Maybe with Asik only. Lin is addition by subtraction and we still haven't seen the overall effect of having Ariza over Parsons.
Lin wasn't a big loss. I like him, but he was just an average player. Terry can replace his production. Ariza is arguably a better fit than Parsons. Better defender and 3pt shooter. Asik is a big loss. I loved the guy. But he played 20 mpg and often less when Dwight was doing well.He also missed half the season and was disgruntled.
Are you guys still pretending Jeremy Lin not being here is a huge loss for us? Let me know when you wake up from that delusion.
How was Lin a big loss? He didn't really fit here. Agreed on Asik. That's why he played limited minutes.
have to agree with Asik, he was an amazing luxury off the bench and as good as Ariza is Parsons's passing, finishing and cutting will be missed when harden needs a breather.
The biggest reason I think the "Rockets will drop" opinions are misguided is the fact that 54 wins/4 seed isn't a proper "baseline" for this team. I see analysts everywhere basically playing the add/subtract game, believing the Rockets got worse this offseason, and then adjusting downward from the record/seed they were a year ago. It's lazy, simplistic and in my opinion, not very accurate. The "54 wins" logic ignores the fact that the Rockets were a much better team in April than they were in November. The first two months of the year were a pretty big adjustment for everyone to playing with Dwight (remember all the awful lob attempts this time a year ago?), and Dwight himself wasn't yet at peak health, either. They got better. The Rockets were 33-18 (68.8% win clip) in calendar-year 2014, a mark that extrapolates to between 56 and 57 wins -- i.e. roughly on par with the Clippers and right behind the Thunder. And that was even with Dwight/Beverley each missing almost 10 games near the end of the season! If the Rockets had brought back everyone and basically retained a similar team, I think the reasonable expectation would be to win between 56 and 58 games and be in a dogfight for the 2 or 3 seed. Could you make the case that they're slightly worse with Ariza/Terry/Black replacing Parsons/Lin/Asik? You could, but in my opinion, that at most might drop you back to the 52-54 range and somewhere between a 4 and 6 seed. The talk of sub-50 wins and battling for a 7 or 8 seed, in my opinion, is completely ridiculous and misguided, barring major injuries. Harden and Howard are simply too good for that to happen.
You can be waken up when Beverley is injured, Terry plays like a 37-year-old, and Canaan plays like a rookie. Not saying that all these will happen for sure. But don't pretend that it's not a concern.
I'm pretty sure he's not because in the same interview today, he didn't want the rockets to match Dallas' contract offer.
OP must hate Matt Bullard. We all know our broadcast crew are homers. Matt is just trying to give an assessment. Honestly, we're not really sure where we would end up. Depends on who will be our reliable 3rd scorer, if our back-up bigs can be relied on, if our bench brigade will give Harden and Howard enough rest, etc
He played 28mpg and filled in when PatBev went down. Our backup PG situation now is BLEAK. Lin made way too much for a backup PG but judged only on his ability he was a + backup. Now our backup PG's are young and crap, or old and crap. Terry will eventually get injured and if PatBev goes down again watch out.
Big statement here: but I'm going to say Ariza is a smarter passer, and big Papa has better court vision and passing ability. We have massively upgraded the SF spot over the off-season. I can't believe people are disputing it. Terry >>>> Lin as the 10mpg player at backup PG (with Papa taking some of the SG minutes). If Canaan was given the minutes Lin was given last season, he would outproduce him. Lin is not a loss. Asik is a loss that no team could replace. But then again he was way too good to be a backup C. Since he can't guard 4s, he was a 10mpg player, and we've scrape out 2 hustle guys from the bottom of the barrel. A backup 4/5 is the 'missing link' at the moment for this team.
Morey ain't paying $15m for a backup PG when he can get the same production elsewhere. Lin is out of control, and a turnover merchant who can't shoot. We will get better value elsewhere quite easily, and we won't get someone who overthinks their game, rather we'll get someone who is striving just to make it. Give Canaan 28mpg, and I assure you he would outproduce Lin.
