James White is a skywalker. Name came to me off the top of my head to illustrate to you that that "ability" alone is not really a basketball skill. It's a function of the athleticism of an individual. I have no qualms with Jones being "crafty" under the basket. I can easily see that. What I am saying is that ability does not place him in higher sted than DMo's finishing and post up ability. They are different players. DMo with the much bigger body and the ability to lay that body on a defender and finish and draw the foul. Jones, because he does not have the ability to bang with the true bigs down low has to be "crafty". Jones gets the bulk of his offense off the defense overplaying Howard and to a good extent Harden. You put DMo in beside Howard and Harden and you'll get the same effectiveness down low. And here's the key difference. In the playoffs when we are playing the big bulky 4/5 combinations...Jones isn't going to be getting off all those finishes. He's gonna get the ball down there and be smothered. His finishing percentage WILL go down and he WILL have to go to the FT line and try to knock them down.
There is little doubt that D-Mo is better suited to some matchups. He is after all 7' and 265 pounds after all. Hard to move when he chooses not to.
DMo may be faster, quicker, able to stop a speeding bullet, but Jones is getting more opportunities in transition to score on a per possession basis. This is probably a combination of Jones leaking out more, being more graceful and under control, and teammates recognizing that Jones will finish more difficult opportunities on the break. DMo is the better defensive rebounder. I was referring to offensive rebounds DMo and Jones are about the same in high efficiency in scoring on offensive boards, but Jones is taking a lot more attempts due to getting more offensive rebounds and going right back up at a higher rate. Jones and DMo are both PFs. DMo is not capable of defending the center position at this time consistently. He may become capable of being a backup center in the future, but I doubt he'll ever be a better center than he will be a PF. While centers are more valuable in general than PFs, if PFs were a dime a dozen, Jones and DMo would be backups.
As usual a good take. But D-Mo is a center in the NBA. How many forwards are 7' and 265+ pounds in the NBA? From his Prokom days IMHO he has been a center. Plus he brings a high level post game.
I get the White name drop because he could fly, but he wasn't good at basketball and his ability to take flight never really manifested itself in real game situations because of it. He was a worse version of Gerald Green when Gerald Green sucked. Fortunately for Green, he seems to have developed some other parts of his game to keep a job in the NBA after a rough start. Jones is light years ahead of James "Flight" White and thus his ability to go up and get tough lob passes is a plus. He is no Blake Griffin, but who is? I don't know who would win a game of one on one between Jones and D. Mo. I think they are both capable scorers, but they get it done differently. I don't doubt that he could average what TJ averages offensively if he started. I just don't think you can discount the way TJ gets it done because he does it with basket cuts, crossover dribbles, put back slams, alley oops, and offensive rebounds instead of spin moves, ball fakes, flip shots, and hooks. I like the fact that TJ is an athletic, garbage player and plays to his strengths and that D. Mo has a refined post game and a pretty good understanding of the game. I think they compliment one another. When a team is defending one well, the other can provide a distinct change of pace to potentially counteract that. I can see teams putting Jones on the line and making him convert there instead of giving up dunks and layups, but they better foul him hard because he has the athletic ability to still get those shots up after the intial contact. He has been doing it all year. I don't feel any more confident with him at the line than I do when Howard is standing there so that would be the smart move for a defense.
In the playoffs, they foul hard. You're talking about Jones finishing against these combos: Duncan/Splitter Splitter/Diaw Duncan/Diaw DeAndre/Blake Perk/Ibaka Ibaka/Durant Adams/Ibaka Bogut/Lee Gasol/Zach Dally/Dirk In every one of those combinations, Jones is going to be outsized by his opponent. They'll be longer, stronger, and probably in most cases heavier than he is. His 73.6% finishing percentage is fool's gold. Looks great right now. Won't be nearly that good in the playoffs.
Yes. The playoffs will be the biggest test for them. Whoever shines in the playoffs will separate himself from the other guy. (Of course, this assumes that we go deeper in the playoffs than last year.) And that will probably determine who will be kept and who will be traded. This doesn't necessarily mean that the guy who shines will be kept. it could be that the playoffs performance might heighten the player's value so much that he becomes the better trade chip.
Howard probably hurts Jones's efficiency down low as he draws extra guys to paint. Jones is helped a lot by Harden, though. Jones is also more likely to go against a rim protector than DMo. DMo will not be as effective as Jones near the rim in most circumstances in my opinion. Jones and DMo will both have more trouble in the postseason as they both feast near the basket. Luckily, the Rockets have the option of going small ball (or big ball against Memphis) if teams pack the paint against Jones and DMo. DMo's size and defensive positioning are going to be helpful in the postseason, in my opinion for teams that the Rockets don't go small.
Baby steps. I would rather him be finishing at 74% than not...wouldn't you? The boy can finish. He is young. He may have to fall flat on his face and learn from those big guys what it is going to take in order for him to be able to maintain the same type of effeciency in a playoff situation. The caveat here though is, most guys have to go through some playoff learning experiences before they have success. Ibaka was cringe inducing in the playoffs last year. He looked like the biggest scrub and most overrated player in the game. Blake Griffin has yet to experience any real success in the playoffs. The key is they work to get better and they come back and do it again. Maybe this is a learning year for TJ and D. Mo, but that doesn't mean they can't grow. Lots of guys who turned out to be very good or great players had to go through this. They will be no different.
Against those lineups, OKC's and Memphis look to be a nightmare for Jones getting to the rim. I don't see Jones playing much in those games. Dirk, Lee (really, Lee?), and Spurs big men will not affect Jones much on offensive end. Dirk and Lee because they just aren't good enough laterally to deny Jones. The Spurs could take Jones out of the game, but their defense will be more likely set to stop Harden. I do think Jones will generally shot worse at rim than in regular season, but he should still be above 55% there plus get a lot of FTs.
Not sure I'd go that far, but we just have to wait and see what kind of sample size the Rockets are able to get in hard nosed half court playoff basketball. If you were to replace Jones with Kevin Love, and still have the Rockets play their style of play around Harden & Howard, their are still match-ups that could bounce the Rockets in the first round... That's just the nature of how deep the West is and how deadly some of the match-ups are in the playoffs if those other teams are hitting shots. Every contending team in the history of the NBA has had some sort of weakness. With the right or wrong match-up any team is capable of being beat. The fact is the Rockets have two more years after this one with Jones and D-Mo locked up. If in a vacuum they end up finishing out their current contracts with the Rockets and the Rockets do not make any moves, we will have two more years of sample size to be able to determine who is the best one to move forward with on a new contract... assuming the Rockets can even afford to keep either or. There is no need to place unnecessary judgement on either young PF/C based on 4 games when they have so much basketball left in a Rockets uniform. There is however, the unlikely case where Morey will upgrade to a all-star level PF. In that case, you are probably moving the player that the other team demands in that trade... simple as that. If the Knicks want Jones in a Melo S&T, you probably end up moving Jones in the end. If they want D-Mo, you probably end up moving D-Mo. If the Rockets miss out on another all-star Forward, and the debate is who to extend, and who to let go, we have TWO MORE YEARS to gain sample size to determine who is the best to keep.
Tell me how teams are game planning for the Rockets on defense and I can tell you now what kind of shots at the rim Jones and Howard will be getting. However at the same token, I can tell you from that what kind of shots Harden, Parsons, Bev, and Lin are getting. You tend to lose sight purposefully on overall team defense against Houston, McHale's counter to that game play, and how that impacts different players... namely Jones and D-Mo. If Memphis decides to pack the paint against Houston and make them a jump shooting team on broken plays... yes Jones and D-Mo are going to marginalized to jump shooters on these broken plays, Dwight will have to finish in trees, and Harden/Lin/Parsons will have issues getting to the rim, which really is where the offense breaks down and Jones is not able to get good looks at the rim when the Rockets operate later in the shot clock against a set defense. It all starts with the Rockets being able to do what they do which is break down defenses by getting to the rim off of dribble penetration. If they cannot do that because of a packed paint, they often get disjointed and break plays which leads to poor outside shots. This is often why McHale chooses to counter by going small to have another guard on the floor to mix up the offense a little more when the offense goes stagnant. So blame D-Mo and Jones all you want because you think they can't shoot like Ray Allen, but you are completely ignoring the fact that the problem is stemming from the Rockets not being able to break down the defense from the perimeter first and foremost. Jones & D-Mo's shooting is a secondary concern. The most important concern is how the Rockets is getting stagnant in the first place when teams pack the paint. Harden, Parsons, Bev, and Lin have a higher responsibility in their offense to make things happen from the perimeter.
1, DMo. He has been a center and then he joined the NBA. Outside of spot minutes, he has played PF. The Rockets usually win +/- because they are a good team. The Rockets do not have a lineup with DMo at center that they have used for greater than 15 min this season that they have a positive +/-. DMo is tied for the highest +/- rating on the team due to the Rockets playing great when he plays PF.
You've got this backwards. Jones and his inability to spread the floor hurts Howard's efficiency down low.
Dobro also toss in if we are hitting that 3 bomb it will blow that packing the paint **** up. Memphis will have to change their defensive scheme.
I just don't think we are going to keep two promising young players in the same position long term. One of them will eventually be unhappy being the backup. As for the sample size question, remember it is not just about how much the Rockets (Morey) value the player, but also about how much the rest of the league perceive his value. And the playoffs is the best showcase stage for value, whether it is totally justified or not.
Actually I'd rather him be finishing at 60% and shooting the corner 3-ball at 40% and shooting the 3-point ball overall at 37% than to be finishing at 74% and shooting 35% from EVERYWHERE ON THE FLOOR BESIDES THE LOW BLOCK!!!! Do you understand that Terrence Jones is only shooting 35% from everywhere on the floor but underneath the basket????? That equates to zero spacing. He's not able to be effective shooting the ball from anywhere outside 3 feet! That is going to kill us in the playoffs. He can not shoot a basketball from anywhere on the floor and not be a negative. The ONLY SHOT he can hit effectively is the dunk/layup shot. That's it!!! How many layup/dunk shots do you think he's gonna get in the playoffs???? At what cost???? At the cost of deflating Dwight's and Harden's efficiency. It's going to catch up to us in the playoffs. That 74% is fools gold.
