reach: Blake Griffin: 8'9" LaMarcus Aldridge: 9'2" Terrence Jones: 8'11" Tyson Chandler: 9'2" Dwight Howard: 9'3" Anthony Davis: 9'0" Al Horford: 8'11" So Montrezl Harrell seems to have length that can compete with guys who are taller than him. I mean, reach is what's really important... not so much if your head sits 2 inches higher than someone else's. Look at how long his arms are:
Strengths 1) Depth - We might be the deepest team in the league. The OP mentioned center as a potential weakness, but consider that Dwight, Capela, DMo, and even TJones can all log minutes at the 5. That is a better 5 rotation than 75% of the league. 2) Overall talent level - We might have the best offensive player (Harden), defensive player (Dwight), and post player (DMo) in the league. Lawson is one of the best offensive creators as well. Outside of maybe GS and CLE, nobody has more talent. Weaknesses 1) Rebounding when Dwight sits - I think BBH may have mentioned this. I'm fine with playing subpar rebounders as long as Howard is on the floor. When he sits, our rebounding takes a noticeable turn for the worse. 2) Shooting from our forwards - Other than Ariza, we don't have any proven shooters at either of our forward spots. I think DMo is one answer, but I'd feel better if we had one other option. The good news is that all of our guards are shooters, so I'd expect to see lots of small ball
FTs I'm still not in love with our outside shooting (unless Ariza gets to 40% again) PF - DMo and TJones are competent, but I worry about their health. Backcourt defense when Lawson and Harden are out there. As far as strengths: MVP Well balanced team over all Some experience playing together Dwight is still really good although few around the league seem to realize it Overall, obviously, it's good. I mainly worry about frontcourt injuries. If say, Dwight and one of our PFs go down at the same time - we better hope Capela AND Harell/Dekker at ready to contribute heavily on a winning team.
I think defense at the PF position is far and away #1. It's been the main issue for a couple of years and is why the team did so well with DMo in the starting lineup last year with Dwight out... because DMo is the best defensively at the 4. But he's still not amazing... and still not healthy. Turnovers is far and away #2. Turnovers create easy offense for the other teams, and when you are going to have to be better than the Warriors, Clippers, Spurs and Thunder, who are already great offensively, you can't give them easy points. If the Rockets get better at the above two, while staying relatively healthy, they should win the championship.
