Pau Gasol has never made it out of the first round. Would you not want him as our PF. Should he not get more blame then Battier since he was the bigger star on those Grizzlies teams that kept getting swept. Hell, the player you are defending in this thread, Steve Francis was the man on his teams in Houston, and he never got past the first round. He did nothing in Orlando, and nothing in NY. Yet, he is okay, but Battier is the root to our problems. Not to mention for the hundreth time, we were not drafting Gay if the trade was not in place for Battier. Your entire arguement has no relevance.
And your argument is going in circles. Firstly, if you only wish to look at +/- to judge effectiveness, then every player will be less effective against stronger competition. Next, in general, most players -- particularly role players -- tend to be less effective in the playoffs. That doesn't mean you don't trade for them, and it doesn't mean that they won't help you be successful in the playoffs.
Unless Rudy Gay is a PG or a PF, I dont think he was what the Rockets needed against Utah. We lost because we couldnt guard Deron Williams and Carlos Boozer. I dont think Gay could do either. If you want to play this game, how come the great Rudy Gay didnt lead his team to the playoffs. Instead he led them to the worst record in the NBA. Blaming Battier for not getting the Rockets past round one, is like blaming Gay for making Memphis the worst team in the league. Since he made them the worst team in the league, he was the worst pick in the draft last year. What did Memphis need to get better? Apparently the answer wasnt Rudy Gay. I know, stupid arguments, but Im just applying your reasoning.
no you're not applying my reasoning. we already know battier came to the better team, the point was to advance. rudy went to the worse team and his superstar went down. battier didn't go to the playoffs his rookie year either, so no that isn't my reasoning. if you go out and trade a young high draft pick for a role playing defense monster, and that role playing defense monster couldn't guard either one of the two best players on the playoff team that beat you, it was a bad trade. so to answer your question, given the reasoning for trading a player that can help insure some future success, yes battier should have been able to guard boozer or williams.
but he was brought here to guard all the good power forwards in the league. talk about going in circles, the argument for him is his defense, and now you're saying we can't expect his defense and overall effectiveness to hold in the playoffs. someone improves in the playoffs, why not him?
There's no point complaining about what Steve Francis is or isn't. He's not a young player with potential. He won't "improve" with coaching-- He's had many coaches. He is what he is, never has changed, never will. If he can get to the basket and draw fouls, he will help us in certain situations. If not, then he won't play. No big deal.
exactly, and the reason I brought up battier is because he is supposed to be our defensive player, and I found it interesting that his biggest backer came into this thread to pile on. steve did exactly what you hoped he would do last night, get to the basket when the regular o sucks
The argument for him is he improves our chances of succeeding in the playoffs. That we didn't advance past the first round isn't evidence to the contrary. Also, you can't assume Gay would have developed here the same way he has/will in Memphis. Nor can you assume that we'd have made the same acquisitions in the offseason (for Scola, Mike James, Francis, etc.) if we never made the Battier trade. All sorts of factors and unknowns involved, and yet you are already convinced that the Battier deal was a terrible one. Someone tends to improve in the playoffs because that someone takes it easy in the regular season.
You know, you haven't made a lick of sense in this entire thread. Battier wasn't defending Gay, he was defending Mike Miller. When I point that out, you decide to switch the topic to how good/bad the Battier trade was.
no that's where I was going from the beginning. And I have made sense, you're the one who says, "yeah, battier didn't help us get out the first round and even though he neither helped with that, helped with defense, its still a good trade, because the rockets probably won three extra games"
You call this "reasoning"? Battier is good, but because we didn't make it out of the first round, the trade was bad because, regardless of how well Battier played for us, we could've had the rookie who put up mediocre numbers on a really bad team instead? Oh wait, I think I'm missing something ... yeah, he played well in a preseason game last night! Stop the presses! Oh, and don't forget this little nugget: I swear sometimes I feel like this BBS is starting to turn into RealGM.
Durvasa you are totally dominating this arguement. Your basis and system of arguement is far superior. Also, in my opinion Alston is the best team defender. James might be able to defend the bigger PGs, brooks the faster ones, but Alston is a solid on-ball defender and a supreme off-ball defender. One of the reasons for our early playoff exit last season was due to Alston being unable to defend Deron Williams, well now we have bigger bodies at the PG (James, Francis?) to defend Williams. However, basing Deron's superior talent, I am assuming only the league's elite perimeter defenders is able to contain him to a subpar game. The kid is a monster who excels in speed, shooting, strength, and court vision. Hence I am cynical that Mike James might have been able to do a better job on the defensive end last year. And I am pretty much sure Francis would not be able to do a better job, and yesterday's game was support, not evidence, as such a small sample could not be used for such strong subjectivity. In the end Rafer will be our best option on the defensive end, but bench is so deep this year that we can bring in other defensive options in order to temper with the oppositions game plan. Stevie will not be geting significant minutes this year, so his poor defense should not be that great of a concern. However I do sincerely hope he can pick up RA's offensive system and be a monster on defense since I myself has been a Rockets fan since 2002, although I believe this will be unlikely granted you can't just turn apples into oranges. _ Blue
And what does that have to do with Steve's defense or my initial post in this thread? Yes, and by the same token, the trade for T-mac (he's improved our chances of being successful in the playoffs) was a good trade as well. Sorry if that concept doesn't make sense to you.
what don't you understand about the statement, you don't think a team of yao and mcgrady can get to the playoffs with a bunch of scrubs
you haven't proven how it made us better, when the fact is his effectiveness goes down in the playoffs, HOW DOES THAT MAKE YOU BETTER???????????????
I think it was the best trade the Rockets have made since the McGrady deal. Gay's .115 player winning percentage, the fact that he was eighth in the league in player losses with only 1.0 player win to show for it, and Shane Battier's .88 player winning percentage all agree with me. If you actually watched games that Rudy Gay played, you would agree with me, too. Rudy Gay won't be a better player than Shane Battier while he's got a rookie contract.
The problem being . . . it was Steve creating for Steve. One of the few times he created for someone else, Novak missed at the end of regulation.
I can't prove it (nor can I "prove" we're a better team with T-Mac than we would have been with Steve and Cuttino). I can only form opinions based on my observations of their games and what the evidence shows. Gay was not a good player last year. He put up some nice scoring numbers in the second half of the season while the Grizzlies were tanking, but that's about it. He was inefficient, and he made a ton of mistakes on defense. Oh, and Swift was a bust as well. He would have been nothing but a waste of roster space on our team last year. Leaving aside the playoffs for a moment, I think the Battier trade might have added 5 wins to our regular season total. You might think that doesn't matter, but it's the difference between facing Utah with home court advantage and facing the Suns or Spurs or Dallas on the road. That, in itself, significantly increases our chances of playoff success. Now, within the playoffs, you don't think Battier played well. I disagree. And I definitely don't think we would have been better off in last year's playoffs with Gay+Swift instead of Battier. If you want a proof, it's not something I can give. That's just my opinion, and you're free to disagree. I guess I took it for granted before that you accepted Battier was better than Gay last season. Maybe that isn't the case.
durvasa I really respect your statistical knowledge, that being said it really irked me that you would be one of the guys choosing to pick apart the one bad part of steve's game last night when he was carrying the team on the other end. you're smarter than that. surely a guy who talks about value, knows the value of a guy who can carry you on a woeful offensive night, sure it was against a second year point, and sure he let that guy get to the basket, but for a guy who preaches team defense, you should have seen that he had no help out there. ra should have made an adjustment.
