5 Reasons Why I Think The Rockets Could Be Better Next Season

is there any chance we could combine organic growth with improvement in coaching.......my biggest disappointment of the offseason was Hollins signing with Nets...... a defensive coach, that brings some NBA standard defensive expectation, intelligence, schemes and then combine this with some increased complexity with the offense, such that it doesn't get shut down so easily in the 4th quarter or close games and/or playoffs is what I want

I want organic growth, coaching, playing smarter (i.e. make beverly play smart and watch tape), increased fockass from our superstars and big balls from a team that plays hard for each other on both ends....

 

it's funny how people swing from one pole to the other and think only in extremes - extreme problems solved by extreme solutions. if defense is the problem and you pick up a defensive player, then the problem is solved. by replacing parsons with ariza you figure that the wing defense got a little better but you lost a whole lot of offense losing parsons. supposedly ariza is a better fit, he shoots threes and plays d. what more can you want since harden is the facilitator? how quickly we forget about the sticky ball issue...
troy daniels made "one" big shot and everyone is on his tip. and that shot wasn't even off his dribble it was an assisted shot off a scramble play.
so basically the rockets lost 8 assists a game (out of a team total of 21 a game) with the departures of parsons and lin. unless the rockets replace those assists, sticky ball is going to resurface with a vengeance and the blinders about the right fit for harden and defense being a priority is gonna come off real quick when double teaming harden shuts down the rocket offense. btw all the lovely fast break points the last two years, quite a bit of those started and ended with lin and parsons.
so let's recognize that the issues are more than just defense for this and any other team.

 

Very nice! But I still believe we need a better coach

 

Hmmm, remember championsip years with clyde drexler hakeem and a bunch of three point shooters? Hakeem - howard clyde - harden horry - ariza thorpe - jones kenny - bev/canaan/johnson It will create good spacing for pick and rolls, drives, etc... and Howard can work the paint. Championship!

 

troy daniels is gonna be one of the best palyers for the rockets. could be sixth man of the year and will most likely be one of the best 3 point shooters in the league

 

Noah, Pau, Mirotic, Gibson.

...sorry for only commenting on this after you obviously put a lot of effort in your post, it just stood out to me.

 

Good post, again. Will rep later once I get on my computer.

 

From the Rockets perspective, the front court bigs all look like "wins" in terms of expectations. DMo is the biggest win so far, but Dorsey and Black have come to fit their roles quite well. Dwight and TJones have played at or above expectations when healthy.

 

On one hand, our point differential, adjusted by strength of schedule, is worse than it was last season: 10th vs. 5th. So the defensive improvement is more than offset by a lack of offense.

On the other hand, the team has been playing with a lot of injuries, especially Dwight Howard being out for half of the games so far. So a relatively healthy version of the Rockets may well be as good or better than last year's version. But we really have to see how healthy the squad gets (no guarantee we won't suffer other bad luck) and how everything actually meshes.

We also may not ever see much of the current Rockets at full strength for a more favorable reason: Morey is aggressive about trading for upgrades so we might get a significantly different Rockets team either soon or by the February deadline.

Either way, we do need somebody to fill in the Parsons/Lin role as guys besides Harden who can create off the dribble. He is just carrying too big a burden for too many minutes.

Maybe Canaan can do it, too bad he got hurt but we'll get to see him soon. Maybe Jones can work some off the dribble or DMo can use his post-up game to draw defensive attention. But I am hoping for a trade.

 

Lotta reason for optimism. The D is so much better-- it's amazingly better. DMo's post game on both ends is impressive, opens up a whole 'nuther offensive channel. All we need is health, and maybe we'll be there come playoff time.

 

Chicago's front court is so overrated. Noah can't even average 10 points while playing more than 30 minutes a game. Pau is still pretty good but his defense is average. Taj is a worse rebounder than Dmo. I would take our front court over Chicago any day. We would destroy Chicago in a 7 game series if healthy.

 

I hope with can get one of these with TE this season, and the other with our MLE in the off-season. I don't want to give up anyone on our team for those guys. Well maybe Clint and Canaan for Dragic.