2015 Training Camp & Preseason: The Competition for Rotation Minutes

Thank you, finally busted the myth that Josh was this crazy good defender keeping Griffin in check.

 

Here you go.

 

Atlanta Josh was a crazy good defender who could guard LeBron James based on his athleticism, alone. Atlanta Josh could guard Blake Griffin very well.

But we rarely got Atlanta Josh in Houston. Josh was an average defender most of the time here. He would get lost pretty regularly and his lack of hustle really killed us sometimes. If he was focused, he was very good for us though!

 

interesting. that's a pretty significant amount of games. I guess we'll see how it plays out.

 

no way anyone pays dwight $30M/yr if he can't even play back2backs….we might have to actually ask him to opt out if we get a star free agent to commit

 

It's not that he CAN'T play back to backs - it's that he has been playing since he was 18 and has a lot of miles on his body already as well as a few major injuries. The point is to keep him fresh for when you need him because he is absolutely crucial to his team's success. Bigs who can do what he can on defense will get $30M/yr without question.

 

imo there's a difference between keeping a player fresh through a long grueling season and auto-blocking him out of a quarter of the season's games minimum from the get-go. he played half the season last year and now with suspension + knick-knack injuries is scheduled to play about 2/3 of this coming season. in a brutal western conference where every single win matters, $30M is a lot of capspace to give up for 67% attendance and 50% FT shooting -- and i'm a big dwight fan!

 

It is the NBA. Always battling for minutes. Just because McDaniels didn't play in the playoff push while not having much practice time or experience has little bearing on his PT once he has a training camp with Rockets. Brewer still is likely to win out but it should be an interesting battle.

 

I can understand maybe him sitting some back to backs at they get later in the season, but assuming he's healthy going into the season sitting out every back to back from the start is very significant.

It'll be interesting to see how this goes as it might just be Mchale making a statement in general on taking care of the Dwight.

 

KJ is 6'6 and highly likely to go for back up SG minutes with Thorton, Beverley and maybe Terry. Brewer might get some minutes at SG, but his minutes at SF are set I reckon.

 

I'm with you to a point - that's a lot of coin but to me this is a matter of a team decision more so than a player one. You can't blame Dwight for the decisions the team makes on using him. Dwight in the open market will get the max because when he plays he is one of the best centers around and his new team will likely ask him to play more and he will likely welcome getting more playing time. I don't think Dwight is the one lobbying for not playing back to backs.

 

well now you have me wondering if morey and les aren't just creating the chicken before the egg all on their own here -- the less they play him the less they'll have to pay him! :grin:

 

Backup SG usually also gets SF minutes. Backup SF usually gets some SG minutes. McDaniels is strong enough to play SF.

I want to see Rockets play more small ball this year so it may end up that both Brewer and McDaniels play a lot. Lawson could have a lot of fun running with McDaniels, Brewer, Ariza, and Capela.

 

So come playoffs, I expect the rotation to look like this (baring no injuries or trade)

Lawson / Beverley
Harden
Ariza / Brewer
Motie / Jones
Howard / Capela

But the Howard-less rotation during the season will be interesting. We will definitely have to either do a lot of small ball or hope Harrell and Capela can step up big time. So when Howard sits out the back to backs I full expect Thornton/KJ/Harrell/Dekker to get burn, even more so if we end with any other injuries.

 

If Dwight sitting on back to backs and D-Mo is still healing, then one of the other 4s will play minutes at 5 or Rockets will need to bring in another center.

 

Whilst I agree with you we'll be ok without Smith, I disagree with your use of statistics to prove that Jones and Smith were even defensively.

You are never going to see T-Jones block a Griffin turnaround in the clutch during the Playoffs.

The level of competition Smith and Jones defended would attribute to that defensive rating.

IE: If Jones was defending the quality of player Smith was, and for the same amount of time - they are not going to have the same defensive rating.

 

Capela stepped up in the Playoffs after spending the majority of the year in the D-League.

Him stepping up is something I'm not worried about - I'm actually real excited to see how good he will become in our system with regular minutes and confidence.

We will already be a much better team with him as the backup C instead of Dorsey.

 

Where does the notion Dwight won't play back-to-backs come from? I am not saying anybody is wrong, I just haven't seen who said this? I can get behind the idea of easing his workload but I don't like sitting him in all B2B situations - we are stacked but the west is way too brutal to just write-off our 2nd best player for some 20 games. will it be monitored or is it just the way it has to be?

AS for the depth chart and battle for places, I am hoping Mchale has an open mind and will look at all options. As much as i love jet i want him only to be in situationally and not at the expense of the development of KJ. Thornton will have a chance to prove himself as a creator/ shooter, but ultimately i hope McDaniels can get the backup burn when James sits.

I would love to see some small-ball lineups containing a variation of Lawson-harden-McDaniels Ariza and Hpward/Capela

or Bev-Lawson-Harden-Ariza-Jones

or Lawson-Mcdaniels-Harden-Dekker-Harrell

I just wanna see us change pace and use every man on the roster at times.

I know some aren't realist but I am just pumped for the season to start