<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Free agent guard Aaron Brooks is in advanced discussions on a one-year deal with the Indiana Pacers, league sources tell The Vertical.</p>— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) <a href="https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/752307482102407169">July 11, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> PG's are flying off the market right now.
I would of liked Brooks here for minimum, but no way he signs here again to be traded mid season lol.
Aaron Brooks, so 2009. I'm glad everyone is over their "Bring back AB" fetish. Oh wait, one guy still left above.
Hey, that 09-10 MIP season was awesome and you know it. Damn Ginobili for ruining his career! Brooks was a really fun player to watch in his prime.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Free agent guard Aaron Brooks has agreed to a one-year, $2.5 million deal with Indiana, signing this week, league sources tell The Vertical.</p>— Shams Charania (@ShamsCharania) <a href="https://twitter.com/ShamsCharania/status/755112439423836161">July 18, 2016</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
If one goes purely by a simple box score, then yes. His production simply scaled with more minutes. In actuality, he actually didn't improve that much, definitely a lot less than some would like to believe. More minutes > more possessions > more shots and assists. He was still just as turnover prone as before, though his long range shooting had a nice jump.
Count me as another person who would have enjoyed seeing AB in a Rockets uniform again. At least he's signing with a good team.
"If one goes simply off box score then yes"... WOT? I don't think you understand where I was coming from buddy I said Aaron Brooks MIP season (he won the MIP award) was awesome and really fun to watch, that has nothing to do with box score, or more possessions or whatever your trying to get at. Let me paint you a picture of why it was awesome for me I was at this game, best Rockets moment I've ever experienced in person <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Tos_PvTNhlY" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8bSdhTH8NLQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> <iframe width="420" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/r_EjYEbQanQ" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> Now as for you saying he didn't actually improve much, I respectfully call BS. The dude nearly doubled his PPG, became the best player/focal point of the offense on a winning western conference team WHILE upping his field goal and three point percentage by 3% each. Increasing his efficiency while drastically increasing his volume was special, especially with him being the man that season. He averaged 20 and 5, while shooting 40% from 3, I think it's fair to say he improved, and if you watched that season you wouldn't hesitate to say that, as well as admitting he was a fun player to watch. Sorry I just really loved those 2009-12 teams/seasons, always will. Some may view them as off years between Tmac/Yao and Harden/Howard, but not me. It's when I first really got into basketball, we overachieved and played with so much heart, just very respectable and likable teams. So i'll fight anyone over them lol.
This is exactly what I mean by going by simple box score stat line. If one wasn't blinded by the glitter of his speed and shooting, they could easily see that his game didn't improve that much. Please note that I said before and say again "that much", meaning he did improve, but not as much as some people were lead to believe. The entire AB vs Lowry and who should be a starter didn't just pop out of no where. Let's talk more about his improvements. His shooting from long ranged improved, but his short range production was very similar to his first year. Playoffs performance against a much slower Fisher aside, AB actually had a down year his 2nd year. Now where he did improve, was his long bombs; he shot over 200 more (increased possessions due to increased minutes) threes and made a good chunk of them. Because of this however, in the games where he struggled with his shot, man was he a complete negative on both ends of the court. Despite this increased offensive load however, his rate of getting to the line stayed the same. Efficiency wise, if we go by PER (horrible stat IMO), he did improve. You can call it special and we can agree to disagree. Now you mentioned passing, which is funny. When a PG gets the ball a lot more due to becoming a starter, his assist total will naturally rise. This happens with any and all PG's. What is far more valuable however than the assist count however, are things like turnovers assist rate, assist %, tov %, ect. Just taking TOV's at face value, he almost doubled the amount of TOV's he had, which kept him at a pretty consistent TOV per36 and higher % as well as per 100 possession from the previous year. Now that said, his assist % did rise due to becoming a focal point on offense, but again, was not that much higher from his rookie year and a bit higher than his sophomore year which I largely consider a down year statistically for him. Point is, his court vision did not improve much if any and he was mostly the exact same player, just with better long range shooting and more of it. Like I said, only impressive if you go by a simple box score stat line. You can love the years 2009-2012 as much as you want and while technically they were "winning" seasons, but ultimately they were lowlights for long time Rockets fans, especially those who have lived through the golden years where never making the playoffs was NOT considered a "winning" season. For me, the AB years sucked. We didn't make the playoffs a single time and were just "good enough" to spin our wheels on the treadmill of mediocrity. Some people liked it because a lot of Rockets show grit and heart. Well guess what, all that's useless in the face of actual talent. I won't say that you shouldn't like players like that since I personally loved Landry, but let's not act like those years were ever anything special please. Was AB a fun player to watch? When his shot was falling, definitely. When not however, he was a pretty frustrating player who couldn't do damn thing. While he was fast, he lacked the ability to finish strong at the rim and often had to resort to wild circus shots. He was at best average at actually being a PG for the team.
