If you took the three best people on the court (considering Ron will start) It'll be T-Mac, Ron, Yao. Considering Shane will start in Ron's Place... T-Mac, Scola, Yao.
Let's get this straight. We have four viable options: (In order of priority) 1. Down low to Yao. Self explanatory. 2. Tmac creates - to the rack / great pass / signature and1 J's,etc. (Hopefully with Artest no more crazy fade aways) 3. Artest penetrates / drains a 3. (Can't argue with his last season's 38% 3-point shooting. Hell of a lot better than Alston's 35% and Tmac's horrific 29%) 4. Luis Scola does what he does best with his low post moves.
Thanks to Artest actually. We might have a motion offense instead of Battier just sitting the corner and jacking up a three. Of course though, our bench would not improve at all...
Our bench would definitely improve. Artest or Battier would be coming off the bench, and in itself is great. With the addition of (hopefully) Dorsey, Barry, and (hopefully..) a healthy Francis, we have one of the deepest benches in the league. That is, if we can resign that damn Landry.
Get the ball through sets of hands early. Try Yao low, see if they throw a double. Try Mac on the wing, see if he can get by his man. Try Ron inside, see if he can overpower his man. Whoever has the hot hand, keep going to 'em. Rafer's going to obviously be the key to this bus. If Rafer's injured, or making poor decisions, his arse can sit and McGrady can switch to the 1 - Battier comes in, sets up in a corner and Mac creates. Just getting a little firm thinking about the possibilities.
You know what would be amazingly awesome but incredibly time consuming? If someone could find all/most/some of Matt Bullard's in-game explanations of the Rockets' offense using his TV pen and then compile them into one super entertaining video, then that would make a lot of ClutchFans happy. Or at least I think it would. Probably too time-consuming though...
If Francis can squeeze out one last ounce of an exceptional season we might have a better bench. Dorsey pretty much replaces Landry IMO. Landry had a knee injury which destroyed his explosiveness. Dorsey didn't. Artest coming off the bench will help, but if Battier comes off the bench, our defense might improve, but our offense will still be pretty lacking. Brent will provide a nice shooting touch to our bench. Overall though. It won't improve by much.
i see the first ten games or so and a tuneup for the rockets with battier in the starting lineup and artest on the bench. eventually as artest gets more accustomed, adelman will move him into the starting lineup and battier to 6th man. assuming battier is on the bench, i believe our bench will improve in all facets compared to last year. we might not have a louis williams or nick young type of player to provide instant offense off the bench, but we do have veteran leadership in barry, mutombo, and battier, improved defense now with two premier defenders on the team, and more spot up shooting. while we don't have a sparkplug on our bench, we do have a collection of role players who were starters in the past, and most importantly know how to play the game the right way. this might be even better than having an instant offensive option who lacks in defense. what our bench can do is provide capable substitutions where the players can easily gel into the game. the players we bring off the bench realize their capabilities and won't try to do too much, whereas in the past our production suffered when mike james or bonzi got into the game. and pull up stats on battier's 2nd and 3rd season in memphis where he played most of the games off the bench. Efficiency wise he produced a lot better than all of his seasons as a rocket. I can only imagine the defense he'll bring when well rested too. Don't worry we'll be fine.
