5 games in... ....in 5 games...we need to see Harden drop a fiddy burger on someone. Maybe 2. We need to see Wood grow as a player. We need to see Wall find a role as a 3&D guard while Harden plays and the leader of the bench brigade every minute he sits. We need Eric Gordon to play juuuust a little bit better. We need more minutes from Brown and better shooting from Nwaba and Tate. We need Cousins to remain silent and also not look at a ref or fart or anything. We need PJ Tucker to play a lot better. We need Gerald Green resigned. Checkin checks on that checklist will be 5 W's and a hella lot of hope for the fans/future.
Negative. Rockets have some wiggle room under cap, not a lot of course. EGo salary is enough to trade for AG. EGo + House is even more salary palatable. Trade EGo for Larry Nance or James Johnson and Rockets get more positive cap room.
Then rewatch the kings game. Yes, he moved off screens off ball and didn’t just stand three feet behind the three point line like he did, oh the last 5 years and last night. It freed him up to at least have a very wide berth from either his defender or the switch defender when he got the ball. No he isn’t a catch and release shooter like Steph but when everyone is in motion and the ball is moving it creates openings for him to shoot or if he gets the ball to pass to another open shooter. But if you want to keep running the James dribbles while everyone watches in their spots offense yet again, don’t be agitated when it craters once again in the playoffs when the whistles get swallowed and he gives up in frustration yet again.
I’m worried about Harden getting more nagging injuries if he doesn’t bring his playing weight down. The excess weight will put pressure on the joints.The Ankle injury has robbed him of his explosiveness . Just watch the Blazers and the Nuggets game. He looked damn explosive but last night he couldn’t move . My take away is he needs to drop 20 pounds . Once he gets ankle right and drops a few pounds and as he showed in the Blazers and Nuggets game he is still a damn offensive scoring machine. Hence I’m not worried about him. Overall I think this team lacks rebounding, a starting caliber SF, PF and backup Point guard.I don’t see this team being a contender . This is why when Harden gets traded there is no point bringing guys like CJ or Siakam. We need to bring in guys in the same age bracket as Wood and look to rebuild .
When another player brings it up court harden comes up usually from the right corner and takes the handoff/pass and occasionally there's a screen by whoever else is there to get a bad switch but that's the extent of it, that's the way it's been for awhile. I did t see sacto game 1 so maybe there's more that I missed. Honestly if the answer is just let Wall bring the ball up more than that's a quick fix
Rockets fan.... not a rockets hater or Harden hater but an era is over. Optimistically we have a second round ceiling with the right matchups but how does that sway Harden? We just don't have the assets to compete this season or the next. Does swapping EGO for Harrison Barnes do much? Maybe?
If yall dont have specific instances or highlights than I dont know what to tell you. Do you realize the reason we won that Kings games was because Harden went off doing Iso or whatever in the 4th quarter. We have a 2-3 record and got blown out by a non contender last night.
Regarding offense, I unfortunately think it will take all-season to improve the offense from the dead-end we hit last year. It's not "learning how to shoot better". It's "relearning how to play offense again". Amen on Bagley, Holmes, Barnes... Picks, Tucker, Gordon, House, anyone not named Wood, Wall, or Harden is worth trading to get two of those players. We either try to go back to what we had before shooting a massive volume of three pointers (I personally think this won't happen), or we take this route. My other wish-list item is another quick point guard. I think we could use someone else that could break down defense, and fill in if either Harden or Wall get hurt.
I stuck by him for 3 years w/o issue. And I’ve stated before that had they kept him I’d be okay w it bc I don’t think ANY TEAMS should make decisions based off bubble performance/outcomes. However, I always recognized MDAs shortcomings (stubborn short rotations, no defense, timeout/game mgmt issues).
After you've done nothing but isolate for a few years, then you have a miserable playoff loss because of that very reason, what are you left with? Just yesterday we lost and our coach said we isolated too much (which I happen to agree with). It's the default offense we go to when we get lazy. That and the PNR are the only two things we're capable of executing right now... so yes, I think we need to relearn how to play team offense. When Adelman came aboard, it took several years to get things going. I don't think that will be the case for us because of the players we have, but I think learning how to run other options will take time, and I wouldn't judge the team if they're attempting to diversify the offense and in the process our efficiency drops. We can keep doing exactly the same thing, and I can guarantee you what the results will be when we face LA in the playoffs again. In my opinion, this is the sole-reason we didn't achieve better and longer-lasting success with Morey. His strategy was clearly to "pick the scab until it bleeds". It didn't work with Yao. It almost worked with Harden, but the margin for error was absolutely zero. We also had no training camp, and Harden is out of shape... that makes installing offensive changes somewhat laborious.
Okay...you should really check the stats for how much we actually isolate. Its not all we do. Also we have produced top offenses for years. Offense is not the reason we have lost in the playoffs(with the exception of last year with Westbrook). Okay and we've been running his offense to middling effects. We are 11th in offensive effciency. We havent looked that good. Team offense isnt necessarily gonna get you good wins see our 2-3 record. I hope you are right but the results so far arent ggreat. Addleman achieved literally nothing here. Well that's happening right now and right now there isnt any evidence this will produce good results. Im willing to give him time. But I dont like retroactively saying Mike's way was just futile, it wasnt. You act like offense has been the reason our teams have been failing for years when that isnt the case. Edit: The training camp stuff I will give you but Harden really doesnt look in bad shape, I dont know where that is coming from.
I understand we're not isolating as much this year, which I think is great for improving the shooting percentages for the other players. I'm talking specifically about the Dallas game. I'm saying that Adelman had one of the more complex offenses the Rockets have run in the past 20 years, and it took several years to install completely. Last year we had a kindergarten offense. This year we have a more complex one, and we fall back on bad habits when we're lazy or frustrated. To do something more complex is going to take a while to relearn properly. I believe our insanely predictable offense was the primary reason LA obliterated us last year.
That...I agree with. I mean...in the end, was it worth it for Addleman? Several years is not something we have. It will take more than 5 years for us to be contenders when Harden leaves. I mean...yea, Mike was bad in that series but I also wanna say that i dont know if any coach could win with Westbrook playing like he did.
I should also mention that the Rockets are pioneers in NBA offense and shooting high-volume threes. The reason why it really isn't a viable strategy alone is because everyone else is doing the same thing to some degree. We've lost our advantage. The other NBA offensive trend that never gets discussed on this board is the revival of motion in offense in the NBA. A lot of teams are doing it and gaining an advantage with it. At the same time, we've made no effort until this year to move beyond isolation and PNR.
Agree on all points. We'll see on Silas and how fast he can make an impact... how much can he do effectively? Will a few new wrinkles do the job?
You seem to believe that Harden got more open looks in the Kings game. Is that correct? Here's the actual numbers: In the Kings game, 66.66% of his shots were contested and 33.33% were uncontested. In the Dallas game, 41.17% of his shots were contested and 58.82% were uncontested. Harden can create space any time he likes, he doesn't need screens to do that. Against Sacramento, he got 8 open 3s and hit 50%. Last night he got 10 open 3s but only hit 30% of them. He had a bad shooting night against Dallas but he had more open threes than he did vs Sacramento. Against the Kings 8 of his 24 shots were uncontested. Last night 10 of his 17 shots were uncontested. He just didn't shoot the ball as much because his shot was off, not because he wasn't open. He also had 10 assists vs Dallas and only 8 vs the Kings. As for the playoffs last year, he shot just under 10 free throws per game. In the Laker series where we were eliminated, he averaged right at 30 per game on a ridiculous 67% TS%. If that's cratering then I hope that he craters every game.
