In the worst way. The Rockets have been a poor shooting team for a very long time. There is no excuse of this. Last year gave me some hope, but with Sura's injury, Barry's old age, and the boneheaded deals on Padgett and James, the team's shooting has gone south again. Can't win if you can't put the ball in the hole. The current group of "scrubs" can't even hit wide open lay ups, it's pathetic. Alston missed two lay ups within thirty seconds against LA. Bogans regularily misses point blank shots. It is really sad.
James was inconsistant,too. Barry and Padgett perhaps shoot consistantly, but can't play very long. Sura？He is a warrior, but not a shooter. We have in fact more shooter than last season, but haven't much luck.
i like the idea of bringing cassell back and starting him over rafer...hell, while we're at it, bring in vspan from europe and really put the heat on alston to start playing well if he wants to continue to get minutes
we will have Sura next year.. I dont see cassell and Sura playing for the same team without problems.. but if Sura retire.. I say we bring home Sam-I-am
We do need shooters, but we do not need JJ Reddick like some have mentioned. I watched a lot of Reddick this year and was just not impressed at all. In the LSU game I think we got a good scouting report on JJ. If he is closely guarded and has a hard time getting his shot off he becomes a liability on your team. He can't pass, rebound, play good D, or basically have any strength outside of shooting. In the NBA he will not get the open looks that he got in college and without open looks he will be a bad player. I might take him with our 2nd round pick though.
I do think there will be open looks, but not for JJ. The other team will know that that is basically the only way he can hurt them and when you have a shooter like that you do not leave them open. So if you double team Yao then that will leave someone open but if you were a coach would the person you leave open be JJ? Didn't think so, and opposing coaches won't leave him open either therefore what good will he do the team and make him worthy of a first round selection?
pathetic is the first word that comes to mind when i think of out shooting abilities. a little plus plus with a little thrown in.
A dead-accurate shooter, who WILL either get open looks or lighten the doubles on either Yao or T-mac. If the opposition's gameplan is to prevent leaving either Yao, T-Mac, or Redick open, then it's a 2 on 1 game with the rest of the team vs. a double. JJ had entire gameplans out there to stop him this year. He won't have them in Houston.
You got it. All we need is players that the opposing team cannot afford to leave open so that Yao and Mac can go one on one with their defenders. That's why I'd love to surround Yao and Mac with 2 JJs and one bruising PF that can rebound and decent basketball IQ.
If he can attract 1/3 of the attention that Yao/Mac draws in Houston, the Rockets will be a favorite to win the thing for the next 6 years.
Honestly, I think we are set if we can add two shooters, one through the draft and one through the MLE. Stro and Juwan can handle the 4, Yao and Deke have the 5, and TMac has 40+ minutes at 3 (hopefully). That leaves 8 minutes at 3 plus starter's minutes at 2 if we have Head do nothing but shoot threes all summer long. Head had a great percentage early in the year, so if he works on shooting over the summer, the backup 1/2 spot is his for the taking. I would have Bogans doing the same thing and Frahm has a good stroke, too. So, all we need to do is parlay our lottery pick and MLE into two good shooters or one awesome SG and we would be set.
One of the other reasons for our poor performance this year was that wesley was not hitting his shots in the beginning, and when we were winning he was hitting them. He is the open man that hit his shots that led us to the playoffs last year. This year, head, alston, bogans, brunson and co. have not been able to hit those open shots. At all. Now, i think head will improve and just had a rookie wall problem. I am mixed on rafer, and like it better when he drives to the basket, his layups are money. Wesley was pretty good last year, but now he's old. I'm no JJ fan and I think he is overrated, but he does have the shooting we need. He is unathletic, and has poor D and passing skills, but he knows how to get open and hit a jumper better than all our guards. With yao and tmac, it forces them to either leave him open or have one of the people doubling tmac to guard him. And honestly, JJ can hit a jumper over someone with more consistency than Tmac, and tmac can do it pretty regularly. JJ is basically a shorter kyle Korver, and with the lack of offense in the other three spots, im ok with giving up some defense on the bench to get another 10-14 pts from it.
