With Ronnie Brewer, How Good is the Rockets bench now?

I love how some folks on here are so freakin sure that a player like Covington is a lock to make the roster.

The 2 main reasons people give are "guaranteed money" and "upside."

Guys, Terrence Williams had upside ok.... that doesn't mean he was right for certain rosters on certain teams that are looking to do certain things to win games and ultimately win a title.

Covington is no different. He's an undrafted rookie who hasn't proved crap on the NBA level. Summer league can be very deceiving for a variety of reasons. During the 2012 Summer League, Adam Morrison, had he been a rookie, would have looked like a future NBA all-star. So lets just slow down on the Summer League hype please.

As for the financial guarantee... keep this in mind... we are talking about the same GM that cut nearly 7 million in guaranteed contracts last Fall, and had to eat over 20 million in Luis Scola's salary as well that Summer. Do you really think Covington being owed less than a million dollars over the next 2 years says anything about whether he will or will not make the roster????

 

yeah ...at this point it's really hard to say whether or not he even makes the roster.

 

I think it will be the same as before.

Assuming no trades before/during camp:

Asik, Jones or Motiejunas (whichever isn't starter), Casspi, Garcia, Smith, and Beverley are probably the guys fighting for rotation minutes and make the team

Canaan has a spot.
Camby will most likely make the team as an emergency 5.

That's 13 guys. Henriquez and Young are most likely cut and hopefully make it to Vipers.

Brooks, Williams, Brewer, and Covington are fighting for 2 spots. My guess is that Covington makes the team for upside. From here, I think it depends on how well Canaan plays in camp. If he plays poorly, Brooks is a lock. If he plays well, Brooks still may be top guy, but I think it will be between him and Williams. If two of Williams, Brooks, and Brewer have a great camp, it is possible that Camby is cut.

 

As for the whole "with Brewer" statement.

Adding Brewer to the menu of options the coaches & FO have at their disposal is like a restaurant adding a gluten free option to their menu. Some restaurants might need it, and some might not.

Brewer is the defensive wing stopper option. Only after training camp ends and the preseason is wrapping up will they know exactly what ingredients they need for sure to make the chemistry work.

Here is McHale's menu options that Morey has provided for bench options-

Core Group-(assuming locks to make training camp roster barring trade)
PG: Lin, Beverley, Canaan
SG: Harden
SF: Parsons
PF: ?
C: Howard, Asik, Camby

Morey to McHale - "Here is your menu. Choose 7 of the following"-

Menu option #1-Power Forward options
Motiejunas, Greg Smith, Terrence Jones

Menu option #2 - Versatile Wing Shooters
Garcia, Williams, Casspi, Covington

Menu Option #3- Instant offense plugs
Brooks, BJ Young

Menu Option #4- Defensive Stopper
R. Brewer

Menu Option #5- upside big man
Henriquez

I have no idea what McHale & Morey will pick and Im sure they dont even have a clue right now.

As for how good can this bench be.... it depends. They sure do look good defensively with Asik & Camby patrolling the paint. You would really like to have a reliable scoring option off the bench in a James Harden/OKC type of role, but if they play the same style as last year, scoring shouldn't be an issue.

Right now the bench is about NBA average. However, the defense should be good enough to sustain leads for long stretches.

 

i thikn your going to be quite impressed by cov's training camp. he has 'Morey Guy' written al over him.

and can you please name your bottom 5 players on the roster and tell me who will be the inactive ones and who will be d league bound. to me covington just makes more sense when you use this thinking.

 

good post. good to see others showing love for cov

 

Don't get me wrong. I sure hope you are right about Covington. I'd love for Morey to find another gem in the rough again. Still until this guy suites up for an NBA team, neither you, I, or Morey know exactly what kind of player they are getting.

I'm assuming that his lack of experience will hurt his chances over someone like Williams, Casspi, Brooks, etc. because its so hard to know exactly what the coaches are looking for, and a rookie just isn't going to know these NBA sets on offense and defense like a seasoned veteran will. Its hard to believe that an undrafted rookie would "look" better to a coach when they don't know where they are supposed to be on the floor, don't have the coaches trust, and are playing nervous.

Covington, Young, Henriquez all have a shot, but Its hard for me to see any of them as locks to make the roster because of this.

I don't really want to list a bottom 5 or top 5 players "most likely" to be cut or make the roster cause I don't think the decisions are going to be factored like they were in previous years.

I believe it will be much more of a "Menu" approach where you have different guys with different skill sets that McHale & Co. have to choose from that gives them the best ability to win nightly. I would have to believe that McHale will have a much stronger influence this season with roster cuts for that very reason which doesn't bode well for undrafted rookies.

I do agree though that Morey would probably like to continue to develop young talent at the end of the bench every year.... but if the coaches dont think that player can help them this year, I think its less likely than in previous years that they give a player like that a roster spot.

 

i have no idea. but one of, brewer, garcia or the great casspi will avg around 11 pts. Just can't tell you which one =)

 

We might have a top 3 defensive second group.

 

Slight improvement.

BEVERLEY/BROOKS/CANAAN
BREWER OR WILLIAMS
GARCIA/CASSPI
JONES/COVINGTON
ASIK/CAMBY

Smith dealt

 

The problem is that none of these guys are good two way players. Hell besides Beverly, none of the bench can create their own shot. Mostly spot up shooters or offensively challenged(Asik,Camby,Brewer). Harden or Lin will have to be in the game for every minute creating shots for this crew. Defensively Rocket's bench is top notch.

 

Major improvement because we added Dwight without losing Asik.

 

Our bench may *look* average, but consider Asik is in there, a starting caliber center, and how solidly he will anchor the defense. with Brewer and Beverly in there too, I can see our second unit completely shutting down other team's second units. Now, if that group can score, not sure, I'll have to see it.

 

Any bench built around Asik, Smith, Garcia and Bev will be more than adequate.

 

Certain things translate better than others from the NCAA. 3pt% is one of those. 3PA doesn't always translate well as it is a function of NBA system and if a player has a quick enough release to get his shots off under quicker close outs. Covington has a quick release. Offensively, it is easy to expect that he will become a three point specialist. Defensively, he has work to do.

 

Y'all be soooo high on Motiejunas that dude talks a good game but he is still questionable in my eyes.

 

The Rockets can't retain his rights but the Vipers will own his D-League rights unless another NBA team adds him to their NBA roster. So unless another NBA team gives him an NBA contract the Rockets can absolutely assign him to Rio Grand Valley, he would not have the option of signing with another D-League team.

 

I'm clear on this Crash. If you see the post by SHOKI3 I was responding to you'll see I was only talking about the Rockets owning Covingtons rights. RGV will have him if the Rockets release Covington but the Rockets WILL NOT own his rights. He have no more rights to him than any other team if he's not on our 15 man roster.

 

Brewer as a SG can't hit the broad side of a barn. Surprised the Rockets gave him a partially guaranteed contract, anyone know how much is guaranteed .

 

Basically what is being said is that out of the 15 guy roster, 2 will have to be inactive. Why have someone else be inactive, when you can have a decent rookie to develop in the D League, and no one else can pick up if he is down there killing. He will have to either play very horrible, or be out played by a lot to not make the roster IMO. That's why you were asked to name the bottom 5 of the roster, I'm assuming.