I think Mobley is a great talent but I've noticed that ever since he's come back from the ankle injury with the exception of the first game back against the Kings, the Rockets' assists have plunged and Yao is virtually invisible. Mobley plays with wreckless abandon and total disregard for his team. When you watch the Rockets on the floor with Mobley, it looks like 5 guys down at the YMCA. Althought the Rockets are able to be competitive when their offense runs almost exclusively through their guards, their game totally lacks fluidity and they struggle. When they get the ball inside to Yao, however, the game looks so easy. Cutting lanes open up and defenses collapse thereby opening up the perimeter. Yao plays like I wish Cuttino and Stevie would play---unselfishly. He looks for the path of least resistance and as a result is very judicious in his shot selection vs Mr. Cuttino "I've never seen a shot I didn't like" Mobley. Some of the shots I've seen him take are absolutely horrible. He's got that "hero mentality" where he's always got to put up these circus shots that make the ESPN highlight reel when they go in but kill momentum when they don't (and they often don't go in when you look at his shooting percentage). I thought the Rockets played much better with Hawkins in the lineup because they had to rely on each other. If Mobley could ever learn to let the game come to him, he would have a shot at becoming a perrenial all-star because his shooting percentage would go up a lot higher and the Rockets would win more games and get even more recognition nationally. Then, we could consistently see the Rockets build on the fantastic potential we saw in that gem of a victory over the Kings. That one was a beautiful display of teamwork and as a result we shellacked one of the better teams in the NBA. The guard-focused Rockets we saw last night have to win in overtime against one of the worst teams in the NBA.
I think that if we set a lot of "off the ball" plays for Mobley, he can become much more effective. I think people have alerady mentioned the type of plays Reggie Miller always gets, and I think that's brilliant. Coming off double screens and stuff like that. Mobley is actually a very high percentage shooter. The reason for his low shooting percentage is those heaves he makes when he goes one on one. In a season, we'll run more of the offense through Ming, putting less pressure on Francis. Francis will still dominate the ball, and Mobley would do great coming off screens for passes from Yao or Steve. Unless, of course, we are able to acquire someone who's a clear upgrade.
Well Cat is not a perfect player and needs to hone his game to fit better in the new scheme, his defense was right on last night. He hounded Eddie Jones and flat shut him down in the 2nd and 3rd quarters. That is when we made our big push. Cat may have taken some ill adviced shots but he made nearly 50% (9-20). Without those shots we would have surely lost the game. Neither team was shooting particularly well and Miami is a VERY physical team and not a bad defensive team. They were fronting Yao and really clogging the middle. Besides, aren't there enough "Cat bashing" threads..
Fine, fine! Cat sucks and so does Francis! We should get rid of them both and bring back Mat Malloney and Michael Dickerson. They did such a good job as our starting back court back in the days before Mobes and Franchise ruined everything.
nothing you said equates to mobley being a cancer. does he take shots he shouldn't sometimes? yes does he make the team chemistry worse? NO! is he a bad guy? NO! is he a bad guy in the community? NO! is he always busting his ass? YES! i think its pretty offensive and idiotic to make a subject title that is just not true. mobley is a great guy for the team. there is nothing about mobley that makes him a cancer...terrible 1st post. another reason why i think people with under 5 posts should have the threads they start screened.
Mobley scores a lot yes. He's damn inconsistent though, and shoots low percentage shots. I know that Miami wouldn't do it, but I was just playing with the idea(YET ANOTHER TRADE IDEA) --Mobley and Maurice Taylor for Eddie Jones. Actually, anyone on the Rockets would should be considered trade bait except for Francis and Yao Ming. Let's have a garage sale, and see if we can get ONE GOOD POWER FORWARD for the rest. I know...bash this Mobley hate thread....go ahead...But what else are fans for but to come up with wacko trade ideas? I'm for anything that will make the Rockets a serious 'heavyweight' contender to the NBA champion LA Lakers. Right now, since we haven't played Shaq with the Lakers yet, we still don't know for sure.
I think all of this is a little outdated considering Mobley had a pretty solid game last night and has had more solid games than not since he has come back off the injury. Ive always been hard on Mobley, but Im going to give him credit where its due. He has stepped up his defense (although still sporadic) and is not taking as many ill-advised shots as he has in the past. Mobley is growing as a player, just like our team, as a whole, is.
I'll admit that perhaps my tread topic was a little sensationalistic but I do believe that Mobley does damage team chemistry. Let me clarify. I think Mobley is a great talent. I do think he is causing problems with the Rocket's offensive flow. Yes, last night he was 9 for 20 and Francis was something like 7 for 17. But Yao had as many shots as our backup point guard for crying out loud. Yao had 6 shots and made 5 of them. That's efficiency. I suppose Mobley had a pretty good outing at first glance (he definitely played good D on Jones up until the 4th when fatigue set in) but let me submit this idea. Do you honestly think the Rockets would have won had Yao not been in the middle chasing down those errant shots jacked up by Mobley and Francis. He had a huge 8 offensive boards. That's a solid total rebounding night for many PF's in this league. He scored 15 on 6 shots by playing smart and getting to the line. He changes the game. Let's compare the total assists and the number of shots Yao got in the 2 wins vs the Spurs and Kings with the two games against the Grizzlies and Heat. When Yao was involved, everyone was involved. When we go to a guard-centric offense, we simply have to hope that Mobley has a night like last night and that Franchise hits clutch 3's with 5 seconds left in regulation. My contention is that we should have NEVER even gone to overtime vs the LOWLY Griz and Heat to begin with. The guards need to get Yao and Kenny involved. We have a GREAT team with players who can D up and put the ball in the hole. WE DON'T NEED FRANCHISE AND MOBLEY TO TAKE 20 SHOTS A PIECE EVERY NIGHT. Again, not denying Mobley's great talent but you've got to admit that most nights he's not going to help the team in the FG% category when he takes 20 shots. What if we could get an Andre Miller for Mobley in a straight up trade? Imagine a true point guard like Miller alongside Franchise.
This is getting real tiresome. And fans are for ... maybe just maybe... supporting the team instead of asking for every player to be traded away..? And EDDIE JONES?? First I think you need to take another look, second just because he had a decent game against the rox... you're willing to trade for him? Impulsiveness will get you into trouble ya know. And also, I think the Rox are starting to become and will be a serious 'heavyweight' contender to the Lakers. They seem to relish in playing good teams, yet become lax when playing the sub .5 teams. I'm not too worried about them, they'll learn. Sometimes it takes making the mistake a few times, but they'll know they have to bring it night in and night out. Also they'll learn their current gameplan isn't working too well. Remember they played very well against some of the better teams in the league.. Spurs, Sixers, Kings, Sonics, and so on. I'd rather them win all their games, but winning against the good teams is the next best thing. We're seeing good potential that starting to show itself in games. Wait and see.
I don't agree that he's a cancer. But the Rockets have not played as well with him in the lineup. He's got to learn that the offense does not run through him -- that it runs through Francis and Yao and that he is a third option. I still think that the Rockets would be better off if Cat was coming off the bench to provide "instant offense" than they are using him as a starter.
I think the guards just got lax playing these lower teams. They started to just jack up some shots thinking they would have an easy time of it. Actually their offense has gotten much much better since Mobley came back. You can see from the scoring in the Kings, Grizzlies, Clippers, and Heat games. The thing that has deteriorated is, seemingly, defense. And this isn't Cat's fault either, he plays good D. It seems the rox bring it when playing good teams though, and I'm not so sure Ming wants the ball so much. But these games will teach them valuable lessons, I'd rather they came now then later in the season.
I wouldn't trade for Eddie Jones bc he's just another version of Mobley (great individual talent but poor team player) and I don't think I'd give up any of our PW's unless someone wanted to trade for Mo Taylor. I'd love to see a guy like Andre Miller in at the point who is a pass first, shoot second type player. And when he does need to shoot, he's demonstrated that he can. We don't need another shooter, we need another passer.
Cat was great last night, and very important to the win, BUT the offense is beginning to really stagnate again since his return. He's got to start believing more in the motion offense that was so fluid while he was out. What more proof does he need? With Yao and Steve as the focal points of the offense and everybody else feeding off them the team beat Sacramento, San Antonio, and Phili, 3 of the best teams in the league. With the return of the guard oriented offense the team has lost to Memphis and LAC, and barely squeaked by Miami, 3 of the worse teams in the league. I was hoping that the success the team had while he was out would have humbled Cat a bit and maybe gotten him to see that he’s not Michael Jordan and the team is better off when he’s playing like a role-player should, but that doesn’t seem to be the case. I don’t think a trade is necessary yet, but Cat needs to change his ways soon.
This is an intriguing idea. I could see Mobley being a great 6th man like Bobby Jackson. He would be a good instant "O" guy off the bench. I know it sounds outlandish but I wonder how it would work to have Juaqin Hawkins start again and then have Mobley come off of the bench.
Ever since the beginning of the season, I've thought Eddie Jones would look nice on this team. Are we so sure that Miami won't make that trade? How about we take them off the hook with 2 of their contracts: Brian Grant Eddie Jones for MoT KT Rice Mobley I'd definitely do that trade. Jones has a nice outside shot that would look better, and has looked better. He also provides some great D, and can boast being on winning teams and having winning experience in the league. He's also 6'5 or 6'6, and that alone is an upgrade. We lose serious depth, and MURDER our cap situation, but maybe it's worth it. That team is too damn good to lose: Ming/Cato Grant/Griffin T-Mo/Boki/Hawkins Jones/Hawkins Francis/Moochie A bit weak at the SF spot, but we have the perfect role players, and incredible D. Grant is EXACTLY the type of player that compliments Yao, and helps Griffin learn. Jones is Jones. He brings it every night, can go off for 30, plays off the ball (doesn't need to dominate it), and is more of an all-round player than Mobley. But, like I said, our cap situation is down the drain. But then again, if it's a contender, shouldn't Les be all for it? As for Miami's gains, they improve their cap situation. Mobley has one of the best contracts in the league, KT has only this year, and Rice has this year and one more...MoT may or may not be a loss for them. With MoT, Caron, and Mobley solid role players, they can bring in one marquee player and one very solid player next year with all their money. Don't tell me this ruins their cap situation. Grant and Jones make 11M each this season, and have 4 more seasons to go. Meaning, together they make roughly 100M including this season. Rice has roughly 20M over 2 seasons. Mobley has 5M this seasons, and 3 seasons after, so a total of roughly 23M. MoT has roughly 40M (including this season). KT makes 1M. That's a total of no less than 82M and no more than 90M. Roughly in that area. So, in the long run, they are better off. In the short run, they weren't going to get space for Grant or Jones, but actually get 1M relief from KT, and 10M the following season from Rice. I've crunched the numbers. Unless Miami think they'll get a better deal, this is a nice deal for both sides, especially considering they're rebuilding.
I thought it was kinda of funny when in the post game interview, Bill Worrell said to Cat, "you had amazing numbers today (all looking at the monitor now) 25 pts, 5 rebounds, and uhm...." cause I think they realized that he only had 1 assist.
WELL PUT. I AGREE. Don't mean to hate on Cat BUT NO ONE PLAYER IS GREATER THAN THE ROCKETS. Let's remember that during our back to back championship years we really didn't have any other GREAT player other than Olajuwon (save for Clyde at the tail end of his career). We won those championships with TEAMWORK and a bunch of role players who ended up becoming well known bc of what THE TEAM accomplished. Who was Robert Horry before those two championship runs? Who was Sam Cassell? Who was Mario Elie? I want the Rockets to bring home more championships rather than see Mobley break the record for most circus shots being showcased on ESPN.
