Selfishly, I want him to be ready just so I can sing his name to the Hawaiian version of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" while he's swishing granny shots from the FT line.
Yes, Onuaku hasn't really been tested in NBA games. But, he could have been tested if we had played him and some of the other young players at the end of the season as I proposed. Unfortunately, we wasted that time and now we are in a jam. Maybe Onuaku getting playing time the last couple of weeks of the season wouldn't have made a difference, but we will never know. The Rockets really did a poor job of preparing the young guys for possible emergency duty in the playoffs.
Even if he's not ready, we can use him to push around the refs if they keep jobbing the Rockets like they have been
I think we have one game to see who fits in better between Trez and Nanu, but in the end i expect MDA to play Ryan as the back up 5 and not playing Trez/Nanu at all.
Or we could do like the Spurs. Let the kids play EARLY in the season to conserve minutes in the main rotation and to see what the kids have before they get to the meat and potatoes of the schedule along with resting their starters as early as possible in decided games and additionally giving them a couple games off for rest throughout the season.
theres no such thing as preparing 4/5th string guys in the playoffs. if it gets down to that you're in trouble as is regardless.
Rockets is not great enough to let a Rookie grow in the Playoff. Whether Nanu is ready or not, MDA is not going to play him. I am not even sure if he will try Trez at this point. He will give some minutes to Dekker depending on his performance. We will see the increasing minutes to the first 7 players in the rotation, specially Ariza, Ryno and Clint.
Pop was smart enough to start his rookie when Parker was out, Chinau should be in the rotation, Harrel is too short, Dekker too skinny. DD
That's a good point. It feels like the Rockets now have a very small roster. MDA has seven players he feels comfortable playing, and two guys in Dekker and Harrell that he really doesn't want to play. No one else on the roster has even played a meaningful minute. Not good.
We could really use Onuaku in the middle. We need his bulk. He doesn't even need to score. We just need someone to stop the flood of layups, and to grab some rebounds.
I don't think anyone believes he's that type of player yet under any ordinary circumstances... but we were already thin up front against a big team, and we just lost our biggest guy (unless you count Capela as bigger since he "plays" bigger). I know all I'm suggesting is toss him in for five minutes in the 2nd quarter and see what happens. If it goes poorly, yank him and never look back. ... That said, I don't know if that's even an option since he didn't make our playoff roster. Are we allowed to pull someone new onto it now that Nen is out?
He probably isn't ready but this isn't a debate about his readiness. It's a need. Capela takes lion share of 30-35 minutes that's a pretty significant increase on his workload, even to get to 30. Splitting up 18 more minutes between Harrell and Onuaku seems like a necessity at this point. Even 5-8 minutes where he can come in against their backup squad...we're going to get eaten alive by 3 guard lineups if they're not going balls deep on 3s.
don't think it's a need. If he was truly a need he would of been in the rotation at some point on a more often basis. What MDA does is he is going to keep his system consistent in what they've done all year. Just because Nene went down, that's not going to change that. He still keeps his philosophies and rotations consistent with what they do as a team to maintain a steady rhythm. And the rockets are at their best playing small ball. There's no question about that. Nene just happen to be a luxury. Onaku is nowhere a must/need at this point.
