There is no question that the incredible athletic ability and talent was a major reason that the Rockets made the play-offs last year. I don’t think that there is any doubt that his lack of basketball I.Q. had been a major obstacle for the Rockets since he was acquired from Vancouver. We have seen Steve dribble away the shot clock, make bad passes, become easily frustrated during a full court press and completely incapable of running a fast break. Many of the same things can be said about Cat. Can any of us forget the irritated look on JVG’s face as he yelled “NO!“ when Cat asked him if they had a foul to give at the end of a play -off game in which he intentionally fouled Kobe Bryant sending him to the line. I don’t think Steve or Cat were ever selfish, I just thought that they were their own worst enemy’s by making poor decisions. I don’t guess I ever heard one analyst or play by play man nor have I ever read anyone that claimed Steve and Cat to be intelligent players. I certainly heard many claim them to have low basket ball I.Q.’s. By getting Steve and Cat off of the team we most likely removed a ton of mental mistakes. Magic Johnson and Larry Byrd are easily my two favorite non-Houston Rockets basketball players. And while I confess to only getting to watch them play against the Rockets or in the play-offs and Championship games I can say that one of the things that set them apart from other players in the league was their basketball I.Q. Neither of those guys seemed to ever make a mistake at the end of a quarter or at the end of a game. They are still easily the most disciplined players I have personally ever watched. One of the catch phrases when those two were at the top of their game was: “Good passing and sharing the ball is contagious“. This comment was based on the fact that when these two players started making good passes and sharing the ball the rest of their teammates followed suit. Yao Ming is considered to be a player that has a good basketball I.Q. and passes very well. Jimmy Jackson is considered to be one of the smarter players in the league. I personally have never heard anyone refer to Tracy McGrady as a dumb basketball player although I confess that I have not spent a ton of time watching the Magic play of the last few years. Now if we can somehow land Brent Barry it should be a complete turn around in how intelligently our offense runs. I have almost always heard Barry described as a good shooter, good passer and a very good decision maker. I don’t think that our team will have the same problems getting into our offense with Barry running the point. No more getting the ball across the mid court with only about 15 seconds left on the shot clock. No more dribbling the ball on the floor until there is only 8 seconds left in the clock and we are just now making our first pass. No more relying on individual athleticism to try to dribble out of defensive pressure, now we will pass out of it and possible get some easy baskets in the process. This is turning out to be a great off season.
They maybe the smartest team in the league, but if they sign Barry they will also be the weakest defensive team in the league, and JVG's head is going to explode halfway through the season.
All this crap about Barry ruining our defense is just that, crap. He is not going to make us any worse defensively than Steve did. TMac can play defense better than Cat, especialy on the taller players. JJ is still JJ. Yao is still Yao but with a year more experience. And Howard, while not the shot blocker Cato was is going to score 10-12 more points than Cato and is not a defensive liability either. If we can get 2 scrubs to play backup center we are set.
I am not getting the logic why Barry will make rockets the weakest defensive team in the league. 1. JVG alone will never let his team to be a weak defensive team, let alone weakest. That title will always belongs to Don Nelson. 2. Yao, T-Mac, and JJ are all very good defenders, if not great. Yao will continue to improve. His size alone was the main factor that Rockets rise to the great defensive team in his first 2 years with Rockets. T-Mac didn't play defense last year at Orlando because he has to carry the offensive load. But when motivated, he is a great defender. He completely shut down Big Dog in playoffs. Larry Brown wanted to have T-Mac guard the opponent's best play in the Olympic team. 3. Barry is not known for his defense, but his defense cannot be worse than Francis's. Have you even watch Francis play? He get light up by no-name PG night in and night out. He often just watches the ball and let his man run free. Last year was Francis's only year he tried to play defense, because of JVG. What prevents Barry to play defense under JVG?
How is Barry any worse defensively then Steve Francis! And the funny thing is, look at those Utah teams of the 90s. They were strong defensive teams, but rarely had more then one on-the-ball defender. I would like to know how Brent Barry makes the entire Rockets team a bad defensive team, especially since he would be replacing a horrible defensive PG to begin with!
Francis at least used to get steals. Francis used to get lit up before last year, when JVG forced him to play defense. Barry will not even be as good as Steve, McGrady will not be as good as Mobley, Howard will not be as good as Cato. Yao's defense is overrated.
Okay... Steve avg. about 2+ steals per game, but what good were they? How many times did we see those steals turn into turnovers and bad shots on the fastbreak? Barry might avg less steals, but I expect to see better fastbreaks when he does get it. I admit that McGrady will not be as good as Cat, but with his size and quickness, he probably will not have to do as much as Cat did last year.
There isn't. We lost Steve Francis. You could plug the Iraqi Army in at PG and still get similar defense and probably better IQ. Not to mention among the reasons our defense looked so good was because we played good team defense. We didn't have too many defensive stoppers on our team (hell, if any). It's amazing how good team defense makes a bunch of average defense guys look so damn good defensively.
like Detroit's, Houston's defense is a system, not a combo of great individual defenders. Van Gundy's system made Steve look like an improved defender. If you know where to be on the court and where to funnel your man you don't need Ron Artest (even though it would be nice).
Exactly. So if we could improve our team offensively we would be in good shape. It was games in which we didnt score enough points that got us in trouble. With Tmac and Barry added to the mix we will be able to score enough points. And with our TEAM defense will be able to stop people. It is all about getting the right mix. I feel with JVG, since he is such a good defensive coach, and limited offensive coach, it is important to get very good offensive players to off set JVG's offensive limitations.
the point is you did get rid of two defensive player already, Cato and Mobley, and replaced them with players not known for defense. And Steve as weak as he was defesively gave you more than Barry will give you. Detroit did have great individual defensive players. That's ludicrous to suggest they didn't. Prince almost shut down Kobe single handedly and Ben Wallace is a great off the ball defender.
wow. wrong stat to compare the two players on ... this is one of Barry's strengths. Over the last 3 years, the two players have averaged almost the same amount of steals per game ... Barry 1.6, Stevie 1.7
Yes, but Barry only played 30 mins per game. Barry is no slouch on defense, this is all a bunch of propaganda produced by the anti Barry posters on this board. Most of them have never seen Barry play and only post this crap because they read it here.
If we do end up replacing our backcourt of last year with TMac and BB, then our d in the backcourt will be weakened marginally at worst. Losing Cato will definitely hurt the d, but will really improve the o. The rox would definitely NOT be the weakest d team in the league, they would not be the weakest d team in the division. I don't know if they'd be top 5 again, or whatever they were last year, but they wouldn't drop off that much.
I think our D might drop off slightly. Let's say for example we give up 4 more points a game each night. But in return I feel out offense will improve dramatically, say perhaps up 9 points a game. That will be the key. I mean imagine less turnovers, better fast breaks that lead to easy buckets and better efficient shooters in Barry and Tmac. The FG% of this team should rise dramatically! And the better we shoot the less chance we have at giving up fast breaks and transition defense. It makes a difference!
there's no reason why a jvg coached team can't carry brent barry on defense. as long as he can move his feet and switch to the open man the rockets defensive style will cover up his one-on-one weaknesses, everything funnels to yao anyways. is there really such thing as a defensive-pg stopper? not really. barry will be no worse than steve on defense and will bring exactly what this new-look team needs offensively.
Steve only 1.6 steals a game for his career and he gives that back with turnovers and wasted possesions. McGrady is a great defender when he wants to be. JVG will insure that he always wants to be. Cat was good and had a lot of heart but lets not claim that McGrady is some push over. Yao's defense is in know way overrated. That is just crap. His transition defense is week but his half court defense is very good. Howard will not be as good as Big Kev on the defensive end but he will be a lot better on the offensive end. My point is that this team will be a smarter team by a landslide. The offense will be much improved and the defense will still be good. Maybe not as good as San Antonio's but certainly way above average if not elite.
I don’t expect next years defense to be as good as it was last year. I think you will be surprised at how much the Rockets miss Cato. In the 13 games that Cato was absent last season, Rocket opponents averaged 97 points per game. Nearly ten points more than the season average. It’s just such a huge advantage to have two big men shutting down the paint. Steve, Cat, and Cato have been playing together for 5 years. They are going to be more in sync with each other on the defensive end. You also have to remember that when Van Gundy got here, Steve and Cat were only 26 and 27, and both of them always had the tools to be great defenders. They just never worked on that aspect of their game. So it was not that difficult for Van Gundy to get them to be good defenders. Barry is coming here at the age of 33. What he is, is what he is. He’s not going to make any big improvements on defense. Not saying I don’t like the core of Yao, Mcgrady, Barry, and Howard. That’s a very nice foundation. But every move the Rockets make from this point on needs to be for defensive minded players.
