David Thorpe: Marcus Morris can play (the three) !

I agree that he's solid and fundamentally sound, but I'm curious as to what makes you think his ceiling isn't high.

Usually, the phrase 'high ceiling' is a euphemism for a great athlete with weak basketball skills, the assumption being that if he can learn those basketball skills, he'll be a superstar. Players like Tyrus Thomas come to mind. The reality is that, like language, there's a window for neuro-motor development that's mostly closed by the time a player reaches draft age. Like Patterson, Morris just has a lot of valuable basketball skills and I can't wait to see how he contributes.

 

You say this and then proceed to admit that he played Budinger day 1. You're making up your own rules.

Saying RA doesn't play rookies whether out of the gate or he never lets them start is completely not true. How many times do we have to prove you guys wrong. Adelman develops and plays rookies as much as any coach ever. And he did this on serious title contending teams without high draft picks all the time. I'm to the point I have these players memorized.

Here's a list of rookies who played the entire season (except injuries), and many were starters or within top 8 rotation.

Cliff Robinson
Robert Pack
James Robinson
Joe Smith
Todd Fuller
Jason Williams
Peja Stojakovich
Hedu Turkoglu
Drazen Petrovic
Francisco Garcia
Darius Songalia
Chase Budinger

This is the list of players who played out of the gate.

 

The Front Office never had any problem with RA's handling of the rookies they drafted.

btw: you do realize someone won't be able to play. We can't play Motie, TWill, Morris, Hill, Thabeet. and still play PPatt, Lee, Dragic and the starters. That's 13 players. You need to 3 players who won't play.

Someone on this board is going to get pissed at McHale for not playing someone. You can make the argument against every coach. RA's development and play of rookies is top notch. Fact!

 

Gotta agree with heyp on this one. Had Terrence Williams started training camp with the Rockets last season AND performed well enough (i.e., not being a knucklehead), I seriously doubt Adelman would have had any qualms playing him in the rotation. Unfortunately, T-Will (a) came in mid-season, (b) had better--or at least equivalent--players ahead of him in the rotation, and (c) made the mistake of not taking his garbage time seriously and then tweeting about not playing.

Adelman not playing a guy like T-Will (or Thabeet, for that matter) had little to do with the player being too young and everything to do with the player not knowing the system he installed in training camp.

 

Dont forget Scola. He played all 82 games as a rookie and averaged 25 mins a game.

 

Completely agree with this. I think players like Landry and Pat were a better players because of the way RA handled them as a rookie.

 

Nor did I say such, not that I expect you to actually read two posts above your own.

I made a clear distinction between past and future. When you're winning 50+ games or even trying to get into the playoffs, I don't doubt for a second the front office let Adelman do whatever he wants with minutes distribution. Because when it comes to short-term decision-making, the coach should know better than the front office.

There was an obvious difference of opinion going forward that resulted in the Rockets parting ways with Adelman. Because when you're rebuilding, LONG TERM goals are more important than short term goals. And long term goals are set forth by the front office, rather than coaches who handle short-term decisions. This couldn't be more clearer when Adelman got pissed at Morey trading Battier and Brooks. If Adelman cared about organization long term goals, he'd see the moves as they really are. But he doesn't. Of course he doesn't. He's a coach in the final year of his contract. He's more concerned with winning his next game. THIS is the difference I'm talking about. Not the "he wouldn't play rookies 3 years ago" thing.

 

Heres a fact. The sooner rookies play, the sooner they get better acclimated to the NBA style. It's better to do this at the beginning of the season rather than wait for the push to the playoffs.

 

Oh, my bad did you mean our record before the all star game when PP was benched and we were 5 games under 0.500? Or did you mean our record AFTER the the all star game when PP started playing and we ended up 4 games above 0.500? I guess PP eating into Brad Miller and Jordan's Hill playing time had nothing to do with that at all

The length to which you Adelman-lovers go to defend your idol amazes me. Yeah I haven't seen PP practice. But I have seen him play during the latter half of the season, are you telling me the guy went from being Steve Novak to Wilson Chandler in half a season? When the season started he was so bad he didn't deserve PT over Hill and Miller when we needed athletic bigs desperately, but suddenly after the all star break he was putting up double doubles and playing awesome D?

But that's not even the point.If Chicago went around and benched D. Rose for a half a season with no explanation would that be a great move? If Cleveland benched Irving for half a season next year would that be a great move? Even Darko "the human cigar" Milicic got some PT by midseason , and that Detroit Roster was stacked with bigs like Wallace and Wallace while we were rolling around with a 6'5 center.

How do you know a player will be bad if you don't give him PT? I guess it would be a different case if the player was a headcase and going AWOL, but by all acounts PP was a willing student of the game and came to practice regularly so I don't see why he had to wait half a season before being given the opportunity to show what he can do.

 

not is so not a fact.

That's like saying the sooner a QB or pitcher is thrown out the game, the sooner they gain confidence and strength.

dude...you are so, not a fact, you make facts look sexy, like I can penetrate them at any time.

 

i dont agree with the whole notion of- adelman not looking out for the team long term, hes already in the top 10 winning-est coaches of all time why would he be concerned with polishing his record with a few measly wins.

i think the grind was, as said before 1000 times- different philosophy with morey's analytics and all. not taking a shot at morey- but i think it was old school adelman vs. new school morey kinda philosophies on who to trade etc.

although adelman did say repeatedly that he was not gonna tank, and was gonna go night by night- i think he had a vision for the team too, and as adelman has stated before- he does the best with what hes got.

i mean it was crazy watching adelman trying to find an effective rotation with chemistry during the very beginning of the season whenever yao was getting the 20 minute playing time BS and we went on that 7 game losing streak or w/e.

in fact the argument can be made that with yao's failed come back last season it was adelman- not the front office who was looking out for the rockets long term interest. theoretically we could have made the playoffs this season had there been no 20 minute yao bs killing our fast pace princeton offense.

i think morey and adelman did work well together on some things though, we have a very solid base and system in place and we are only a couple of pieces away from becoming serious contenders. unlike other teams i think we have a better offensive chemistry as of last season than most teams in the nba.