I think it was Kenny Smith who said that he preferred playing back to backs because it meant no practice in between. Not that he didn't like practice but on a day before a game, he'd rather play a 2 hr game then have a full day of practice and be tired. For this lockout it's not depth that matters; it's young stars will do better than the old stars. (OKC > celtics)
We might have been able to pull something like that off with Rick on a regular season. Not sure if Kevin is a uptempo coach. And I'm really not sure, even young guys, can play 4 uptempo games a week during a season.
i would say that our "depth" means that the other teams' stars just get to abuse more people. talent is talent.
That doesn't seem to be what's being reported out of training camp. They're changing the system. We don't have the same passing high post bigs to run the offense through. McHale has been saying that the shortened training camp isn't giving them a lot of time to teach the young players (with new players coming in every day) the changes that McHale will be making to the offense, and especially defense. Your disagreement ignores the facts that Kevin McHale has put on the table.
The system is the same, they just needed to tweak it since Yao is gone, the same way that Adelman tweaked his system when he went from Divac-Webber-Peja to Yao-Scola-Tmac. How do we know this? Chris Finch (the Rox offensive coordinator) ran the same R&R system for the Rio Vipers when he was still the coach there. As for teaching defense, he probably needs to do it since Adelman didn't teach any and just relied on the remains from JVG's tenure.
And what exactly was the result last season? Yet ANOTHER NBA lotto appearance. By my count that's now 7 times since the 1999-2000 season. Having a "top rated" bench according Clutchfans is one thing. Having a top rated bench that actually produces a playoff team is another thing entirely. And, I don't expect a "compressed" schedule will compensate enough for their lack of talent no matter how their bench is rated.
The rockets don't even have the talent level of these guys, all of whom have been all stars. We have almost all stars or at least we think they are.
That must be why the Rockets didn't try to acquire talented players this off-season. Oh wait, they did try to do that, but you were against it. I guess you'll have to be content with the team described in the OP.
I actually thought it was the opposite. The last shortened season we had the Spurs with Duncan and David Robinson won it all. You do make some good points though
youth = headless chicken-like players running around like fools, not playing productive basketball. Can you imagine egghead lineup of Thabeet/Hill/Morris/Williams/Flynn? IMPLODE!
Last year we didnt have much luck with back to back games:grin: and we had rick the ruler and his set rotation. http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/HOU/2011_games.html
I think youth and depth will certainly be an advantage. My worry is the brutal schedule at the beginning of the season with a new coaching staff. If we somehow manage to stay at .500 for the first 10 games we will have a hell of a season.
Dragic, our 2nd string point abused the Spurs in the playoffs against supposed stars, 23 points in the 4th: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LLWjQ7nZTkI Oh and he is backing up Lowry who has moved into an upper echelon of Point Guards in the league: http://houston.sbnation.com/houston-rockets/2011/4/11/2103621/how-far-has-kyle-lowrys-star-risen There are many more examples of depth on this team. K-mart with Courtney Lee as a backup. Lee would start on many, many teams. Scola the FIBA MVP and FIBA World Champ, with Patterson as a very good backup. Even the two weakest positions Center and Small Forward have a reasonably comparable back-up. I think Hill is poised for a big year. C-Bud has T-Will and Marcus Morris backing him up, while Hill has Thabeet and Greg Smith(?). We have depth and I think we are going to surprise a lot of people.
