Here I am reading again about how we are about to see the stars align, our injured players all back on the court together, and our starting lineup of Paul, Harden, Tucker, Gordon, and Capela. Small ball is BS in my opinion. Get us a real forward worth starting you cheapskate owner billionaire buyer of anything but the forward we really need. What do you think? You can vote on more than one answer.
I wouldn’t say that starting EG at the 3 is BS for the rest of the regular season. Without House it’s either EG or Shump at this point. The problems will come in the playoffs. The lack of rebounding has been an issue all season. Starting EG at sf doesn’t help. The lack of length on the wings make it more difficult to give quality contests on 3’s, mid range shots and around the rim. I think our lack of length hurts us in several areas but when teams can’t get quality contests vs GS for instance it can quickly turn into a blood bath. We held GS to under 95 points in two of our wins during the WCF’s. Ariza was able to close out and prevent Steph and Klay from even attempting a shot at times when he was switched on to them. It wasn’t just about him guarding KD, but when we he switched he seemed to nullify Steph and Klay to a certain extent. We miss his wingspan and willingness to compete on the defensive end tremendously. Regular season Luc was even better than Trev at giving quality contests. He was fantastic. Morey’s biggest failure so far is not adequately replacing our SF spot. Jeff Green for instance may be a slight upgrade over Ariza and we didn’t even give him a look. He signed for peanuts with Washington. He wouldn’t have been my first choice or your star forward but he would look good in a Rockets uniform now. Morey had a few cheap options he could have pursued but he chose to chase MCW and Melo. He has admitted his mistakes and I think he has earned the right to make a few mistakes, but not upgrading our sf spot and even not getting a playable back up 4 may be our undoing. So it’s starting to look like House or bust if you want a 3 with decent length who has proven that he can play. EG will do fine and Clint will help with rim protection and rebounding. I just don’t know if we can compete like we did last year vs GS. That’s the only team I care about beating right now.
Gordon is the 2, Harden is the 3. It barely matters, very soon MDA will swap Gordon and Shumpert because it's a better fit and we need to defend better. The problem is we're still undersized at the 1 and 4. Shumpert will be undersized often. Harden and Capela are no worries, but that's still a lot of undersized players who don't have a quickness advantage. The defense is terrible when we play undersized but let's see how the unit with Shumpert and Capela does.
It's out there only because of necessity. Not having a tall two way SF and a backup 4 for Tucker is really hurting the team a great deal. Capela's absence has obviously made things even harder.
Even if you put Harden at the “3” our defense and rebounding was still crap even with Capela. Shump is a good looking defender but is he that much better than EG defensively? We’re still undersized even with Shump starting.
I don't necessarily agree that small ball is BS. It is definitely beneficial against the certain opponent lineup. Last season was a great example of that when services of Capella was useless against GSW. This season, on the other hand, we have struggled mightily with small ball. IMO, there are many factors including inconsistent roster due to injuries and roster changes. At the same time, we lack length. We've seen the consequence of that while Capella has been out. This was also the case last season, but our superior offense and above average defense made up for it. Obviously, not so much this season.
As I was reading the last option in the poll, I thought it said "Our owner loves it, because he is under sized."
Im just wondering - did you happen to catch the 2017-2018 season? But I did vote option D. We don't need a star forward at much as another rim protector, PF or C. Small ball is fine but your roster needs to be situational and adaptable. Why Morey undervalues that I'll never know.
i think Shumpert is eventually going to start at the 3 after more practices...He needs to get all the plays down on the offensive end before this can happen. He is not ideal either, but its the best they can do until we get someone else. We are basically acknowledging that we cannot stop ppl on defense and would rather give up a 2 in the paint than a 3 pointer, while trying to outshoot them. We live or die by the 3 because its the only way we can play until we get a real 3-4. Tucker has to play out of position. Harden has guard in the post because he's a liability guarding the perimeter. Not switching on defense would just wear harden down on defense and his man would go out to the 3 and burn us from there. We have to shoot the three because we pretty much know they are going to at least score 2 a lot of times....It is what it is.
It has its advantages, but it's also been a contributor to our bottom 7 defense. I'm not sure I would have done it any differently, with the players we have.
Morey has always undervalued size - hence his love of 6'8 power forwards.... I've been saying forever that we need some beef in the front court that can bang down low for boards and provide rim protection... I like CC but he is often outmuscled when push comes to shove... Unfortunately, every time I mention it, I have to endure some Morey Jr poster telling me how 'the game has changed' and its all about spreading the floor blah blah blah.... like there's only 1 possible recipe for success.... smh...
The biggest problem I have in living by the 3 with less defense is that some of the teams now have 3 or 4 players with better 3PT percentages than us. Our 3PT shooters take way more shots at lower percentages. So, dying by the 3 could be more likely without a bigger stretch defensive player. I personally would rather see EGO play the backup role with Rivers when James and Chris rest. But, Chris needs to be more aggressive in shot taking like EGO. He is capable of higher percentage shots as long as he gets more involved offensively instead of passing off more than shooting.
Small ball only works with Capela or another rim protecting rebounding big. I don't see us losing more than 4 games the rest of the season with CP3, Harden, and Capela healthy
Take a gander at the top offenses in the league currently and check out who they are starting at the 4. It seems a lot of NBA coaches need some tutoring from you OR floor spacing is HUGE in today’s NBA.
With Shump starting we're still undersized but very slightly at the wing positions. It's manageable. He is definitely a better defender than Eric Gordon. However, even if he were not, the extra height will help. Gordon can't guard 6'8 guys, Shumpert is more capable. Our defense will improve as soon as Shumpert enters the starting line up. Whether it will improve enough for us to be contenders is another story.
i agree...EG needs to come off the bench. But either way we will all still live and die by the three. Tucker, Shumpert, EG, and Paul need to hit there 3s....its that simple. Maybe Dantoni needs to play 9 instead of 7 or 8 in the playoffs. That way there legs might be fresher.
