Every year for the past few years, I notice a lot of people on the board complain about certain players. Calling for a trade and the season just started. A few years ago it was Rafer for his bad floaters, last year it was Tmac for the drama. So who is it going to be this year? Who will be the person that makes the season horrible.... P.S. We all know that if the person gets traded we will all realize the value of the player afterward (except TMac's drama). So maybe we can be smart and not complain....
I think it will be between Brooks and Battier. Battier would be a different kind of scapegoat, because usually the scapegoat is someone who is doing more than fans think he should be (Rafer, T-Mac, Trevor). With Battier it would be the opposite, he'd be doing less than people think he should be. But yeah, for the more traditional scapegoat it would definitely be Brooks.
I don't see how anyone could blame Brooks given what a nice game he had. Could he have played better defense? Sure, but anytime you're dropping 26 points on 16 shots, plus 9 assists to 2 turnovers, I'm cool with your overall performance. Dude was carrying the offense along with Martin. Blaming him for Shannon frikkin' Brown making three pointers is silly anyway. Given Brown's track record, I think you have to give him that shot and hope he misses.
this thread has nothing to do with yesterdays game and more about guessing who the fans are going to blame for the season....
Spot on with both points, AB should have closed out better on Blake but the Brown 3s could not have been expected. I think ABs 9 assist are VERY encouraging, I know he is a score first PG but when his assist are high then I think he has had great evening. I think AB will be the Scape Goat this season, the guy's game will be dissected to no end and win or loss...someone will be pointing out something he did wrong.
You guys make a compelling argument for Brooks and I actually think I might be changing my mind about it, but I went with Kevin Martin. Martin is a great scorer, but it's no secret that sometimes he isn't all that efficient. It just seems to me that there will be some nights where the Rockets lose by 6 or 8 and Martin went 7-for-20 and 1-for-6 from the three point line and he gets heat. I'm not saying he wouldn't deserve it at that point, but he would definitely get it.
If we are talking about last night, I would say Lowry. Lakers got no chance if we had average contributions from Kyle. If Lowry's back spasm doesn't go away, he still will be the scape goat...
He's the hero Houston deserves but not the one it needs right now. So we'll hunt him. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oL7PSlUuWPs&feature=related
If this team is depending on Brooks to play the superstar on a frequent basis, that will be the bottleneck for the success of the whole team. He is a very good player, but he is not a great player. Also he is really more of a shooting guard than a point guard. We saw what this team could achieve last year largely riding on AB's back. That made for a lot of impressive nights for Brooks, but only a mediocre season for the team. If the Rockets play through Brooks all year primarily as a scorer (and not as a true point guard), then the team will probably do only a little better than last year. That approach will make for a very long and frustrating season.
it is sad that we hunt our own. Honestly I dont think Batman should get the vote, he is probably the smartest player in terms of bball IQ, his mentoring abilities and his attitude keeps him here longer... I just think he needs to get a new version of his Kobe book. Considering that everyone is going off the first game, I'd like to wait until he has played other players. I think Lowry & Martin or Lee will probably be. Lowry has the contract now, martin was scape goat in Sactown and Lee takes some bad shot selection
First game not looking so great for Battier. His layup was horrible and multiple air balls from the three.
I'm sorry but calling someone a scapegoat is like saying that we are just looking for someone to blame and I don't agree with that at all. If you have a great team on paper and they are not executing properly it has to be someone's fault. Rafer was horrible, he and Head were the main reasons why we lost in 2007, that is just a fact. Rafer's shooting percentage absolutely destroyed us and Head simply disappeared, Yao and T-mac both had better post season's that year than they had regular season's. T-mac in 2008 could have spent his summer doing rehab, but he didn't, as a result he was not ready for 2008/2009 season when we could've won it all. Imagine if Kobe just took off during the summer and did nothing, do you think the Lakers would be in the position that they are in today? I will say this, one of the things that I most hate about the NBA are players who don't realize that they simply don't have it anymore and the coach's that enable them. Budinger's defense needs to get good fast or we are in trouble. I respect Battier and all that he's done for us but at this point in his career he is a bench player and I sincerely hope that he proves me wrong.
Space Toga Shane looked really flat the entire game. Most likely a lot of people will touch on that this entire season. Bud will take his roster spot fairly soon. Shane is just getting to old.
