[sporting news]The missing ingredient for Houston: role players - Rockets

nice find.

while yao and tmac will deliver every night, it shouldn't be news ot anyone here that this team needs a better supporting cast. battier was a huge pickup. i like to see him as our robert horry. some rebounds, a block, a steal, and spacing for the post.

snyder should be an excellent pickup. he will supply defense and some spot up shooting the way mario ellie did.

luther can provide shooting punch off the bench.

our main problem is adding another post defender and settling the PG duties. after we will those two needs we will be a contender.

 

Which 3?

 

Oh, ROFL. The article is from 1997. My fault.

 

Ok. Now we're in the same situation.

 

I disagree with this article.

9/10 times the winning team has a guy that receives some legit MVP consideration. The remaining contending teams more often than not contain the rest of the MVP candidates with a couples teams that slip in here and there.

The 1997 Rockets did not have anybody on that received series consideration for an MVP.

The part I do agree with is that you need solid role players ...secondarily. If you don't have a stud on your team, you're role players will rarely, if ever, be enough.

 

Except we have the "not as big 2".

 

great find tinman. looks like this guy was pretty anti-barkley. but i can't blame him. barkley was pointing fingers and being over sensitive about his game deteriorating and he was getting fat.

it made me sad reading this but its the damn truth. and we are going through the same thing now. we got our badass superstar duo. it seems we got some pieces down when it comes to passing and spacing the floor. true that skip's shooting is a liability, but when tmac and yao are healthy, he wont be taking shots, battier will.

but damn, we are missing the rest. head's gotta get over that rookie wall, snyder's gotta bring that fire and swagger from the bench and not his attitude, vspan and jl3 gotta be that instant spark that will revitalize tmac and yao when we're in a slump, and juwan's gotta well...do everything better instead of having his negative value. and not to mention you still got mutombo, novak and hayes that needa fill their roles which i know they will.

oh god and let's not get started on flyin ryan.

if you think a bout it, thats a LOT of things our role players need to take care of. and man...i hope theyve been practicing this summer cause if they cant do it, we better move those guys and find someone who will do those "dirty jobs".

geez just lookin at this, its like our astros relievers are better than our bench. thats kinda sad.

 

I've said it once, I've said it a thousand times... HAKEEM was NOT as good as ever when charles got here. He slipped. He kept taking his off seasons off. He was NOT as good as ever. People refused to notice that he wasn't the same.

 

I'm guessing this was an article written by a Houstonian that covered the title seasons and didn't like the Barkley trade, because the facts don't back up his conclusions. When Barkley played, that team was great, and when he was out with injury, it was not. Period.

 

It may have been methodical, it may have been methodically boring, BUT

It was NOT boring.

In the first month of the season the team was 16-1, scored 100 or more points 11 times, scored 110 or more points 8 times, scored 115 or more points 6 times and scored 120 or more points 3 times

It doesn't matter how you get there (fast break, post up and dish out, some of both), getting there makes for exciting basketball.

Certainly the team was worse when Barkley was injured that year, BUT, don't forget Clyde only played 62 games, also, some of which put him and Barkley out at the same time.

It's hard to argue that Barkley didn't adjust his game as needed when he joined the Rockets. His scoring went down, though not dramatically, and he focused more on rebounding and assists. Nonetheless, something still didn't work and when it was all said and done, Barkley was the one doing most of the finger pointing...and hasn't really showed any love for Houston since retiring.

Looking at the box scores from the Jazz series, a few things pop out.
- Hakeem dominated pretty much the entire series. He may not have been as good as he was, but he was still dominant enough.
- Charles and Clyde were hit or miss.
- Matt Maloney may have played the worst game of professional basketball ever played in game 6. 24 minutes, 0-6. 0 rebounds, 1 assists, 0 steals, 0 blocks, 2 turnovers, 1 PF and 0 points. All while Stockton put up 25/13 and Hornacek added 18.

Barkley played a decent game, Drexler had his best game of the series. Hakeem didn't dominate, but was efficient (8-12 FG, 11 rebounds, 6 assists).

Conclusion = When it comes to Conference Finals and NBA Finals, you can't just not have good role players at most positions...you have to have good role players at EVERY position, and you can't afford for somebody you are counting on to at least do a few positive things to play solid minutes and give you absolutely nothing.

Regarding the current squad, I do think Juwan and Rafer are solid role players, but when it comes to the possibilities of them putting up zeros in a one or two playoff games, it is a frightening thought.

 

the rockets won two championships before barkley, fact, period.


everyone was on the court when the rockets lost to utah, barkley, hakeem, drexler, so I don't even know what point you're trying to make.

 

I don't remember anyone denying that. With Sam and Horry and with Hakeem dominating, the Rockets were an excellent team, their only weakness was that they could not beat Seattle. If they could get by without facing Seattle, they had a good shot. Barkley made it so they could beat Seattle, but then they had trouble with Utah (although they were a bit screwed by the refs in game 6 in '97 and Bark was injured in their first round series the next year.)

As I mentioned before, there was the ref screwjob. In addition to that, there was the fact that Utah had home court advantage, which they may not have had if the team had been healthy all year. You can't base personnel decisions on the possibility of injury, it is just part of the game. There is no reason to believe that the Rockets would have won again without making the trade, and they were better after the trade than before.

 

The tinman loves the old school

bring back Chris Jent!

He actually played a bit in the Australian NBL (for the North Melbourne Giants) He wasn't even that good playing here.