Competent point guards are easier to find. Power Forwards aren't. As much knowledge as you have _ you lack the understanding of knowing that good power forwards are hard to find. And I know you're always throwing out trade proposals which is very easy to do, but the hard part is finding a partner to participate in a trade. That's why I only go in the "trade thread" for a good ol laugh... I be like lolzzzzzzzzz....!!!! Lillard hit 31 points the 1st game buddy, which was 11 points above his regular season average. Beverley hit 9 points and was chunking up bricks from 3 point range _ Harden went 8 of freakin 28 and we lost that game by 2 points. Now go head and give me another bu775h1t excuse of why we lost because of TJ... And while you're thinking of one _ explain the rest of the games when there are 7 games in a series and not just two... I'll wait
Jones and Harden are the two biggest reasons the Rockets are not great on defense because both of them have trouble playing the defensive scheme. Beverley not being healthy (This is also very big. Beverley was not as effective that series) and Parsons are also reasons for the poor defensive performance against Portland. Unless your solution on the defensive end is to pray Harden gets better defensively, Jones has to be looked at because it is tough to scheme defensively when two guys aren't playing team defense. I do think the Rockets need to work on defensive scheme especially with Sampson gone, but schemes require personnel that can carry it out. Parsons being replaced looks to be an improvement on defense, but will hurt the offense.
ummmmm, actually I understand very well how much rarer it is to find a great player that is 6'10" to over 7' tall compared to finding great players the further down you go in height. That's why I'm always talking about the #1 thing that needs to be improved on this team is the big man rotation. And I am actively looking for possible solutions under every nook and cranny. Actually I'm not always throwing out trade proposals. I eschew the trade proposal thread for the most part because it is a waste of time reading most of the posters trade suggestions. Every once in a while I go in there and lay out what I consider legit "possibilities" for players that I feel may be on the market and would help this team. And I also respond to posters that either are misinformed about something factual such as the CBA or the cap or I answer a question or make a comment to help clarify some aspect of a proposed trade. Other than that...I don't even hardly read the thread. Don't go in there for a good laugh. It's just not worth my time. And I sure don't go there to get snarky with other posters even when their trades are preposterous.
Great post, i can't stand when people say T Jones is bad on defense because of LMA's playoff performance. Jones needs to learn to play better defense but the LMA performance was not the smoking gun.
I like Jones. I'm not so much worried about defense because I think the staff will put in the time to make him competent over the summer. He's got the tools to be a good (perhaps even great) defender. Jones gives us rare athleticism at the 4 and he knows his role. The problem is he's years from being a decent shooter. DMo hasn't been a good shooter either, but he has the mechanics in place to be good. TJones has structural problems that needs to fixed...problems that will probably take 2 to 3 years to resolve. I'm willing to give TJones another half year to figure it out. If not, we need to move on to someone that's a better fit, or risk having the same problems we had in the playoffs.
FYI. I know what Im going to say will suck, but Damien Lillard dominated that playoff series against the rockets. Who was checking Lillard?
Agreed, there was an entire season full of examples why Jones is a terrible defender, no need to single out his awful defense in the playoffs.
Lillard had a spectacular series. But we lost that series in games 1 and 2, you can't give away 2 home games and expect to beat a good NBA team in a 7 game series.
Don't forget the 5 assists and 9 rebounds LOL vs. Beverleys 14 pts, 2 assists and 2 rebounds in 41 minutes. Lillard ran rough shot on the rockets guards.
And you want to call my post and others idiotic... That move actually worked... Asik did a very good job on LMA... I purely put the blame of that series loss on Harden and Lin.. Now back to the topic.. We all get that you have this love affair with TJ, but the fact is the man needs to toughen up. Yes LMA, Griffin and others have a very nice offensive game, but that is not an excuse not to box out and get rebounds. Griffin and LMA basically had their way on the offensive board and again that takes heart and again I will go back to my Kurt Rambis example with someone who had far less talent than TJ, but more heart. T_Man
To add to sealclubber1016's post, Aldridge averaged 44.5 ppg with Lebron like efficiency in games Jones started while Lillard scored with the efficiency of Thomas Robinson. Rockets lost those first two games because Aldridge destroyed them. Once Rockets put Asik on Aldridge to start games, Rockets outscored the Blazers by a small amount even though Lillard was "dominating" the last 4 games leading to the last games being split. If anything, the Rockets waited too long to replace Jones with Asik. Beverley playing poorly didn't help, but I am not going to say replacing Beverley is the cure for his problems against Portland. Just getting healthy would help as well as having a PF that could play team defense. Jones either needs to improve vastly or needs to be limited to backup minutes to prevent teams from game planning against him.
My post was meant to be in support/addition to your post. I did not intend for replying to your post to imply disagreement.
Not even 3 months removed and die hard fans have already forgotten Bev was playing with a torn miniscus and a 101 degree temperature. LOL
