Its been overstated many times about the pg situation in houston. Put me in the boat of those who think that alston is ok, but maybe a bench player. I also think the kind of pg functions different in this offense. We know the princeton offense allows every player to be a passer,cutter, or scorer. We also know the players have to be smart and decisive. The problem comes when fans try to put pure pg's in this system. Everyone know I'm not a "system" guy, but I think the traditional andre miller type is overblown. When sacramento was under adelman, they had 4 guys avg at least 4 asst per and they were thy highest scoring teams in the league. In fact if u look at bibby, he became more scorer than asst man. Career Averages Rebounds * YR TM G GS MIN FG FG% 3P 3P% FT FT% STL BLK TO PF OFF DEF TOT AST PTS 98-99 Van 50 50 35.2 5.2-12.1 .430 0.3-1.5 .203 2.5-3.4 .751 1.6 0.1 2.9 2.4 0.6 2.1 2.7 6.5 13.2 99-00 Van 82 82 38.5 5.6-12.6 .445 0.9-2.6 .363 2.4-3.0 .780 1.6 0.2 3.0 2.1 0.9 2.8 3.7 8.1 14.5 00-01 Van 82 82 38.9 6.4-14.1 .454 1.3-3.5 .379 1.7-2.3 .761 1.3 0.1 3.0 1.8 0.6 3.1 3.7 8.4 15.9 01-02 Sac 80 80 33.2 5.6-12.3 .453 0.6-1.7 .370 1.9-2.4 .803 1.1 0.2 1.7 1.7 0.5 2.3 2.8 5.0 13.7 02-03 Sac 55 55 33.4 6.0-12.7 .470 1.0-2.5 .409 2.9-3.4 .861 1.3 0.1 2.3 1.7 0.6 2.1 2.7 5.2 15.9 03-04 Sac 82 82 36.3 6.4-14.3 .450 1.8-4.6 .392 3.7-4.5 .815 1.4 0.2 2.1 1.8 0.8 2.6 3.4 5.4 18.4 04-05 Sac 80 80 38.5 7.0-15.8 .443 1.6-4.5 .360 4.0-5.2 .775 1.6 0.4 2.5 2.4 1.0 3.2 4.2 6.8 19.6 05-06 Sac 82 82 38.6 7.3-16.9 .432 2.3-6.1 .386 4.2-4.9 .849 1.0 0.1 2.4 2.1 0.4 2.6 3.0 5.4 21.1 He had some yrs when people talked about him as one of the best pg's yet his asst totals were down from his Vancuver days. That's one reason why I think Rafer is gone and brooks or another "scorer type" might be given a shot. A younger, smart version of francis would be ideal, but that's not happening. Calderson would work, but I don't see him leaving. Udrih played well affter Minny just let him go. All aong, I've thought Gordon fits this role to a T. I think when u look at when the kings went from a fun team to a serious threat is when they removed the inconsistent shooting of Williams and replaced him with the accurate, dependable shooting of bibby. I think that's what the rx will do. The pg in this offense is very similar to the pg in the triangle. He has to be a good shooter, decent ballhandler to be effective or its just not the same.
Well of course you can't compare Sacramento to Houston and you can't compare Bibby to Rafer. Actually I think Bibby is more of a scorer than a passer. Rick didn't have McGrady, he didn't have Yao in Sac-Town. I think the situation is different right now. Rick first of all wants to get easier shots for T-Mac, Yao. Of course with his offense we need a guy who can shoot well, but first of all we need a solid passer.
You get easier shots for Tmac by moving him around, similar to Reggie Miller. Not the post up one on one offense, which takes a lot out of you. We need ball movement that evident in the winning streak. Everyone touched the rock and we scored at a high clip. We went back to the Tmac dominate the ball offense and our scoring sufferred as a result. Yes, he dropped 40 something, however, we got an L. Ball Movement creates W's. Ask LeBron and Tmac.
Disagree. This team doesn't have the type of scoring and passing from non-PG's that would allow it to have just a decent passer at the PG position. Having Artest, Yao and T-Mac in the line-up would change that because I would run any of those 3 guys at the high post. But right now, we need a passer at PG. We need someone to decide whether we're going to the post or uptempo. Sacramento's decision was easy - no dowminant low post player was available. Also, Bibby is a good passer. In Sacramento he became a good passer with less volume of passes. Meaning, his quality of passing didn't decrease. But his responsibility for getting an assist did. Always look at asst/to ratio, not just assists. You should know that leebigez. Ben Gordon is a barely decent passer at SG, how do you think he will be able to maintain that when teams target him as the PG? I think we need 2. We need Alston and we need a scorer to be able to alternate between T-Mac being a facilitator and scorer. We are not the Kings. We don't have Webber/Divac. As you mentioned, their starting line-up was averaging 20 assists. We are faaaaaar from that right now. We have something they wish they had - dominance in the low post. This is T-Mac and Yao's team, and the team should be built accordingly IMO.
Three comments: 1 We need Tracy to adapt to Adelman's offense. Right now, he is the biggest obstacle preventing the motion offense from operating 90% of the time. He holds the ball too long and doesn't move enough without the ball. 2 We need a PG who will make the opposing PG use energy to play defense. This is Rafer's biggest failing as a player and is why opposing PGs seem to torch the Rockets so often. They only have to play one side of the floor. Watching other teams bait Rafer into shooting drives me crazy. 3 The PG needs to be a scoring threat for Adelman's offense to work best. You need less of a pure assist man and more of a balanced, versatile offensive player that can shoot, attack the rim, move without the ball, etc. You also must have a backup PG that is worthy of playing in the NBA. Besides injuries, inferior PG play was, by far, our biggest weakness last season. We also need to get more athletic.
1 Yes, TMac is great, elite. Yes, TMac slogs down the O, particularly when he is off. However, if we take Alexander/Morey at their word it has to work WITH McGrady. 2 Yes, our Point has to be reckoned with. Our Point also has to have some D and the absolute abity to nail the kick-out, open 3. 3 Our Point has to be a, perhaps the, team leader. Rafer, when he is good ("Good Rafer") etc etc. Rafer canNOT be the back-up PG in Houston. He has been the very big minute starter for way too long to become the back-up and not blow up the team's chemistry. It is way too much to expect of any player short of an old, old vet basically hangin' on.
What I'm saying is adelman knows how to coach and he'll coach to his talent. His teams were very different from portland to sacramento. He had a player like tracy in clyde. His pg was terry porter who was more scorer than passer. Eventhough he had a couple of 9 asst seasons, that was in the 80's when they would avg 115ppg. In Sacramento, the erractic shooting of williams was shipped out after 2 seasons. I brought up Gordon because because he can be a terry porter type of pg. He's more scorer than passer, but when u have tracy, that's not a bad thing. He can do what rafer do which is run it up and give it to tracy. Someone brought up tracy being a ball stopper. You know why many of these sets don't work? Personel. If the rox run a pnr with anyone other than tracy, the defense is never threatened. The 4 that's involved isn't a good mid range / finisher at the cup whether it scola,landry, or hayes. Also if the guard other than tracy is in the pnr, none threaten the paint or midrange area. So what happens is a pnr that's wasting time and clogging the lane. None have the respect of getting in the paint or shooting the 16fter behind the pick.
Adelman's previous teams created much of their offense with passing from the high post to cutters. With Yao as a focal point, that's just not going to happen as much. The playmaking will have to come from somewhere else, and point guard is as good a candidate as any.
Why do people still think the offense is failing because of Tracy Mcgrady. When the offense was good at the beginning of the season he was playing within it. When it picked back up in the middle of the season he was playing within it. It wasn't until Yao went down and NOBODY else could make a bucket that he had to take over the playmaking. The same thing happened in his first season here when JVG tried to force feed Yao, Tmac had to take over to win games. Unless we upgrade in a few areas (not just PG) and get healthy than it is in this teams best interest to play that way. Adleman's not just gonna sit back and let one person destroy the offense if it isn't working. It was working and that's why they played that way. If we would have just "run the offense" than you would have seen some where 18 in a row happens t-shirts. You're third point is spot on though. It doesn't just go for the PG though. We need every single rotation player to be MULTI-TALENTED. They need to be able to exploit defenses when their open. Right now our guys are so 1-dimensional that they think that the only thing you can do when open is shoot.
The point guard in the triangle is comparable to Adelman's system--they're both motion offenses. I also agree that T-Mac needs to do a much better job of playing within the system. How many times have you seen him walk it up instead of running? He also needs to cut hard without the ball. The very first play Bobby Jackson scored on after the trade was a hard cut to the basket for an easy, open layup off of an assist from Landry. What's sad is the way the whole team went to hell in the playoffs--how many times did Jackson/Alston/McGrady dribble the ball up and shoot immediately, without one pass? Or even worse dribble, dribble, dribble until there was no time left on the shot clock? Alston's not bad, but he's not great by any means. You don't need to trade for one of the league's elite PG's to get an upgrade on him.
exactly right. however i don't see an upgrade at pg available on the market, unless you're talking about a backup to rafer. here's hoping brooks can learn the team defense so he can get more minutes.
When was the offense good at the beginning of the season? Seriously. The offense looked worse than JVG's ever did (that's saying a lot) until T-Mac went down with the injury. Then the offense started clicking (admittedly with some tweaks for Yao and Scola being in the starting lineup). When T-Mac came back he was not disruptive to the offensive flow but I never thought he was comfortable in it and every other play it looked like he just "hung out" somewhere, or pounded the ball. I personally didn't see T-Mac play any different than he always has with any consistency. It took Yao a long time to adjust too. And I'll admit he disappointed me early more than anyone. He looked utterly clueless and sounded resistant to what Adleman & Sikma were preaching. Adleman had to make changes just to give him some confidence, and Yao finally seemed to adjust more and more until... I'm not bashing T-Mac, but I want to see Adleman add some wrinkles and see the team be more responsive next year. And we should expect improvements in the second year of his system.
The first six games. I get your point though. The team has a tendency to fall back to the "Tmac show" and stand around whenever he's on the court. This offseason should cure them of that.
Hard to argue with the results , but the offense didn't look good to me. And I hadn't seen Yao look that confused since his rookie year.
- u cant compare the Kings and the Rockets. the Kings had very good high posts in C Webb, Brad Miller & Valde Divac. That takes away the load of the PG to pass the ball. - Mike Bibby is a high basketball IQ player. He's a very smart cutter under Adelman's offense. He got no problems running Adelman's offense in his 1st year with the Kings. Also, Bibby used to be clutch. Can other scoring PG do the same job as Bibby did under Adelman? You can only hope. - I think the PG position is the most natural position for the Rockets to upgrade for more consistent scoring because PG handles the ball. But PG is also a difficult position to upgrade. There are 20+ teams want to upgrade their PGs.
I don't know if Adelman is trying to make this into his Sacramento team. For one we have an interior post presence and an elite swingman. Yao isn't going to be passing like Chris Webber and T-Mac isn't going to be cutting and moving 24/7. That just isnt T-Mac's game. It's a square peg in a round hole. T-Mac would rather walk up the court than run, and rather stand and watch than move.
