Yao Ming became a 18-8 guy after his third year. No way Battier will do it next season. He is at best a 15-6 guy for us.
I remember the game last year against us where Shane hit his first NINE shots in a row without a miss. We were doubling Gasol with his man and he absolutely killed us. The shots were from all over the court. We made him look like a superstar. I think he will take whatever the defense gives him, and if teams are committed to doubling Yao and/or Tracy, then he will be wide open and he will score quite well. I don't care what his stats are, and I don't think he is the kind of player that does either. He will very likely be hitting all of those open shots our shooters missed all of last season. As another poster mentioned, I am quite happy to have him on the team, it is the cost that was disturbing....
so true, if can bring 15-6 everynite, which I think he can, in addition to everyones favorite category, intangibles, I think he'll be a perfect player along side T-mac and Yao.
Last season Battier played 35mpg on a team whose 2nd best scorer came off the bench. In those 35 minutes he only attempted 7 shots a game... I don't think its rational to think he'll improve upon those #'s "here" when he had every opportunity to put up better numbers in Memphis and didn't
the position he plays in addition to the lack of scorers on the rockets, i think he will have to have increased shots and scoring. he will no doubt have to increase his rebounding if he will log serious minutes at power forward.
Well the obvious answer to that is Yao Ming. But one could argue that was just his progression. But to answer the question about SB. No way! At best he is a 11 point 6 boards a game man.
I call total BS. Battier vs Rockets Nov 25 - 20 pts / 9-17 / 7 rebs Dec 03 - 14 pts / 6-11 / 0 rebs Jan 30 - 12 pts / 4-6 / 2 rebs Apr 15 - 19 pts / 8-11 / 4 rebs In the 9 FGM game, he was 1-2 in Q1 & Q2, 2-5 in Q3 and 5-8 in Q4 when he was guarded primarily by Ryan Bowen.
to be competitive especially in the west jvg needs to open up the offense, this is one reason why i think shane will have to increase his production. i don't think we can win being a grind it out team in the 'new' nba.
Solid role player, not the third offensive threat the Rocket's need. I am glad to have him. The dim-witted front office paid too much, but that is what I have come to expect them to do. If they thought Swift was such garbage, why did they acquire him; he did the same things here he did in Memphis? If they thought James was a "perfect fit" why did they trade him away? I know one thing, the guys making these decisions all wear loafers because I am certain they can't tie their shoes.
He better put those numbers to save JVG's ass. But he cant do it. He will get more points if given more shooting attempts. And rebounds? His career is 4.8 rpg with playing 32.3 mpg. That means he will give you 7.1 rpg with playing full 48 minutes.
15-7 His rebounds should go up because he will be playing some 4, so will be around the basket more. His game is talored made for the rockets and in particular Yao's. Someone who can feed the post, hit a jump shot and create good spacing. With his BBall IQ, we should expect 15 from him every night. I think it will be a consistant 15 pts, not 25 on night and 5 the next. The only offensive numbers that are important from his Memphis days is his FG% and 3Pt%. Even though Memphis was deep, there was only one real threat - Gasol and he is not on Yao's or Tmac's level. Battier won't have to create his own shot, he'll make the defense pay with their double teams. Expect 12 shots a game with 4 from behind the arc.
12-5 and here's why... Here's Battier's per game stat-line: Code: Year G MP FG FGA 3P 3PA TRB PTS 2002 78 39.7 5.3 12.3 1.3 3.5 5.4 14.4 2003 78 30.6 3.5 7.3 1.1 2.8 4.4 9.7 2004 79 24.6 3.1 6.9 0.8 2.4 3.8 8.5 2005 80 31.5 3.4 7.7 0.9 2.2 5.2 9.9 2006 81 35.1 3.7 7.7 0.8 2 5.3 10.1 Career 396 32.3 3.8 8.4 1 2.6 4.8 10.5 Here's Battier's per 40 minute stat-line: Code: Year G FG FGA 3P 3PA TRB PTS 2002 78 5.3 12.4 1.3 3.6 5.4 14.5 2003 78 4.6 9.6 1.4 3.6 5.8 12.7 2004 79 5 11.2 1.3 3.8 6.2 13.7 2005 80 4.3 9.7 1.1 2.8 6.6 12.6 2006 81 4.3 8.7 0.9 2.3 6 11.5 Career 396 4.7 10.3 1.2 3.2 6 13 With JVG's Rockets, the FGA per game has been: 2004 - 75.5 2005 - 78.1 2006 - 76.2 That's an average of 76.6 FGA per game. Now let's take a look at last year's distribution of MP and FGA's for players that played 20 minutes or more last year: Code: Name G MP FG FGA 3P 3PA Tracy McGrady 47 37.1 8.7 21.5 1.6 5 Yao Ming 57 34.1 8.2 15.8 0 0 Rafer Alston 63 38.6 4.4 11.7 1.6 5 Juwan Howard 80 31.7 4.9 10.7 0 0.1 Derek Anderson 20 29.1 3.4 8.7 1 3.4 David Wesley 71 33.5 3.2 7.9 1.4 3.8 Stromile Swift 66 20.3 3.4 6.9 0 0 Luther Head 80 28.9 3.2 7.9 1.4 3.9 Keith Bogans 33 32.2 3.1 7.8 1 3.1 If you look at the starters only (Tmac, Yao, Alston, Jho, Wesly/Head) you get an avg FGA per game of 76.2 shots per game (which chews up our budget of 76 FGA's per game average under JVG's offense). So the question becomes how many FGA's per game is Battier going to get? The obvious answer is if it's a one for one replacement of Wesley or Swift it'll be around 8 FGA's per game. If we use this as a figure and look at Battier's past production 8 FGA's results in about 10 PPG. If you want Battier to get more shot attempts than that then you'll have to either: (a) take shots away from Jho or Rafer or (b) increase the pace of the team FGA overall above 76 FGA's Option B seems unlikely unless JVG has a religious conversion and see's the light and revamps his offense. So let's assume option A. How many shots are the Rockets going to shift from Jho or Rafer? Realistically I'm guessing maybe a net decrease of 2 shots between Rafer and Jho therefore an increase of 2 more shots for Battier which would make it about 10 FGA's. At 10 FGA's per game using Battier's career FGA and PPG as factors we get about 12.5 PPG. Rebounding I think will be easier to predict. Battier's per 40 minute rebounding stats are very consistent. At 40 minutes it's about 6 RP40. Assuming that he'll play about 35 minutes per game that puts him at 5 rebounds. So my conclusion is he'll be a 12-5 player. I also used a 2nd method for estimating PPG by using pts per 40 minutes stats. If we use Battier's best season (rookie season) we get 14.5 pts per 40 minutes. Using that ratio and extrapolating back to a 35 minutes played per game we get 12.6 pp35min.
Tango, very good analysis. I agree with it, there's no way Battier will average 18-8. He will average 12-14 points. 5-6 rebounds.
