Healthiest team in recent years

xiki · Mar 27, 2013

L-o-c-k. NOW!

ThisIsAlanR · Mar 27, 2013

tmacfor35 said: ↑

That gets me everytime!
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haha me too, i was going to post this one at first

but decided to stick with Mr. Phoenix

jayhow92 · Mar 27, 2013

Thread needs a DD anti-jinx.

Haymitch · Mar 27, 2013

It's true.

I remember something from the Sloan Sports Analytics Conference about using analytics to help with injuries and recovery time. Is Morey already doing this? Who knows. Morey is like the CIA; by the time we find out his methods, they've already been long implemented.

But maybe it's just good luck. We'll see. I hate what injuries do to a team (so that's why I always turn off injuries on 2K13!).

Anxiety Trooper · Mar 27, 2013

Damn you OP! Someone post the anti-rockets jinx photo. The one that has an altar.

Anxiety Trooper · Mar 27, 2013

9:25am this threAd is posted.

9:57am Ackerman thread posted

What's next?

rayrocket · Mar 27, 2013

knock on wood!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

megastahr · Mar 27, 2013

ThisIsAlanR said: ↑

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this is the funniest thread ever lol

Spacemoth · Mar 27, 2013

Fine. You guys win.

ANTI-JINX:

<a href="http://tinypic.com?ref=2lm6z4m" target="_blank"><img src="http://i47.tinypic.com/2lm6z4m.jpg" border="0" alt="Image and video hosting by TinyPic"></a>

Gimmmethemike · Mar 27, 2013

Lol this thread needs to be locked up

megastahr · Mar 27, 2013

Anxiety Trooper said: ↑

9:25am this threAd is posted.

9:57am Ackerman thread posted

What's next?
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wow just read it...thank is terrible. Out of no where stuff is what really gets you.

freeze00up · Mar 27, 2013

J.R. · Mar 27, 2013

Semi-related/semi-OT

McHale considers juggling Rockets' rotation

With the playoffs in sight, Rockets coach Kevin McHale thought it might be time to cut back on playing time. James Harden and Chandler Parsons, in particular, had played long minutes that McHale said before Sunday's game with the Spurs might have to be trimmed.

Two hours later, he had another goal: win the game. Harden played 40 minutes, Parsons 45.

Neither complained, though if they did, it would be about coming out.

"We love playing basketball," Parsons said. "It's my favorite thing to do. The more minutes the better, if you ask me. Of course I'm going to be tired. I'm going to be sore. But I wish I could play 48 minutes."

But McHale said the dramatic increase in playing time for his key players is a concern as the Rockets head into the final 12 games of the regular season.

Harden's 38.4 minutes per game are the sixth most in the NBA and an increase of seven minutes per game from last season, when he came off the bench for Oklahoma City. Parsons is 23rd, averaging 36.3 minutes, an increase of nearly eight minutes per game.

Omer Asik has had the largest increase, averaging 30.1 minutes, more than double his average in the past. Jeremy Lin's increase in playing time has been modest, just five minutes per game. But he has played 70 games, more than double last season's total.

"That's just the way it is," McHale said. "Is it ideal? You would like to have steppingstones.

"We were going to have a bunch of guys that were going to bypass three or four steps in the process. A guy like O … bypassed the 18-, 24-minute marks. James went from a third-option guy to a first-option guy. We have a lot of guys doing that."

With a team in which every rotation player other than Carlos Delfino has taken on a larger role or workload than they've ever had, the concern is that they, especially Harden and Parsons, soon could be running on empty.

"You fight with getting them out sometimes and trying to get them enough rest," McHale said. "Part of me does say on that given night, 'Well, they're young. They'll be OK.'

"It doesn't sound like a lot, but when you play five or six extra minutes and multiply that by 80 games, that's a lot. That's like playing an extra 12 to 14 games in a season. Does it make a huge difference any one given night? Probably not, but in totality, I think it does."

Harden dials it up

Harden shows no decline in the fourth quarter, scoring more points per minute late in games than he does overall while shooting a slightly lower percentage and drawing slightly more fouls. He said he feels no different than he did late in previous seasons other than "more confident."

"I just try to do the right things to take care of my body and continue to work hard," Harden said. "I can't really worry about being tired right now. That's not my focus. My focus is trying to get better every single day and win basketball games. I'm 23 years old."

McHale has shortened practices and shootarounds. Some of that is because he wanted to focus on areas deemed priorities while saving time and energy for individual workouts. But he also has wanted to get players off the court between games.

Yet for all that has been made of the pitfalls of the Rockets having the youngest, least-experienced team in the NBA, the advantage could be that they can play heavy minutes and have had few injury issues.

"It's an advantage of us being young," Parsons said. "We got fresh legs. That's what we do. We play basketball. The high minutes can wear on you. I think the younger we are, the more it doesn't faze us."

With Delfino, the primary backup for Parsons and Harden, getting much of his playing time at power forward, the playing time for Parsons and Harden has increased, especially lately, with McHale trimming his rotation by one with Francisco Garcia and James Anderson not playing other than to finish routs in recent games.

Easing the workload

The emergence of Patrick Beverley and Greg Smith can help limit the workload for Lin and Asik. If Thomas Robinson can hold down the backup power forward minutes and either he or Donatas Motiejunas can finish games there, Delfino might be able to take on more time at his natural position behind Parsons and Harden.

But for now, McHale has to fight the urge to keep them in the game - and their preference to stay in.

"He knows," Parsons said. "I would never tell him to get lost, but my facial expression might. He knows I want to play a lot and I want to be in there as much as possible. But he makes the decisions."
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tmacfor35 · Mar 27, 2013

Only a permaban and deletion of his account from the clutchfans archive will fix this hex he has layed on the Rockets.

BOOOO this man!

Patterned919 · Mar 27, 2013

khanhdum said: ↑

i'm sure a thread on CF won't affect the health of the players
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Woowww, just jinxed the small possibility that we wouldn't be jinxed. We are doomed.

MonKing · Mar 27, 2013

I remember when Matt Cain was pitching his no-hitter for the Giants last year and the announcer Dave Flemming started talking about it late in the 7th or so. Very glad to see him act like a rational professional and not be controlled by superstition, in this case the superstition that talking about a no-hitter would jinx it.

Nothing wrong with superstition on a team, but for distant spectators it is rather ridiculous.

OmegaSupreme · Mar 27, 2013

WinkFan · Mar 27, 2013

MonKing said: ↑

I remember when Matt Cain was pitching his no-hitter for the Giants last year and the announcer Dave Flemming started talking about it late in the 7th or so. Very glad to see him act like a rational professional and not be controlled by superstition, in this case the superstition that talking about a no-hitter would jinx it.

Nothing wrong with superstition on a team, but for distant spectators it is rather ridiculous.
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Calm down with your "reason" and "logic", buddy. This is Cluthfans. That stuff doesn't play here.

WinkFan · Mar 27, 2013

Spacemoth said: ↑

I've debated bringing this topic up for a bit now, because of the jinx factor - why talk about it if you're only going to make it worse? - but still, it needs to be said that such a large part of our success this year has been bolstered by our ability to stay on the court. Name a single Rocket in our rotation that has been forced to miss significant amounts of playing time. You can't, because there isn't one. Patterson was out for something like five to eight games, that's it. And look how Morey repaid him for his indiscretion.

Two points to be made here: one, a lot of credit needs to go to Harden for playing through numerous minor dings, the likes of which we've all heard about. And although he has gone through a couple horrendous shooting nights while playing through the injuries, he's also had a couple of admirable performances also. The best player on the team pushing it out like that sets the tone for the rest of the guys, and you see it also in Parsons who has played through some minor knee and back issues as well as Lin who looks like a boxer half the games with all the shots he takes to his face.

And 2: just as we need to congratulate somebody for this, we also need to blame somebody on the past four years' teams for their injury-riddled fates. It's easy to blame pudgy socialite Keith Jones and call Les a cheapskate for not signing the entire Phoenix Suns' training staff, but let's go a step further. Kyle Lowry, I love you but why did you have to go out and get an intraabdominal abscess requiring emergency surgery? What's up with that. And Aaron Brooks, why'd you have to be there when Ginobili decided to undercut you on a half court shot? Kevin Martin...ok you were actually really healthy when you were here. Good job.

My thinking is that this might also be a new evolution in the Morey mindset. Previously he saw value in guys whose stock had been lowered by freak injuries, just because of the low likelihood of those injuries in most cases repeating themselves. The more I thought about it, however, he must have seen a relationship between having superstars/leaders of the team who were constantly injured like Tracy and Yao and the effect it had on the rest of the squad. Conversely, he looked at a guy like Luis Scola who NEVER missed a game and realized that you could in a sense breed a culture of health. That, and screening out all the injury-risky players even harder than he had once done. So there you have it. Like all other Clutchfans threads, we come full circle just to pat Morey on the back. Your move.
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I think this has a lot to do with being a young team. Even Yao, with all his injuries, was an iron man when he was 22-24.

DreamShook · Mar 27, 2013

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