No, no, 008..... I was not insinuating your post was humorous. I was refering to my trade proposal. Hell, everyone knows your worth at least THREE #1 picks
That's what happens when you hire an average head coach. The Rockets are fortunate that Yao has improved enough to make the team slightly better, despite one of their scorers being severely straitjacketed by the system. Things could've very easily gone the way of the Suns.
Uhh, last time I checked, the Rockets didn't draft Oakley back in 1987, nor Jackson, nor Cato, nor Witherspoon.....etc.
The Grizz play as a team. There's no heavily exhalted superstars on their team ... Just a bunch of guys who pass, move, share, and shoot. No one is deemed "the franchise" on their team ... They excel as a collective. They are not the most talented team in the league, but they play hard and they play together (See the Kings and Jazz). The value of each player who steps on the court for them is based on them contributing to a win. Noboby seems to be so driven by highlights (even J Dub has tempered his game). The Rockets do show flashes of brilliance. It's a truly beautiful thing for us when they share and play basketball like it was meant for them. It seems too often that the game we love so much was not at all designed for our players. And we can't help but feel they lose focus of the love of the game and the success of the team for individual glories from moment to moment ... I'm gonna take the last shot ... I'm gonna be the hero ... I'm gonna be the star (I wanna star in romantic comedies). How about wanting the team to dominate an era with multiple championships. The individual glories we're welcome to in Houston are founded on being winners first. The stardom will take care of itself. Anyway, Memphis has a good thing going for them. I'll spare everyone the difficult ironies of the situation. I just hope we can soon raise our level of play to match and mirror theirs. I don't think its really and X's and O's thing. It's more of a truly-play-as-a-team thing. ... Let's Go Rockets ...
Don't want to mirror the Grizzlies one bit. Every single Championship team has had a CLEAR leader in terms of being the best player. In the Lakers case, they were able to alternate between Shaq and Kobe because they're fortunate enough to have 2 of the top 5 players in the league. However, look at previous champions: Spurs Lakers Rockets Bulls Pistons The leader in each is clear. There must be a go-to guy, and the Grizzlies clearly lack it. The reason the Grizzlies are good is because they had over half a season under Hubie Brown last season, and made necessary adjustments to his system ever since. As for the Rockets, JVG is at the point NOW where Hubie was at the end of last season. Meaning, he still hasn't really re-tooled the roster. Now that he has seen his system and Yao in it, he will be able to better judge who should be on this team and who shouldn't. Even if the Rockets don't change anything, they will battle for homecourt next year courtesy of Yao Ming's continued improvement and everyone being familiar with what JVG wants. However, we will make changes, and hopefully be locks for homecourt. The Grizzlies will stick at 50 every season (basically the former Wolves) unless they find soem 2-for-1 deals this summer to net them better and better players. Their ultimate goal is shortening the rotation by making 2-for-1 and 3-for-1 deals. They play a 10 man rotation for everyone to look good in trade proposals. Hubie said it himself.
Exactly! You need a clear leader. But it's also nice to have good teammates (solid core groups of guys) that know how to play well together (execution, passing, and low turnovers). Imagine, the current Griz, but add TD. Scary!
I agree with everything you say, Sane, except for this opening point. The Grizzlies could win 50+/year for a while with their current squad, but as far as becoming champions, they lack that one guy to take them home when everything's on the line. You definitely need bigtime players to perform in bigtime moments. The superstars give the opportunity for the role players to shine in clutch situations (MJ - Kerr/Paxon, Dream - Horry/Elie/ect., Kobe/Shaq - Horry/DFish). In praise of the Grizzlies, I was speaking of their hustle and team play. I don't necessarily even like their players. But I like the way they play together as a team. I think the selflessness on that team is quite a site to behold. I don't think they're champions. But they have a steady recipe for winning basketball, and with a couple more robust ingredients, they could be a chamiponship caliber team. I love the Rockets though. More than that even, I love basketball. And I just wanna see my favorite team play the game well. ... Go Rockets.
I have no idea what the hell this is supposed to mean, is this guy using some kind of program to translate his language into english? That's the only guess I have.
I've got a feeling that no matter how well the Rockets do in the playoffs, that it's going to be a long summer. If Les makes any serious changes this summer, maybe the first one will be getting a new general manager. Raven
Don't get too alarmed. The Rockets will make the playoffs as the #7 seed & probably play the Wolves. We have a 50/50 chance of beating them in a 7 game series. We don't need Cato for the Wolves series as he normally doesn't play that much against them, because of the matchups. We will need him for the next series if we win the 1st. The summer should be interesting as JVG starts molding this team.
I think once we add depth to our team, the Rockets will do just fine. I disagree that francis is a cancer on our team but I do believe the players we have surrounding the duo need to change. I do love the Cat but honestly I think that JJ could honestly fill his shoes and fit in nicely as a starting 2 guard. JJ plays harder D and I don't see him making too many dumb mistakes that make u want to pull your hair out. I would love to put the cat back on the bench as a back up 1 and 2 guard, have a three man rotation again at those two positions and occasionally if the mathups allow we can let those three play together on the court as we do right now. I want him playing more of a bobby jackson ala kings role. I really do hope next year we get a small forward who can play point forward, can seriously hit the 3's and is at least a minimum of 6'8 in height. I'm tired of seeing guys like the gasol's and dirk easily hit shots because of a mismatch in height. JJ at 6'6 is a great height for a two guard in comparison to a 6'4 Mobley. Yes I know Iverson is doing it at 6'0 but the Cat is just not an Iverson. We can use him for the "instant offence" ,as Barkley once called him, off the bench but not as the starting 2 guard. As much as I love Mo Tay's shooting improvement this year I'm still annoyed as to how much we're paying him for the way he's playing especially if he's not rebounding. With the money we're paying him per year I think we should be able to get a power forward who can hit the mid range jumpers, play some awesome D and most of all rebound. Like someone said, we need depth and the old dying players are just not cutting it. They are great for this year in training and mentoring our players right now but next year I really hope we get some fresh legs off the bench and players that can really really adequately back up our boys. Watching the grizz last night, I really thought the front court players were just hustling out our big men and just able to shoot and get the rebounds at will. When their players got tired Hubbie just got another pair of legs off the bench to fit right in and hustle our guys out. Our Stars playing large large minutes especially the ones that are being double to tripple teamed. With motay having a rebounding problem, the grizz were just easily gettin the boards. I think Francis had a point about getting Odom on this team and I'd love to see him play the three for us. With his abilities, I really think he would be the perfect complement to "the Steve and Yao duo", especially since now he's played under the other Van Gundy and has Riley on his butt. I think he's added alot of discipline since his Clippers days and would fit right into JVG's expectations.
It's amazing to me that we are about to make the playoffs for the first time in 5 years and all you guys can do is b****! Could the team be better? Hell yes. Will it be before the end of this season? Probably not. So what!!! The playoffs are a whole new season. Anything can happen. Sometimes I think that we could go 82-0 and sweep the entire playoffs and finals and someone would still post, "Man, we could've won by 20 instead of 10." If you think we have it bad, try being a Warriors or Clippers fan.
Well, if Yao goes to Golden State, then a lot of the fans will become Warriors fans, lol. Jeff, when there's only one positive topic to talk about (us clawing into the playoffs) then, naturally, people are going to look for alternatives. The fact that people b**** about the tiniest issues means that the big issues are ok.
