Biggest surprise for me is , we are 35-15 with all these injuries and steady change in the lineup while being in the wild wild west. Dmo's improvement has been a pleasant surprise as well. Harden's maturity and leadership.
Your numbers are a bunch of nonsense. Parsons is averaging 15.7pts on 12.5 shots, while Ariza is averaging 12.7pts on 11.6 shots. That's 3 more points on 0.9 more shots.
Hardens improved D and shot selection or efficiency. Dmo's emergence. Signing Josh Smith and getting quality depth with Brewer. How well we're playing w/o DH.
1) DMo's emergence! Like the light turned on. Everything is comfortable for him now and his post game is tremendous. I never thought he would play this well to become a LEGIT starter. 2) Harden's step back jumper. That "counter move" to his dribble/drive is HUGE. It is making him unstoppable offensively and it is the main reason he is in the MVP discussion. 3) Team Defense. Amazing how much better "overall" the team is defensively. Getting a 3/D guy in Ariza (over Parsons) was key. The Ariza/Brewer/Smith trio really helps the Rockets extend their defense and make switches. The Rockets can hang their hat on defense throughout the playoffs and they are going to need it.
Has to be our D. Huge mentality change. You're not stepping on the court unless you play D. It's part of the reason we traded Daniels and don't play Canaan. I love the mindset (although I do want Canaan to get PT).
totally agree.... to go from the laughing stock of the nba and .gifs of harden's lack of d to 3rd in defensive efficiency... credit has to go to J.B. Bickerstaff for telling McHale that he will handle the coaching on defense before the season started... reminds me of when we had Tibbs as an assistant when we constantly were top 3 in defense
D-Mo' s consistent positive play. That has been quite the surprise. I'm very impressed by his low post defense. Plus he plays with a high basketball IQ.
Harden's revelation that he was born on Planet Basketball. Morey assembling the best bench in the West in a flash. Kevin McHale going from Fired to Hired. Headbands as the new branding logo. How much money I seem willing to spend on Rockets basketball now.
I'd say it would be Trevor Ariza and Pat Beverley's inability to hit an open corner 3. I hate being so negative, but they are shooting poor from 3 point land with the kind of looks they get. Ariza seems to have hit a streak but there is no excuse to be missing some of these threes they get.
I know it seems that way. But believe it or not, Bev is actually not in a slump, at least not how "slump" is usually meant. He is shooting better than last season at 3. And his eFG% is only slightly lower. His assist and TO numbers are also quite compatible to last season's. But the eye test tells us that his defense has dropped off a lot and his overall IQ is down the drain, doing a lot of stupid things on the court.
1.) Biggest surprise for me has to be Harden claiming he was currently "The Best Player Alive" this summer and backing it up. I think we all remember this exchange with Scoop: http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/11370572/james-harden-confidence-growing-sessions We knew Harden was good but we had no Idea he was MVP candidate good. NBA leading scorer good. We all kind of scoffed at this Idea when we read it so many months ago. The media mostly laughed at Harden. Who's laughing now? 2.) Close second has to be DMO adopting some wolves and building a log cabin in the woods emerging as a go to low post threat. 3.) The Defense has been so much better than last year the fanbase at one time was feverishly trying to figure out who/what was responsible. Players, Coaches, Magics?
Yea, I hear you. Bev has lost the benefit of being a nice surprise himself at this point. The team desperately needs more out of his position (secondary play maker) if we are going to make a run and he is unable to fill that void. Fair or not, his inability to grow into that roll has been most disappointing and surprising.
For me, it's us getting Josh Smith for free. Harden being an MVP level candidate? Knowing D-Mo can play? Knowing that Ariza is a great fit? We knew all of these things. Getting Josh Smith without sacrificing anything is the one scenario that nobody could have forecasted.
Annoying. Quickly? Yes Smith was a surprise. But Terry was acquired likely more for 'flexibility', and Brewer seemed to be acquired when he was simply because of tradeability considerations. I wouldn't consider most of that "out of nowhere". How about the "surprise" of passing on the all-star Lowry so we could wait on Melo to make up his mind, and then having everyone clamoring for a 2nd 'playmaker' all year?
