Actually, I remember one of Landry's first possessions as a Rocket. He pump faked from the top of the key then drove and dunked it. Never had I seen such athleticism from our bigs before.
Should have posted this much earlier, when Old Man Rock was trying to campaign for him prior to the draft. Dude had a difficult time pulling the LS bandwagon all alone, you could have made his job a lot easier and altered history for the Rockets in a way we would never know. Seriously though, we weren't drafting a guy to develop, as a lot of people are saying we are on a Yao timeline. We need a healthy mix of potential and production, which is basically Patrick Patterson. Larry Sanders does indeed look pretty good however picking him is basically a gamble, how many years will it take for him to blossom? 2 years? 4 years? 5 years? Plus, there's the bust factor to consider, guys like him have like a 50% bust rate, while the bust rate for multi-dimensional players like PP are much lower. Granted PP doesn't really have the undeniable wingspan that LS has, but he's legitimately 6'10 and he already has a built-in perimeter game and could become that stretch 4 everybody seems to want these days.
That's the thing that even impressed me more about Sanders. He never played organized basketball until his sophomore year. He was like 6'1 and then he grew 5 inches. The H.S. coach so him walking the hall, hey you need to come out to practice. Before then he played almost no basketball. Almost no one recruited him, still he had a decnet coach for 2 years but his last year they change coaches and the new coach didn't do anything to help his game. The kid is raw as you get for someone at this level. Yes even more than a Favors or Cousins. Because those guys have been playing since the 6th grade with the best coaching available for young players. But what Sanders has over them is a passion. Yes he still plays stupid sometimes. But it's not because he doesn't want to learn. He loves the game. He has natural passing instincts, good court vision. ANd he just seems to want to do whatever he has to to help the team win. If you watch the kid you'll see that video doesn't even show the half of how he contributes. He goes after everything around the basket. He dives for everything on the floor and he never stops running. His shooting is still inconsistent but he has good form. As for Patterson, I like him. I like him a lot. he may eventually be special in this league. he seems to have already gotten his legs back. And he impressed me a lot today. I like the way he played D and rebounded. I do agree with the assessment that he will be a solid player and should beat out Chuck Hayes if given the chance. The problem is barring injury you have to wonder will he get that chance. I think Sanders Right now is better than Miller or anyone else backing up Yao. Tough call but because of his rare skill set I would pick Sanders. People keep saying that but I think his skillset fits this team better right now. He can play the 4 and the 5 and brings rebounding and shotblocking at both spots. But he is already IMO a better backup to Yao than anyone else we have. So I don't know what the gamble is. Will he be Marcus Camby or Samuel Dalembert?
It was quite telling when he wasn't featured more in summer league. With that said, i think he'll do alright. But as long as Scola is on the team, we will never see his full potential.
IIRC, Morey talked about how Patterson "developed" during his years at UK. He was the go-to guy, learned post moves, and then developed role player skills when Wall/Cousins arrived. So yes, Patterson is much more NBA ready than guys like Sanders. But that doesn't mean he's any better than the guys in front of him right now. The Rockets are in a win-now mode. If we sucked, I bet Hayes gets cut or traded, Jeffries get no PT, and Patterson can show his stuff. But the Rockets need to make Yao's possibly last run count. There's no time to develop Patterson in-game at the moment.
Pretty much. George Lynch type. He's going to be just solid. Personally, i wouldve have like to see the rox roll the dice on a huge upside guy like sanders or whiteside or both.
That (2001) draft to me, embodies everything about 'upside' we need to know. 4 centers taken in the top four, with three of them having the upside that everyone seems to crave. I think in retrospect and in this particular instance at least, we can conclude proven skills-limited athletisicm>raw athletisicm.
If we need a shotblocking PF with upside, Sean Williams is still available. I remember many folks saying the Rockets should have traded up to get Williams instead of drafting Brooks and Landry. We all know how he has turned out though.
why everyone so high on larry sanders? we already got J-Hill. drafted on potential- check might need a few years 2 develop, check didn't start playing organized bball till later years in school- check can play 4 or 5- check known as a reboundin, shot-blockin, energy guy- check grass is always greener on the other side maybe?
I hope you're not trying to imply gasol isnt as athletic as kwame or eddy curry are you? Not only that, we're talking about a team picking 14th vs top 3. You know what solid is? Okefor because he was a 3 yr college player with a nba body. He was the easy safe choice. How did that work out?
i was wondering the same thing on draft night. im like dont we need a player like larry sanders instead? then we ended up signing brad miller later.
Not sure if it's been mentioned, but with the logjam at PF, I think it would be best to send him down to the NBDL so he can get some playing time and possibly come up later in the season. I would hate to see him get spotty garbage minutes every few games. Pugs
