He's the 9th/10th man. Of course were going to win when he plays that many mins. That just means the team took care of business to give the end of the rotation guys some burn
Not always true. There's some games when Nene doesn't play at all and Harrell gets all the backup center minutes. One of them against Golden State.
There were two Landry, the explosive Unbelievably athletic phenom, and the the post knee surgery one. Even though he was effective after that knee injury, he lost the "it" factor.
Not really. Trez has everything Landry had minus the quickness. But Trez has a midrange game, he finishes around the rim pretty good, and he's a WAY better defender. Landry was more aggressive in shooting the ball
Love the progress montrez is showing. Reminds me a little bit of Amare Stoudemire but in a good way. Love the hustle he brings and plays with. His defense seems to be improving and he's learning from his mistakes (that he still occasionally makes)
Don't remember which guy said it, but on the Rockets broadcast the other day they mentioned that MDA stated to them that he normally prefers sticking with a 9 man rotation but Trez has forced him to expand it to 10 to allow him to get more minutes. So I would say you are exactly right that the coach really likes his level of play. They also mentioned that he has a nice jumper from midrange that he showed in the valley, but he is reluctant to use it when playing with the Rockets. I like his energy, you can actually see the team play harder when he is on the floor.
Harrell's playing as well as I had hoped. As a backup big, what more can you ask for than an energy guy who finishes at a high rate, rebounds pretty well, and blocks shots? He's been great and the deficiencies in his game haven't hurt us at all, he's great in his role. Sure, he could develop more range, pass better, and defend the post better but you could say the same thing about Capela. We got some gems in the past few drafts.
I'm going off of the Van Gundy pronunciation... Oops now I realize you were talking about first name .. I thought I had spelled the last name wrong .
Harrell and Dekker are the biggest surprises on the team right now. I love the energy they play with.
I actually like Harrell in the starting lineup. If D'Antoni's goal is to try to play the same as if Capela were in the lineup, clearly Harrell is the better athlete and pick and roll option to Nene. He also gives you better interior defense and rebounding than Nene, and considering how young he is, he's more capable of giving you big minutes if you need him to. I like Nene, but I think he's better suited to that second team rotation that he's been playing in since the start of the season.
I'm still amazed he didn't get run last year. He showed similar flashes of energizing the team yet JB wouldn't play him.
If you want to emulate Capela I think it's worth it to give Nanu some burn, see what he's got. The dude is young but he's built like a grown ass man and has bounce. And his free throws are cool.
