McHale: Lawson not guaranteed starting spot [Chron]

I want Lawson and Harden to learn how to play together the way that Thompson and Curry do, they could be potent.

 

Lawson is neither an all star, nor a player who was signed with a promised role as a starter (Parsons, Pierce, Gasol). He was brought over in a trade while being put in rehab. He wasn't promised a guaranteed salary next season, never the less a starting role.

Outside of all stars, and player who are signed with a promised starting role, it's rare to see a player join a team and start day one on a contender, they usually take 2-10 games to break in.

I believe in Lawson, and think he will absolutely end up starting or getting the bulk of the minutes at point. I could see Ginobili 6th man role for him with Bev starting though.

 

rondo started immediately for Dallas. Dragic started immediately for Miami. Not sure where youre getting these "break in" games from but as mentioned before it isn't rare at all. It's actually common. Those acquisitions were done in the middle of the season also. The fact that Lawson was acquired before the season even begins and training camp probably even helps him ease into the system but easily will take over at pg. the whole reason for him being here

 

He coming off the bench is just fine. No big deal.

 

Omg ty should play with harden not the second unit how stupid

 

Some fans are dumb the best players should start...

 

Yeah Ty is still starting. Weren't all of you guys complaining that Beverley's defense slipped past year, now that we have an actual point y'all worried about fit? Fit what? Lol

 

this is obviously just McHale making sure Ty wants to prove himself. He's not just going to hand him the keys especially after the alcohol issues. He wants to keep him hungry.

But Ty will be starting by mid season

 

This is the simple truth.
Funny how frequently this point gets lost.

Exactly.
McHale has shown a knack for making these calls and putting players in great position to succeed.

 

Shoot lots of threes, and have Harden fall down after each attempt?

 

I think because we're talking about the Rockets some fans will have a distorted view of this. The following are examples of backups that are better defenders than their teams' starters:

Mills (Parker)
Chalmers (Dragic)
Dellavedova (Irving)
Joseph (Lowry)
Livingston (Curry)

The better player ALWAYS starts unless there's an usual situation like Harden in OKC or Manu in San Antonio.

Lawson will start, as he should. He should get 30-34 mpg, while Beverley gets about 24-26. Don't be surprised if we close games with Lawson/Beverley/Harden/Ariza/Howard.

 

We already shoot lots of three's and fall down. I was talking about the championship part, lol.

 

This is such a loser mentality.

Its time to ditch the egos and man the **** up.

Elite level teams, not just good teams, but flat out amazing teams bring elite level players off the bench. That's just the way it is and it is not some outlier.

The 1980s Celtic's Kevin McHale started only 400 of the ~1000 games he played in. The Celtics went to the finals 5 times and had numerous 60+ win seasons.

The 2000's Spurs Manu Ginobili started only 349 of his ~865 games he played in. The Spurs went to the finals 5 times and had numerous 60+ win seasons.

James Harden started just seven games in his 3 seasons in OKC. They were in the finals one year and the WCF the other.

The best players don't always start, specifically when you reach a talent level this high and it makes sense to do so. Demanding that the best players always start is an admission that you don't have the proper state of mind to be an elite level ball club.

 

Stop slurping GS.
It's unbecoming of a Rockets fan.

 

it very puzzling seeing all these attempts to defend Bev as a starter. lol We're talking about a 3 and D pg who has missed 52 games in the last two seasons and houston just went as deep as they've gone in the longest time in the playoffs without him playing at all with Jet as a starter. Also talking about the player who got drilled last year with his defense which dropped off significantly, whether that's due to injury or too many minutes is not relevant here. Some people are just so afraid of change around here even if its clearly an improvement.

This day in the NBA your best players start period. Especially when the talent gap is significantly higher going from Beverley to Lawson. We are not the Spurs, where the luxury of bringing a Ginobili has brought them a title multiple times. Other than that there's no clear example of bringing a player with the talent of Lawson is valid. Because it just doesn't happen

 

Yes... I chalk a thread like this up to off-season doldrums and "can't wait for the season to start."

You can look at any sport where a highly skilled player is acquired and you can predict almost exactly what the coach will say when asked a question about whether or not said player is going to "replace" the current "starter." McHale or any coach could give the "correct" answer in his sleep. Same goes for most color comments by TV announcers for games. So many cliche responses. That's one thing I've always enjoyed about Popovich's handling of questions. He is very forthright in calling dumb questions dumb.

I have always thought that training camps are too short and and preseasons, too. It makes for a poorer product for the first couple of weeks (or more) into the season. Most teams don't jell so quickly and also suffer injuries right out of the gate (and I could argue some of that is due to too short a training camp).

Plain and simple, whatever lineups and combinations win games is what will be. I'm pretty sure that figuring out how best to use Beverley and Lawson won't be decided just in training camp. There are other players who weren't in the rotation last season, who will be experimented with, too, like Dekker and McDaniels. There will probably be and ebb and flow for some time and maybe even a 9=10 man rotation.. As deep as the team seems to be one would like to see them all get playing time.

 

Nice to know there is still LOF here whose thinking Lin is a better starting PG in the Lakers than Bev being a starting PG here last season.

 

Lawson will start. Depending on how he plays from night to night he might get some rest four minutes into the game or ten-eleven minutes in but he will start.

I see Ty playing 30-32 minutes a night and Beverly playing 20-24. Bev is big enough to get spot minutes at SG to defend plenty of smaller, more active SGs (who happen to give Harden fits). See JJ Reddick.

 

This is an interesting list.

I agree that Chalmers is indeed a better defender than Dragic. Also in Livingston's case, he also defends better than Curry but mainly due to his size.

But in other cases, not really.

Lowry is clearly a better defender and a better player than Joseph, he may have a down year last season, but no, he is not a worse defender than Joseph.

Both Dellavedova & Irving are not good defender, but just because Delly sucks badly on offense, normally people will kind of compensate him and think he is a good defender, actually he is not and he often got killed last season.

Mills is also not a good defender, in fact, I think most teams will prefer to attack him when he will be on the floor this season. Of course, if you really believe Parker is old and probably washed up, than you can say that Mills is better than him.

 

Perhaps some of us are in favor of players competing for positions.
Perhaps we believe competition brings out the best in players.
Perhaps we understand the value of defense, especially on a team that made it's biggest strides when they made defense a priority.
And perhaps it's because we value the benefit of a strong and balanced rotation over a cute starting 5.

It may be because some of us have watched the game long enough to know that having a starter caliber player come off your bench is the hallmark of an elite team.
(Ginobili, Odom, McHale, Johnson, Cassell, Kukoc, Harden, Iguodala, etc.)
Or it could simply be because we believe McHale absolutely said the right thing here and he has done more than enough to earn our trust in these situations.

As you can see there are a variety of reasons, none of which I find puzzling at all.