http://www.nba.com/features/resolutions_030101.html NBA.com New Year's Resolutions "Rockets - Launch an investigation into how 6-3 Steve Francis is the team's second-leading rebounder and examine viability of possible "Steve Francis Big Man Camp" for Summer 2003." Hmm.....our leading rebounder is Kelvin Cato or Yao Ming, right? They are doing a terrific job. James Posey has been getting rebounds, too. But what is with the forwards?!?! Maurice Taylor's achilles tendon is hurting a little. I hope it's not too bad. Most of his rebounds are offensive rebounds... Eddie Griffin gets rebounds but not too many. They should make it a priority for the forwards to go after rebounds. lol Steve Francis is one of the league leaders in rebounding. Sad.
Have you noticed how many Rockets are getting rebounds? A couple of games back all nine (might have been 10) had at least two rebounds, even MoTaylor had an offensive board. I think in last night's game Rice had one board, and again eight people had at least two. Cato is leading the charge, but I like the gang rebound style. Now if that attitude will jsut spill over to defence and passing.
It's nice to see Stevie (and Cat) crashing the boards and putting up impressive REB stats for guards, but I think it hinders us going the other way. It seems like we are one of the worst fast-breaking teams in the NBA despite having lightning quick gurads and youth on our side. I think a big reason for this is that the gurads pull down a lot of rebounds and then dribble it all the way down the court. I'd rather a more traditional rebounding philosophy. If the big men can take care of the rebounds, they can get a quick outlet pass out the guards who are already up the court. Yao's already shown a pretty good ability to throw a good outlet pass after a rebound. As a tangent, when will the Rockets' guards ever learn that passing the ball up the court is much faster than dribbling it (esp. against trapping defenses)? I think this old school philosophy would translate into a lot more easy baskets, which we don't get enough of.
Steve, Cat and Posey are just exceptional rebounders. If the Rockets were getting to many guards and sfs involved in offensive rebounding, opponents would make us pay in fast break points..they havent. The Rockets are just playing to their strength..
Hmmm....a good one was when Kelvin Cato like either blocked somebody or got a rebound and Steve Francis and James Posey and Cuttino Mobley and Cato threw a perfect pass to Steve and they did their fast stuff. I like watching that. We should have more fast break stuff. It's very exciting to watch. Fine...I guess we don't want to be like the Pistons. We have the leading rebounder in the NBA in Ben Wallace with 15 rebounds per game but our team is last in rebounding. I guess it's good that we all rebound...but I would like Yao to be getting double-doubles again.
