McGrady & Yao: Enough to Make Rockets NBA Title Contenders?

Anyway you look at it, last year's supporting cast wasn't very supportive, a very untalented bunch. On the other hand, TMac was never 100%; however, after the All Star break, Ming took his game to another level, but appeared to be playing with the seven dwarfs. Bottomline, last season was a huge bummer.

Next season, who knows? Battier is a nice addition, but there are many unknowns: Synder, VSpan, and JLIII. If one of these is a pleasant surprise, it could be a good year. If Alston or Head improves substantially, that would improve the mix. A healthy TMac and Ming are the keys. BUT, even if "everything" falls the Rockets way personnelwise, there is not enough talent to contend. The problem remains, the management has not surrounded the stars with enough talent to play with the elite teams in the league.

 

thanks for the excellent analysis
from what i remember, when Tmac and Yao were both on the floor, they couldn't run their P&R play effectively, so we really didn't take full advantage of having two superstar on the floor at the same time, i sure hope JVG can come up with a solution.

 

if a yao and t-mac aren't enough to make the rockets contenders, its' time for the team to be re-built.

 

McGrady & Yao: Enough to Make Rockets NBA Title Contenders?

No, of course not. Just look at the elite teams. Besides, every team needs good role players to become contenders, and thats what I think that rockets have. If you compare lineups to the elite teams in the West, you can see rockets have a good chance beating each team, without depending on a t-mac miracle.

v.s. SA

(7'6)Yao > (7'0)Elson
(6'9)Howard < (6'11)Duncan
(6'8)Battier > (6'7)Bowen
(6'8)T-Mac > (6'6)Ginobili
(6'1)Alston < (6'2)Parker

Duncan clearly has the biggest mismatch over Howard, but he isn't what he used to be. Against the Spurs Ginobili and Parker are the players to watch out for. Notice the mismatch rockets cause spurs on the defensive end. Bowen is obviously going to defend T-Mac, which leaves Ginobili defending a taller and stronger Battier. Battier's ability to post up should creat nightmares for Popovich. Defensivley it will be interesting to see how the rockets fair against Ginobili and Parker. Is Battier quick enough to defend Ginobili? Will Parker have his way with Alston. Luckly for the rockets, I believe they were one of the best teams in allowing the least points in the paint.


v.s. DAL

Yao > Diop
Howard < Nowitzki
Battier = Howard
T-mac > Stackhouse
Alston < Terry

Against the Mavs is where I think Rockets will use Battier as a PF for the majority of the time, espeacially in the 4th. That will put Snyder in to defend the SG position and Tracy or Battier to defend Dirk. Mavs have a mismatch with Nowitzki, but then again which teams doesn't have nightmares facing Dirk. Yao has the mismatch with Diop or Dampier. The only real major advantage Mavs have is their great depth, but regardless rockets can still contend with this team.

v.s. PHX

I'm not sure what their starting lineup will be but here's is my best guess.

Yao = Amare
Howard < Diaw
Battier < Marion (by a slim margin because Marion is more athletic)
T-Mac > Bell
Alston < Nash

PHX looks to be the team that causes the most problems for the rockets. With Barbosa, James Jones, Kurt Thomas, and now banks PHX also has great depth. T-mac will be hounded by Bell, so no easy buckets for him.
Rockets best chance of beating this team is to pound the ball inside and beat them in the post (maybe even cause Amare to be in foul trouble). If rockets go small ball with Battier at the 4, that puts a taller and more athletic Marion on T-Mac. Hopefully Battier can find some way to score against Diaw. If Yao plays like he did after the all star Break, and T-Mac plays like T-Mac, Rockets can still beat this team.


The West is obviously no joke and two superstars alsone cant get the job done. Battier will be the 3rd scorer and make a huge impact. If Tracy is healthy and Yao is dominating, there is no team rockets can not beat.

Go Rockets!

 

dont get me wrong i hate josh howard and the mavs (go rox) but is shane really equal to howard?...i dont know about you but id take josh howard over battier in a heartbeat
i agree with everything else

go rox

 

better in the sense that they're at ease when their stars are running the floor with them.. the pressure is off of them and they feel more confident to win. what more is necessary than this to be competitive until the end and giving your team a chance to win in any game even if statistically.. you're playing like crap.
last year may have been a fluke to your quantitative numbers too b/c the players were mostly new and had not gelled with tmac and yao. i'm sure if you took the first 15 games of the 04-05 season, statistically, the rocket's were worse with tmac and yao b/c tmac said he was trying to defer to yao. now after the first 20 games of that 04-05 season, they started playing brilliantly and everyone around that team, old, new, whatever, was playing with an incredible amount of confidence. therefore.. the 19 games they played in a row together really wasn't enough to justify your claim. a team has 82 regular season games for a reason and usually the championship teams play most of those 82 games together. give tmac and yao the new role players we've added this offseason (Battier, a better Alston, Snyder, more shooters) and i'm sure that, barring injury (knock on wood), they will be as good if not better than the team of the latter portion of the 04-05 season. that was a dangerous team and one that could have contended.

 

Although I do agree that Josh Howard is better in terms of offense and athleticsm, Battier has the ability to help a team greatly by doing the little things and has a very high B-Ball IQ. Josh Howard can't help his team with leadership or smartness (example: when he called timeout during the Finals ...what was he thinking)

 

i'm not going to defend the timeout call by howard

but I do think the josh howard has done a lot more to get his team to the finals than battier getting memphis to the first round..

 

Basketball's about alot more than statistical analysis and numbers. That's my biggest issue with this post. Very interesting though. I don't think with the current roster the Rockets are serious contenders. They still lack some pieces. However, that being said, once the playoffs start, anything can happen. If their shooting is hot at the right time, they can beat anybody. Healthy Yao and Tracy plus a few good shooters just might be enough. I'd say, not serious contenders, but contenders, if that makes any sense

 

I think Nowitzki did a lot more to get his team to the finals than Gasol getting Memphis to the first round. I know that Howard has somehow become last season's darling (the year before it was Joe Johnson), but lets not misunderstand the real reason Dallas was better than Memphis.

 

I was cruising RealGM because of boredom and the OP of this thread got some deserved respect:
http://www.******************/viewtopic.php?t=549223

P.S. That same thread shows just how much better Clutchfans is than the competition.

Edit: I forgot realgm was blocked. This isn't a trade rumor though so I should be cool. I don't normally visit that site, it's just that thread caught my eye because it offered links to other fan sites.

 

Keep in mind that when one of their best players goes down with an injury, it typically takes a team 2-3 games to recover and begin to learn to play without the big talent and with his replacements. Compound that by having our two stars each go out with injuries during the year, plus Rafer as well, and you've got maybe 10-12 games we played when we didn't really have our footing. That's a huge percentage of the season, and I'm betting no other team in the league spent so much time adjusting to lineup changes.

 

I like the analysis. And I like all the thought & effort put into it. BUT ... it seems you operate under the assumption that that Jan 30 - TMac leaving period can operate in a vacuum.

And that's simply not the case. What if we would have STARTED the season with all our players healthy? We wouldn'tve come out of the gate so terribly. The team would have built some confidence. We would have had some momentum to build off.

And just because everyone was on the floor on Jan 30th doesn't mean they were playing healthy. It also doesn't mean they were playing in game shape. And you should DEFINITELY not assume everyone was NBA-ready. And that's just on a player/personal level. The team hadn't played together as a unit, so they weren't comfortable with the team scheme (though your analysis of the defense could make an argument against that statement).

I just think it's too hard to take a short time period of the season, put it in a vacuum, and then project how well our team could actually perform.

 

I'm only comparing Josh Howard to Battier

so you think Josh Howard's contribution to the Mavs' won games last year is less than Battier's contribution to Memphis' wons games?

 

delete

 

edit: delete, nevermind

 

"I am pretty much befuddled" -SamFisher