In my opinion , athleticism is the single most glaring weakness of our squad. There is no doubt we have skill : James, Chris, and Eric ( offensively ) AND : Luc , PJ , and Trevor ( defensively) We have shooting ; even if it's not the best , we certainly have enough strong shooters. We have intelligent players , vets who have been in the league 5+ years. We have strength : PJ , Clint has gotten much stronger , Harden , Chris , nene/ tarick But what we really lack is athleticism . This is a huge negative impact especially when we are not fresh and younger more athletic teams can use their hustle to their advantage. This is how teams have beaten us the last 10+ games . Our skill advantage is not consistent ( shooting) . Teams know they just have to weather a storm and can get back into the game and retake momentum by beating our perimeter defenders to the rim and out rebounding us when we play small . I think we should have enough athleticism if we ever get fully healthy , but in the meantime it's up to the coaching to mask the weakness by playing a rotation where players can be focused and give high effort at all times . Even unskilled , young teams can get hot and gain confidence .... And it's these runs that are killing us . When you play Ariza , Anderson , and Tucker on the floor at the same time ... They just aren't athletic enough to stop quick hustling units. As for rank ... I'd say we are solidly bottom half even when fully healthy ... But right now with injuries we are for sure in the bottom 5
You must not be watching the game if Gerald Green couldn't even get a mention. He may be our most athletic contributor.
Interesting Besides Green... how many Rockets can you say are above-average athletically and/or long ?
Gg is one player. Who might play 20 minutes a game if we get to see a full rotation . Ariza, Tucker and moute will all get minutes ahead of him . He's a nice addition for sure . But we still have too many players who are on the wrong side of 30 or are just not relatively athletic . Hell , even green is older now . Sure he's athletic in comparison to the rest of our squad ... But who knows how he will hold up if he does keep playin heavy minutes.
Clint and James and that might be it . We have some long guys like Ariza and moute , but neither is an elite athlete . Gordon and Paul would be the next tier and while they are above average in some aspects I'd say overall they are right about middle of the pack
Cp3, harden, Capela, Gordon, and Green are athletic. The rest of the team isn’t athletic. I hope green eventually gets to start over Anderson. He’s a much versatile scorer with his ability to shoot 3s, drive to the basket and finish strong. He plays a lot how I thought Carmelo would play in this offense.
I am surprised that very few people on here talk about how the rockets really have few players that can create their own shot. Call it athleticism or not but when it comes down to it so many teams out there have several players that can dribble drive and create. Even “lesser” teams such as the Wizards, Bucks, and Lakers have multiple two dimensional players who can put up points very quickly. What the Rockets gained this year in Paul and Luc they lost in Lou Williams who was a critical bench player that made the rockets seemed unbeatable at times last year with high output as a bench player. The rockets have three players that can dribble drive. Three. Especially as starters when you talk about Ariza and Anderson these guys are sub par as they are one dimensional offensively. It kiils me to see Ariza not knowing what to do with the ball in his hands if he doesn’t have the 3 ball. How many times have you seen him and Anderson not being able to penetrate—because they don’t have that skill set. This makes them liabilities on offense and puts so much pressure on harden, paul, and Gordon night in and night out. If those 3 don’t get going the rockets have no one that create and penetrate spreading out the offense. It’s unbearable to watch this team at times. They desperately need another start wing or scoring wing.
I'd say what the rockets really need at the wings is a player who can pump fake the 3 and then drive to the rack quick for a slam ( and even better if they have the ability to pass if the help D comes ) and beat the help D . Green might be that player . Luc is probably adequate as well .
So you're basically saying trade our most nonathletic player (Ryan Anderson) for a young gun and we'll improve. I think CF agrees but too bad his 20mil/year with 3 years left contract is unmovable.
mediocre to below average athleticism at the SF position is a problem. ariza used to be an exceptional athete but he's def lost it over the years tucker is a below average athlete. it really hurts the rockets in terms of defense, slashing, and easy buckets in transition getting green was a great pickup because he gives the rockets more "pop"
I think Clint IS athletic . But even Clint isn't a top 5 athlete at the C spot .... And Clint alone isn't enough to pick up the rest of the lineup when we go with our unathletic bros . Also I think Clint's heel is effecting him .
