None of those guys play IME like defense though, they rest on D.....our guys are required to work hard on both ends....and it is just not sustainable, without proper substituting.... Neither Lebron or Harden play hard on both ends, all the time. DD
He does NOT have good bball IQ - that's such a blatant fabrication. Show your work there or stop throwing out wild claims. Cam has improved for sure, but I don't know a scout alive who would call his bballl IQ "Good". I really like that he is decisive when he gets the ball - but I think we have seen him dribble into walls of players enough to know not to confuse decisiveness with ability to read defenses. He's been better at passing out of those situations once it's clear he isn't going to get to the rim - and some of those passes are quite good on account of his strength and control to zip the ball to players...but he still makes those reads a bit too late and misses key opportunities to zip the ball to open players before the help defense is able to react. I would say a fair assessment is he has improved at understanding when he is impeded and finds a teammate to pass to but he still doesn't identify when a defense is going to impede him ahead of time and survey the best man to deliver the ball to based on where help defenders are shifting(and maybe leaving an offensive player open). The one area here I think he IS actually doing really well at is off ball cutting but it's less "reading the defense" and more "dive to the hoop when your man helps off you" which is great recognition but it's a fairly simplistic read because he will try to dive to the hoop even if it's congested in the paint. ...and this is me as a huge Cam fan - but bballIQ is not his strong suit and likely hampers his evolution into being a primary scorer for anything short of bench units. You are right he could be a 20ppg starter on a team somewhere but not a primary ball handler/shot creator - maybe more in the role as a player receiving the ball from far better players at those reads who can create open shots for others. ...while Thibs might not have a ring, it's worth noting Ime Udoka has a ring and has played in multiple Finals as both a coach and a player. How many rings/Finals appearance you got?
The Celtics have an identical defensive rating to the Rockets - Brown & Tatum play a lot mode minutes than their counterparts on the Rockets. Shae plays 34 mpg for the best defense in the league, - the only reason why its not more is because they blow teams out all the time. There's simply nothing to support "Rockets individual players are playing tons of minutes" outside of the PG slot. The Rockets two extension babies are on the opposite end of the spectrum - Sengun probably played the fewest minutes of any all star this year.
Ime was a role player, who relied on defense, he hardly had an offensive game he was in the league for defense, it seems to me that he is looking for everyone to play like Ime, what a terrible thing that is.....we need someone like Rudy T who recognizes offense and defense. And don't be an ass, you don't have to have played in the NBA to know basketball - in the end it is just a GAME like everything else. DD
Ime was a long time disciple of Pop with Spurs + other renowned coaches, so understands how to coach both offense + defense. Highly doubt that Ime is only playing the defensive systems he played in as a player from grade school to NBA. His record + high regard by both players + other coaches outside Rockets organization is well earned + bespeaks his proven prowess in coaching rather than playing.
Greatness is yet to be determined to be sure. But comparing him in any way to Silas is insulting. Silas is the worst HC in Rockets history + maybe worst in NBA ever. His losing records are historically bad.
I am really having a hard time understanding why Cam cant even get minutes in a 20+pt lead in the 4th. Early in the season you can say he simply sucked. But since then he's at least played at an average 8th man level.
He absolutely should have played more during the back to backs and all these times when we're stretched thin. I don't care if he plays defense well or doesn't, we need to get some buckets down the stretch, and he can either provide them himself, or earlier in the game so we're not out of gas.
He does make things harder on himself than it needs to be. I have DEFINITELY had that habit in my life too. It's not uncommon especially in men who don't FEEL tough in phases so they think they have to dramatize their toughness on the outside in situations where it's ineffective. The classic party-pooper, the savior, the one who wants to be everyone's dad uninvited. If you're in an emergency, that kind of person is super helpful. But that person just can't stop acting like it's an emergency every single day even when it's not so they tend to break things that weren't broken (like our top 2 defense). When they are sitting at the top, they act like "you better beware of the coming emergency" > through this they devise a risky way to avoid a hypothetical problem that they made up, generating an added risk out of thin air. This develops into an compulsive behavior when people obviously don't buy in (because they aren't obsessed about effort, since they have excellent self-discipline instead) that ends in the need to impose your will on the situation OR something else (ding ding ding, the affair - a power dynamic). It's a pattern. This makes all the other problems FEEL smaller to them (e.g. the entire offense) because they first want to prove something else. You will recognize it in any male you know that acts dramatically tough in totally safe situations. Very commonly gets fixed though and if we step out of basketball for a second, this man went through a horrific relationship problem that unfairly went public a few years ago. There is reason to believe his growth is paused in the couple of years after that, there's plenty of reason to be hopeful he will change before another earth shattering situation rears its head. I hope it doesn't take him 10+ years to improve like Thibs. I hope he doesn't end up the JBB or JVG of the league. He had way higher potential than that. Right now he just has to look at his 3 seasons in the NBA and study what happened each time injuries forced his hand or players forced him to compromise on his principles. It always went well Ime. It always go well. It's safe. Don't ditch your boundaries and don't make them too rigid. Flexible boundaries are good for you.
