This is what I've been thinking. I listed three things earlier. If a PG could do all three of them well, he would be a star player. A more attainable alternative is to find a playmaking guy to lead the second unit when Harden sits. So we can have a more ball dominant PG without having to take the ball out of Harden's hands, just letting Harden rest more.
Image Harden coming off a couple of screens like Redick and Curry after giving the rock up... Nothing but buckets for Harden... We need the Grant kid from ND and Pat Bev as the back up with Brewer. We desparately need to take the ball out of Josh's hand.
The Ro Interchangeable parts - the way Golden State rolls. The Rockets this season had to put together a bunch of mismatched parts that meant the team had to play differently depending on who was out there. Brewer and Smith were key addiitons but each time you put them out there it was a completely different thing than the guy they replaced particularly on offense. Same in the games when Motiejunas was serving as the C instead of Dwight - you get basically the anti-Dwight at C. Meanwhile Golden State is 2-deep at each poisition with guys who do similar things, with Draymond Green being the real glue insofar as he can play any number of positions and bridge between the lineups. But other than when David Lee comes in for Green and some lineups with Livingston, you didn't have a situation where a completely different player was in the game that didn't really fit. Incidentally, the Warriors starting 5 played over 800 minutes together during the regular season. The Rockets opening night 5 (arguably it wasn't even that due to Jones absence) played only 360 minutes together.
If you want a floor spreader at the point that can shoot it and make a play for you then sign Seth Curry. Seth Curry, starting at the 1 next season would: 1. Be a top 10 3-point shooter both in volume and percentage in the NBA. 2. Move Ariza down to the 5th offensive option behind James/DMo/Seth/Dwight and run Ariza's offensive efficiency through the roof since he would not have to take an overwhelming volume of hurried 3's with defenders close to him. Ariza's offensive efficiency would revert back to his 2013-14 season when he was at best 4th in the offensive pecking order in Washington behind Wall/Beal/Gortat. 3. Make Harden (and by extension Dwight) even more potent in the pick and roll with Hardens turnovers being minimized because of defenders not being able to cheat off their defensive assignments without getting burned. Harden could give up the ball even quicker in favor of true wide open looks that were shot by players that are superior shooters in their roles. 4. Make our half-court offense lethal so that when we are playing the better offensive teams that don't make a lot of mistakes and turnovers that we could play highly efficient offense to match and beat their offensive efficiency.
Just a reminder to you: Our best half-court offense over the last 2 seasons involved having either Troy Daniels or Isaiah Canaan spotted up on the perimeter. Those 2 guys are elite shooters who can rise and release almost in a millisecond. For that reason they had to be face-guarded. Jason Terry is not and has not ever been in their league as shooters from distance. And as he ages his release has gotten even slower and his hips shorter, and his blow by quicks are slowing. Curry, while not quick-footed, is more accurate with a quicker release from 30 feet than Terry is from 23 feet. We need 2 elite shooters. Seth Curry is an elite shooter. And he could be signed for a 2-yr minimum deal.
Couldn't be more serious. Why do you think Morey signed Troy Daniels and drafted Isaiah Canaan? And why was our offense so lethal when we had one of them on the floor?
And by "best" you mean: Isiah Canaan: -6.7 points per 100 possessions on offense when on the court in 2015. Troy Daniels: shot 32% this year. Just a reminder - basketballholic/jopatmc/he who has many names is a complete clown who shouldn't be trusted about anything, ever, in history.
Just reposting that Marc Stein article on Sergio Llull from March of this year. http://espn.go.com/blog/marc-stein/post/_/id/3625/3625 That scouting report sounds like a nice guard to go with Harden. Aside from just "talent", I wonder if there is any connection between the Rockets interest in Marc Gasol and Sergio Llull. Maybe they could be teammates in Houston. ;-)
BBH's point, and it's a valid one, is that this team needs more shooting. I don't know if Seth is the answer, but it's something that needs to be addressed across our roster.
People have put a lot of names out there in this thread, but the first question that needs to be answered is how much resources (in terms of both salaries and trade assets) the team is going to allocate to acquire whoever it is that constitutes this "guard help." Whether any individual guy makes sense depends a lot on the answer to this resource allocation question.
