Signings of Anderson, Gordon Reflect Emphasis on Culture

THey dont have anything, lol.

 

Neither play any D either. Uthoff has similar length, near 40% 3 pt shooter to, but more overall scoring, ball handling and defensive abilities. Also a high effort guy.

Wiltjer is strictly a catch and shoot player.

 

True, don't forget Raja Bell though, he was a great defender.

 

D'Antoni has never had a top 10 defense. The highest his team has been ranked is 14th. For a coach that's been in the league a long time with multiple teams, that's awful. Just no way around it.

 

Actually, I agree with you on Dantoni. I don't really think he's a bad coach.

However, if these are his signings, then I think he's on the wrong track. Morey said we need to improve our defense, plus we lost Dwight.

As far as Vegas odds, yes they try to to get an even number on both sides, and they do that by having accurate odds. If their odds are wrong or skewed, they will lose money. People betting on their favorite teams are not the big money. 200/1 is the best market prediction we have. Anyone is free to get rich betting that if they think it's wrong.

 

From what I've read (often on this board), D'Antoni's past players have chided him for never even bringing up defense. It's pretty much been, "Outshoot the opponent; if we score more than they do, well, we'll win---that's common sense, right?"

I'm not trying to jump on the S*** On D'Antoni train. Plenty of passengers already. I have my fingers crossed. In any case, what we have now is far better than what we had last season.

 

Correction, he has never finished above 16th in defensive efficiency his whole career, except for 11-12 when he was fired in NY and had an 18-24 record. Think about that, in every full season he's had, he's never been more than below average defensively. His best season was just below average. That's insane.

We better hope this defensive guy we got has some sort of impact.

 

I don't understand the article in the OP, in terms of its promised topic, "culture."

Where does the author discuss what our two free agents bring in terms of culture? Are they great locker room guys? Consumate professionals? People who don't fart at practice? What?

Sorry if I missed it, but the article is more about the coach that our signings.

 

Yeah, I don't see the culture angle either. The Rockets are just grasping for anything basically and it can all go to hell quickly if we let defense be what it is. If Morey doesn't trade for some defense and we have this roster, we'll be fun to watch sure, but 40-45 is maximum and rock bottom is then once we trade Harden or try to.

I am positive about these signings, as rebuilding was not an option, but our future is pretty much ****ed. We will soon be in 09-10 territory where we sign guy like Ariza to carry us through the D'Antoni years. After that, I really hope Leslie is not around anymore and we can start to build a healthy, professional basketball organisation with a culture that players would like to join.

 

Edit - wrong thread. Shame on me.

 

Les panic culture.

 

I don't disagree with the author that we should have a better culture this season, and that will help us going forward. The Rockets will be better this season.

However it's hard for me to get too optimistic because when you look at things from a (overly simplistic but) bottom line approach: our team, at this point, hasn't really progressed a ton since we first acquired Harden. And that's not a good look. The idea was to acquire a superstar and then compete for a title. One curb stomping in a WCF is better than nothing, but it's still not where the Rockets, James, or the fans want to be.

But... given the fact that this year we have the Superest Super Team of All Time, the Warriors, I think we need to adjust our hopes and expectations for the Rockets. Someone with better writing skills and knowledge than me needs to write an article about how we need to enjoy/appreciate this season for what it is, and not what we'd hoped it'd be in the recent past.

Something like "Mr. Alexander or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying About a Title and Love High Scores" but better and more clever.

 

I'm more positive on this article than anyone else in this thread seems to be. I would absolutely agree with the premise that identity mismatch between Howard and the rest of the team was costing points on both ends, and suppressing the production of other guys who were, on the face of it, good partners for Harden. Watching last season's team was miserable. Watching this season's team will be fun.

There is no indication that the Rockets have either the staff or the players to field a top 15 defense, and that will prevent them from being even a marginal contender. That said, it's not like they gave up a top 15 defense to get to this point. They already sucked.

I expect a win improvement despite disagreeing with the coaching hire and being skeptical of bringing in two poor defenders, and my reasoning is mostly "it would be hard to be worse with James Harden than the cyclone of suck we watched last year.

 

How do you know that Les has been meddling? I keep hearing this, but I'm not sure where it came from. Did I miss something?

 

Serious?

 

It sounds like you disagree with how the Rockets define culture. Plenty of folks around the team have said, both directly and indirectly, that they believe the defensive problems from a year ago have a strong relationship with player engagement (the lack of). In other words, if the players were more engaged with the team on a day-to-day and possession-to-possession basis, then they'd likely be more committed on the defensive end overall.

I didn't think it would really be necessary to elaborate more on the relationship between D'Antoni and Anderson/Gordon, beyond the few paragraphs where I addressed and linked to their above-average shooting (particularly for the PF position, in Anderson's case) and willingness to play pick-and-roll basketball. D'Antoni has a vision for the system and identity with which he wants to play, and I don't think it's particularly hard to see that Anderson and Gordon fit within that. To me, the decision to go with D'Antoni is the broader narrative guiding this offseason, and Anderson/Gordon are natural fits within that framework.

This is a fair critique. I'd note that the personnel in New York (particularly Carmelo Anthony, a notorious ball-stopper) were not as suited to D'Antoni's style as the current roster, and there was also the undercurrent of everything that happened with Jeremy Lin. But yes, you can absolutely argue that the culture problems in Houston run deeper than simply the team not being united in 2015-16 on how they'd like to play. I personally haven't seen it, but it's a reasonable question.

 

I've heard from other articles and sources that Anderson, in particular, is a great locker room guy. And I've certainly never heard anything negative about Gordon. Although I enjoyed the article, I agree that piece of the article (which the author kind of leads with) really wasn't explored much in terms of the new additions to the roster.

 

The Cat, had no idea you were the author! Sorry I was so snarky. I think it's nicely written and makes some good points, and yes, I guess we just aren't aligned on what culture can mean.

Here's hoping the new guys bring a great change to the court and locker room both. I have no idea what their reps are in terms of attitude.

EDIT: thanks mightybosstone

 

I think you're misunderstanding the angle the author is coming from - this isn't about bringing in players that provide some hard to define intangibles, it's about establishing a set system that will (should) lead to results on the court. The "culture" he's referring to is a winning culture. By having an actual system w new players that match it increases the rockets chances of performing well.

When framed that way I actually agree w the author - we clearly had a similar "culture" in the 14-15 season as we did last year - I mean we had practically the same squad w the same veteran leaders that common perception said provided a positive "culture." Looking back, though, it's obvious that the only thing that provided that elusive "culture" was that we were winning. Winning cures all ills. Once we started terribly last year the wheels feel off in large part because there wasn't a structure in place for players to lean on.

I was not a fan of the d'antoni hire but I think the author brings up some salient points as to why it could work.

 

To be fair, even with those signings I think we can and will be better defensively this season. Sure Dwight can still be a a very good defender - that however also requires him to be mentally in it (which I'm sure he will be this season, because new team and stuff...)

The Rockets were a much better defensive team during the 14-15 season than they were last season, despite Dwight missing 41 games that season.

The coaching staff will just have to make this a priority in training camp, go back to the basics and implement a new system.

I'm certain that this team will surprise quite a few people. New players, can bring some much needed new energy, the old faces will probably be out to prove people wrong and under D'antoni we can all pretty much expect the offense to improve some more. Defensively too, I think that they will improve - they'll just need to get it done as a team, which actually might be easier when they aren't possibly relying on that one guy to bail them out....I can see them being a top 10 defense (just).