Not. Going. To. Happen. Amir's value is like 10x DMo value. This deal would probably be a fair one: DMo + Asik for Amir + PPat
I was just pointing out that a false opinion has been formed among NBA followers on Euro bigs, I didn't include DMo in the conversation. Regarding Motiejunas, he is certainly not as strong as pure centers. He has always been just a PF, and he played that position both at Benetton and Prokom. Donatas is most effective when used as a post player on offense and paired with a garbage man big and he showed that in Europe. He can hit the outside shot, but it's not his bread and butter. The Rockets have utilized him poorly from the start, forcing him to play either as a stretch four or as a backup center. Motiejunas needs to be fed the ball in the post and let him work. It doesn't matter if he misses his first attempt, just get the ball to him time and time again, let him play through his mistakes and increase his confidence. Every time he makes a bad play, McHale benches him and this is not the way to develop a young player. If we already have Howard as our post presence for 36 minutes, why don't we use Donatas for those other 12, rather than going all-out run'n'gun with the bench players? It's still the regular season and a few losses here and there aren't going to hurt us if we can develop talents like Motiejunas in the meantime. In hindsight, Nikola Mirotić, a player we originally drafted and then traded for Motiejunas, would be a perfect fit for this Houston team. Who knows, maybe we can snatch him from the Bulls in a trade that includes Mike Dunleavy. As Kelly Dwyer tweeted, I'm also not sure Reinsdorf will pay $27 million next year for free agents/Nikola/waived Carlos Boozer. Offer picks, players, anything, Mirotić is the real deal.
Yes please. Brooks really had a lot going for him in NJ until he got injured and started getting over shadowed. Then JJ came and well we know what happened after that. I'd gladly take a chance on him for D-Mo.
Totally agree, he is a 4 not a 5. Granted Jones deserves the starting gig and it isn't like Mchale is going to limit Gracia's minutes and use Casspi at the 3 more to create some room at the 4 for Dmo. The best thing is to make a trade and bring in another veteran to stabilize the team.
Because IMO I think we are still concerned about our overall regular season record which is bad enough (6th). Even a bystander can tell Donatas will be needing more time than a Chandler Parsons for instance. There is zero tolerance for errors and they are not marginal. Maybe some of his fans can't see that. To keep Dwight and Harden happy our team must be competitive. If we are falling to 7th or 8th place but playing Donuts and Jones 30+ minutes a game (together) then that is unacceptable for management and owner after acquiring those two top 10 talents. God forbid I don't mind one or two more seasons of being Lakers bad but having developed more players. Right now the team needs young players to play like veterans. This is too hard a task to achieve and there is no guarantee what Donatas can become.
Yeah, well, that's a valid opinion, but I don't know, I'm not afraid of any team in the West right now, home or away, and I feel like the 6th spot is our floor. The Rockets beat some great teams, but also had some blunders. I'd rather have those losses come with young guys getting valuable minutes, than having Harden, Howard & Parsons play over 40 minutes. Again, this is maybe only my opinion, because I've been raised watching European basketball where coaches regularly play a 10-man rotation to keep the players fresh and the defensive pressure up for all 40 minutes, and where they always give minutes to young talents early in the season to see how they react and develop step by step. Or maybe McHale just made a mistake with handling Donatas.
You need to learn how WINNING teams work. Players develop in the D-league not in games that count unless they Are top draft picks. If he is struggling in real games and against dleague comp he is wasting a roster spot. Jones out played him with rebounding and defense so dmo rides the pine like he should.
Well, Motiejunas played for a bit in the D-League and dominated the competition. It's an 82 games long season, you won't finish 82-0 and you don't need to go 100% every game. Look how Popovich rests his starters and then look how Thibodeau exhausts his come playoff time.
Carl, Mchale was forced to play young last season because he had no choice. Jones only got major burn time when Asik pouted and went down to injury. So please don't insinuate that Jones is playing major minutes even when Asik was healthy. Because if Asik was healthy, Jones isn't playing regular minutes like he is playing now. And smith? Lol. Who said that the coach should disregard the needs of the team so that Dmo could develop? If Mchale was such a great coach he could do both, right? And have you ever seen someone say play Dmo 40 minutes? Lol. So please stop making excuses.
Who needs roster spots when you dont play them? Lol Even when the team was healthy, we played a short rotation of 9 players. Whatever happened to the rest? Would you consider them waste of roster spots? Lol
Completely agree with everything here. The thing that is baffling to me is that guys like Casspi and Garcia arent even that good to where you justify not playing a guy like dmo and letting him bump his head some. They don't use him correctly and it's a little baffling. We've seen dmo work in the post. His teammates call him the white Hakeem. Yet we don't play him at his true position of pf nor do we post him and let him do what he's best at. This is one of the many problems I have with mchale. Trading dmo would be a mistake. We should instead fire mchale and get a coach that tried to use players more effectively and demands more accountability from the top players.
Yes...we can not afford to let young guys develop. I mean, guys like Garcia and Casspi are just too fukin valuable to slash into their minutes. I mean, we've been killing it this year. Beasting out. Powerhouses like the kings have given us epic battles, but you know what I mean. This team and rotation is fukin golden. How date mchale try something else when what he's doing is just boss.
Agree. Let's find a way to make him happy with more playing time. As he comes into his prime, IMO we will we happy to have D-Mo as the PF complement to Dwight Howard. That's not meant to disparage T-Jo, who is clearly the better player now, but we have to look to the future ... and the future IMO is D-Mo.
Carl is completely right... Some of you guys are insane. Dmo has shown nothing to think he's a useful nba player. We all think adelman is a good coach why doesn't he play shabazz a lot of minutes? Can't good coaches develop and win?!?!?
Do you even watch the Houston Rockets professional basketball team??? Who is Young???.... Do you think this is a UT football forum and are talking about Vince Young? Terrence Jones came into the rotation and played well when Asik was healthy. He was inserted into the starting lineup because the Twin Towers lineup sucked on both ends. At that point, Asik went into pout mode because he didn't want to come off the bench, played well in a few games coming off the bench, pouted some more, then got injured, and then almost got traded for crappy players. -Greg Smith BEAT OUT every other PF last season for minutes by the end of the season fair and square. D-Mo was the first young big to get an opportunity after the 2Pat/Morris trades, and failed to secure his spot fair and square. We all (Rockets fans last year) saw it with out own two eyes. If you dont think D-Mo got his shot and failed to capitalize, you are in denial. The truth is Mchale's priorities are going to be this- 1. Keep his job this Summer by winning as many games as possible 2. Setup this team to have a deep playoff/title run 3. Do what he can to maximize the potential of Howard and Harden, and set them up to lead this team into the playoffs 4. develop the team chemistry around Howard & Harden 5. Develop young talent If D-Mo isn't doing anything to help 1 through 4 than it should be no surprise to anyone that he isn't getting consistent PT. Is it McHale's job to develop D-Mo, Canaan, Covington, etc.... Yes. Is it high on his list of priorities right now... No. I wish D-Mo could get more PT myself, but I understand that almost every time he enters the game its like ringing the dinner bell at fat camp for the opposing team to attack the rim. His skills are perfect for a center on the offensive end, but he can't guard the rim yet consistently, and doesn't have the footspeed to stay with most athletic 4's on the perimeter. People just need to wake up and realize that D-Mo is a tough fit for PT right now, and like many other project bigs that came before him, its probably not going to click for him until year 3 or 4 at least. It doesn't seem like D-Mo or the Rockets are going to have that kind of patience to wait for that window of physical maturity and development to occur unfortunately, and from most recent reports it sounds like D-Mo is the one without the patience mostly.
