100% agree with this. Especially with D-Mo injured early, the Rockets have no other legitimate backup center or even a 4 who can step over consistently. The variance between Capela taking a major leap to an Ibeka-light or falling back to his "deer in headlights" pre-playoff performance is massive for overall team performance. It very likely could swing 3-5 wins, which will be the difference between a top-two and a bottom-four seed.
Can you give me some more of your predictions? Preferably ones I can bet against? I'll take anything - sports, stocks..........
But are they better than that Melo lite Marcus Morris tho? Either way, I think both can contribute on this team in different ways. TJ is probably a better fit with the starters with DMo the lead option off the bench.
the key is health, we've lost major pieces at critical times almost every year recently. that will ruin anyone's season.
You mean like straight up cut or traded? A trade at this points seems unlikely given our cap situation and DMo's health.
key to season is Health and Ty staying on track. With Health being good we assume Dmo and T jones heel properly as well as Dwight gets no pain. T jones is not the key to the season.. sorry OP
We have seen his ceiling at the ripe old age of 23? With 2.5 years of nba experience? Comeon. There are simple things that Jones can improve on. a) shooting. Most players improve shooting and it's the most easy area to improve on. b) defensive rotations. Most players get better at defensive awareness with experience. The guy is too young and too inexprienced to write him off like that.
Sure he can. It doesn't matter whether he does it as a Rocket or after he's traded or whatever. (I think that one of DMO or Jones MUST be traded this year. ). Only someone who has extremely awful shot mechanics like i.e MKG I am not optimistic about improving his shot. And even MKG has shown some improvement.
There are a million things more important to the team than Terrence Jones, that isn't the point. Because those things are either outside of anyone's control - health, or isn't much of a question mark: James Harden's level of play. That is where the Rocket's season begins and ends. There is nothing more important. But it's not like I'm losing sleep over it. Harden has proven himself as an elite player. If anything, at 26, he can still get better. Dwight's health. Limit his minutes, not much you can do. Integrating Ty. Some view this as a risk, I can concede that. It isn't a given until we see it on the court. But, to me at least, there is a high probability of success. Ty's game fits perfectly with the Rockets style of play. He doesn't have to change who he is besides cutting down some of his long 2s. Also, most importantly and not talked about enough, both Ty and Harden have played off the ball in the past and excelled. Ty played with Billups when he first came into the league, many times with both on the court. Then, on that 60 win Nuggets team Ty played with Andre Miller, again playing together often. And Harden needless to say was one of the most efficient players in the league on OKC playing off the ball often. The point is this, the Rockets have 4 positions with championship caliber players. Nothing extraordinary has to happen with them. None of them have to magically "step up". In fact, to the guy that said "everyone on the team has to step up", if that were the case, your team is probably not good enough to begin with then. The reason why, to me at least, Terrence Jones is the key is because he is the only unproven player that will be forced into a big role. Because someone has to start at PF, and I explained why his style fits best there. And if nothing extraordinary happens with Terrence Jones, and he plays exactly like how he played last year, this team will NOT reach its goals. That is why his development this year is so important, so key, if you will.
Just about everyone, as in, non rockets fans. In this place, you're basically accused of being a hater for thinking Dmo is better than Jones by the Jones fan club, yet if you took a poll of any other team, Dmo might win pretty close to unanimous (otherwise known as the "who do i want to trade for", but this time last year, the reverse was basically the case. Jones is still essentially the same player he was last year, which is about a top 120 player, but his playstyle isn't one likely to lead to much more than incremental improvement, he might break the top 100 just, Dmo is a top 100 player after probably not even being a top 200 going into last year, and his improvements could see him push towards the top 50. Dmo is also a much better fit for the starters, at least against quality teams where his spacing, self shot creation and better defense all have more value, whereas Jones is better against bad teams (who don't bother playing defense) and 2nd units as he's a much better player at getting cheap points. Dmo also creates holes in defenses, because his euro style of being in constant motion even as a 7 foot front courter leaves defenders not accustomed to tracking that stuff defensively off in never never land.
This is far from the truth. In fact it's 100% opposite. Most team's fans would choose Jones over DMO and the one who is accused here are the moderate people who don't think Jones is trash. They are called Jones ONly fans. Where is that Jones fan club I have never heard of? The reason why the vast majority the other teams' fans would choose Jones is because they watch the Rockets mostly in the POs and DMO has yet to make an appearance.
Don't see it. IMO your 3 primary bigs (barring trade/injury) are Dwight/DMo/Capela. Between those 3, you chew up 75-90 minutes, leaving scraps left over for everybody else.
I am a huge Jones supporter but I was crying for LMA or someone close to him all the time last year. I was happy with the way JSmoove played, could have been even better in the playoffs but yeah.... playoff experience above anything IMHO I do not trust either one Jones or Dmo deep in the playoffs yet... so yup at least the PG [position and team assists are secured with Lawson coming in I hope Harrell and Capela can step it up and give Dmo and Terrence a run for their minimum money :grin:
The totally unproven talent in this team is not TJ, it is Capela. Until the last 2 weeks of last season, Capela is a guy who looks completely lost on the floor and failed to even score a point in this league with of course limited chances. Because the floor was set so low from his 10 or so games performance, its understandable for people to feel excited about the flares he shown in the last 2 weeks and the postseason. Actually, if you look back at these 3 young PF/C career in the Rockets, TJ is the one whose more consistent than the other 2. His second season overall proved he is a solid NBA rotation player, DMO at that time was a disappointment. Then Dmo got a big jump on this year 3 while TJ took a step back not because of his progression but rather due to health issue. Now coming into this season, it seems that TJ is fully healthy while DMO still is a question mark while Capela is still an unproven development, there is no way the Rockets will give up TJ under this kind of situation as he should be the most reliable choice among the 3.
