[Stephen A. Smith] The Rockets' upper management are throwing games.

Morey has always told coaches what players to play. This isn't new, and we are not throwing games... Who the hell would believe that nonsense?

 

If this is true is doesn't absolve the coaching staff. It just makes them look like spineless yes men, which it's becoming apparent that's the type Morey likes on his coaching staffs. Again, CLEAN THE WHOLE ****ING HOUSE LES! I'm going to be watching closely how Les handles this whole mess. I'm starting to get closer to the camp of fans who wouldn't mind seeing Les sell the team to new ownership and just totally starting over.

 

You know I was going to come in here and bash on SAS but he does make one good point.

Dwight has a PO...the last thing the Rockets want at this point is for him to accept said player option. They want to shove him out the door so I do agree that his lack of touches and such is no accident.

 

I think his "lack of touches" has more to do with him being terrible offensively. He has little to no post game so giving him the ball there is the same as a turnover a lot of the time and he's not getting in position to get alley oop dunks as often and that's his main offensive weapon. Add to that he still can't shoot FT's and is a hack target any time he has the ball and you get a situation where he SHOULDN'T be getting touches.

At this point in his career he brings rebounding and he brings defense sometimes.

 

why does anyone care what Stephen A says? He has zero credibility, and is well known for saying bullish comments for attention only.

 

Not sure how you throw games when Harden has played 42+ minutes in each of the last 8 games, but whatever fits the narrative

 

No we actually suck that bad

 

Well consider the effect that lineups have, when the starters played together, they built double digit leads every time they were on the court together......and they played a total of 13 minutes together.

Their last act was building a 13 point lead in the 3rd and then were never heard from again. The team then went with different lineups to almost immediately erase that lead and turn it into a deficit. If they were trying to fail, but make it look like they were trying, that's pretty much how I'd have done it.

 

Yeah expecting next year the spin squad to try throwing the "we didnt suck last year we tanked on purpose " argument around.

 

Ahaha nope. No team would risk injury to Harden by overplaying him that much so as to "pretend to try"

 

Typical Stephen A Smith hyperbole...although Skip Bayless usually tops him by a wide margin in stupid comments.

Harden is averaging 43+ minutes over the last 5 games vs 38 for the season
Ariza is averaging 40 minutes over the last 5 games vs 35 for the season
Beverley is averaging 30+ minutes over the last 5 games vs 28 for the season

That is not what tanking looks like.

 

Good point. "DMo didn't play much because we were tanking". Can hear it now

 

Won't disagree there. He quite frankly sucks in the low post and the people that think we need to milk his low post touched are delusional.

But, the Rockets over the season have barely tried to get him involved. I will blame this on crappy coaching, obviously Dwight succeeds when he's rolling at the rim off picks and such. We saw that all last season in the playoffs. We killed Dallas with a two man game of Josh Smith and Dwight.

Why in the wide world we never actually committed to getting him work with Lawson, Harden, and now Beasley is just stupid. Typical of our coaching staff who always fails to realize players strengths and weaknesses.

Dmo you get 2 post ups per game and Brewer you jack up shots, Ariza you handle the ball. So it's not a surprise that this team never really understood how to utilize Howard.

 

So they beat OKC and said **** it lets lose out?

 

LOL I know, in reality it just highlights the complete incompetence of JBB. I was just saying that he's so terrible at his job that it looks like tanking.

 

Naturally everyone comes out and shrieks that Stephen A. Smith is full of it and etcetera etcetera. And I'm no SCREAMIN' A. SMITH fan, mind you.

Bickerstaff is a bad coach. He learned from a mediocre coach and was given a bad situation. He knows he isn't coming back as a head coach. But as bad as he is at the job, his rotations, have been beyond incompetence. More than a little fishy.

KJ plays one game with no DMo. Then DMO plays and no KJ.

Harden gets 6 assists in the first quarter. Big lead for the Rockets. 1 assist for the rest of the game. Bad loss for the Rockets.

Sorry, there's nothing definitive here, but this does feel like a tank job. Morey could have thrown his hands up in the air and said, "You know, we can't even beat Dallas.....6th or even 7th seed is impossible; let's just keep the draft pick."

 

I hope Les cleans it all up.

DD

 

Lets not forget the RANDOM Josh Smith appearances, and the constant juggling of Montrez Harrell. Montrez plays great one game then gets sent to the d-league the next. The Rockets biggest problem is defense and rebounding, Montrez biggest quality is rebounding & defense.


I also agree that ANYBODY could see these rotations have been fishy. I can't even began to comprehend

 

Yeah, why did Smoov all of the sudden get in the game? He is out of here anyway next year, let him go...why not play Harrel, or is he still suspended?

This juggling rotation stuff sure does look fishy.

DD

 

I think JBB really is this bad, unless you think they have been tanking since the middle of the season.

The guy just doesn't get it.