I think he's the weakest part of the starting lineup right now, I'll just put it that way. His defense is overrated.
People are still infatuated with Beverley because they love his underdog story and blue collar work ethic. He's holding this team back quite a bit. This is the best assessment of the situation and the only take that matters to the Rockets' current situation.
Beverley isn't holding the team back in the slightest. It is the lack of a playmaker other than Harden who is holding the team back. Our 2nd unit sees Josh Smith doing the playmaking Our 3rd unit has Papanikolaou in charge. Oh my. Beverley doesn't need to be a playmaking PG - just defend, hit your shots, and look after the ball (he does all those things pretty well). But when Harden is getting a lot of attention, we need a 2nd guard who can 'create'. Bev can't - but that doesn't mean put him in the wastebasket - it means get someone else to play off the bench (or start).
It's not necessarily Beverley the player that's holding this team back. Rather, it's the fact that he's starting and logging heavy minutes at the pg position when we have basically no viable playmaker other than Harden getting rotation minutes. That is a huge issue. Bev is a pretty big trade asset at this point. I definitely hope he's gone come trade deadline because that's silly to expect him to come off the bench here. I suspect it'll be addition by subtraction for us.
Exactly what I was coming in to say. "Championship point guard" doesn't really make sense. There have been sub-par players at every position win championships before. And yes, I've always said Beverley is better suited as a back-up. He's not particularly great on defense. He is a decent defensive player who can increase his ability on defense by giving relentless effort to make up for lack of skill. If he comes off the bench, he can give full-on hustle in limited minutes. And he's not a good offensive player except for shooting the spot-up 3. But I still think his hamstring is an issue. He was playing much better than he is now before he was dealing with that injury.
This. Bev is best served as a back up player to bring some energy and fire. He's simply not good enough to start on this team. His defense is not game changing....especially against these western pgs. What would be better is to have a solid defender and someone that can make those other guys work on the other end. Opposing pgs don't have to do much. We need another ball handler that can make plays in the starting line up. Honestly, I think canaan would fit better with the starters.
Isn't it known that Bev is prematurely bone on bone with both knees? He's just playing Hail Mary each and every game at the moment?
the problem is not necessarily beverely but combine him with ariza and it's extremely redundant (3 and D). We need the either the 1, or the 3, to give us something a little more dynamic.
Bev is a championship point guard. The problem is that Bev, Ariza, and DMo are the 4th to 6th (in no particular order) best players on a championship team but on this team they are the 3rd to 5th best players. For this team to be a championship team we've got to add one more player that is better than Bev, Ariza, and DMo.
I don't think defense is even working that well for both of them. Bev literally plays like he's a POW trying to survive but hobblying on all cylinders. Ariza is kinda burned out and hurt. I say switch it a few games and have Terry start at the point with Pap taking Ariza's start. Should help out the fatigue.
I think Dwight Howard is holding this team back.... Golden State closed out on the perimeter and let Dwight get his.... Dwight Howard still isn't a consistent offensive threat... with his power and size he should punish teams for guarding him one on one....
Beverly may be the point guard you want but if we are to have a more fluid offense he needs to come off the bench. We are trying to win a championship not just be happy to make the playoffs.
We are playing really good basketball with a ton of injuries in the strongest division of all sports. We are still missing Tjones btw. GS is the best team in basketball, and honestly we've won majority of the games we should be winning. You dont change team chemistry especially with a team-favorite like Bev
This is exactly the type of mentality that I hope the front office does not have. Couldn't care less how much of a team favorite Beverley is. He's the weakest link and needs to be upgraded.
Dig a little deeper and I think you'll find that Howard was reasonably efficient last night. He had a few bad turnovers. The biggest problem is that the offense inexplicably stops moving the ball for 5 minutes at a time. During those stretches, Dwight is the only person making anything happen. The other four guys on the court are chucking up off-balance 3 pointers. Golden State thrived because they never went away from finding the open man, not even for a minute. This, of course, is ignoring what a train wreck the Rockets were on the defensive end.
