The old Rockets championship teams had a mix of good shooters and streak shooters. good shooters: kenny , bullard, sam, chilcutt streak shooters: vernon, horry, clyde, mario The good shooters would keep us in the game, and the streak shooters had the ability to break the game wide open. What shooters do we have now? Tmac-streak Padgent -good Thats about it.
Pike didn't prove anything last year that he would have knocked down those shots....that's why he is not here any more cause he didn't hit them.
JJ's a 40% 3 pt shooter for the past few years. Lue is always around 38% Ward is around a 40% shooter too. Howard and Mo can hit that 15+ ft jumper which is suffecient for a PF to spread the floor. We have the shooters, we just got to work on getting them better (open) shots and them knocking more of them down.
They had a ton of open shots today and they just stunk it up big time. it was a night that all of our shootes struggled and we had no one to pick them up other than Yao. if one other person could have hit their shots we would have been fine and would be celebrating a victory tonight.
Our problem isn't the percentage. If you shoot 55% one game & 25% the next, chances are that you'll win the 55% games & loose the 25% games. That's a 41-41 season, which in the West won't get you into the playoffs.
JJ is pretty streaky from the perimeter. I think Ward may be a consistent 3 point shooter. Padgett is consistent, but the guy doesn't get enough time to affect the game. In the offseason, the Rockets should put out a contract offer to Vladimir Radmanovic at full MLE similar to what Hedo Turkogulu got from the Magic. JJ should not be starting after this season. The Rockets need someone who likes shooting 3s and doesn't do anything else. That's one of the supposed flaws of Radmanovic. The guy doesn't like to slash to the basket. However, anyone who uses one skill in repetition will get better at it. Look at the shooters on the Rockets. There are guys on the Rockets who want to slash and create when they should be standing like statues behind the arc. Jack of all trades is not what the Rockets need when Yao dishes out to the perimeter for an open 3. Jack of all trades do not make 3s consistently. What was Steve Kerr known for? He was a deadeye 3 point gunner. That's what the Rockets need. I'd consider getting Casey Jacobsen from the Suns too if he isn't resigned.
It would be nice to have an able-bodied, borderline all-star PF too. A DPOY at center wouldn't hurt either. As for shooters, Kyle Korver would be great. Sixers won't give him up, though.
Radmanovic would be good. Ward can shoot.. Lue can shoot if he gets time to set..wide open.. Tmac can shoot.. Hmm...let's be happy and beat NJ tomorrow
I agree we need shooters, but guys like Bullard, Sam, and Chilcutt were liabilites on defense. Van Gundy prefers guys like Adrian Griffin or Ryan Bowen who can't shoot as well but play better defense. It's 2 different styles of coaching and they both can work well. Look at the Lakers now, they can put up points but they can also get blown out bigtime.
Which is all you need to go to win in the playoffs. 6th seed winning the Championship again. Oh yeaaaah
But the Rockets won't be relying on 3s so much when T-Mac comes back. This problem only exists right now because with only Yao, the offense is totally one-dimensional. If T-Mac goes out for the year, then the Rockets are likely a .500 ballclub that lives and dies with the 3. Thankfully, that's not the case. I don't have too much memory of the old Hakeem days, but my impression was that our 3 point shooting was just as streaky then. This makes sense, because any shot with such a low success rate is always prone to streakiness. The difference back then was that Hakeem was the best player in the game, and team defense was great. So far, our team defense has been sporatic, and Yao is not at the level of the Dream in his prime.
Jordan got locked down by Vernon Maxwell everytime we played him. Vernon was only guard who never feared Jordan.
I love the Rockets, and I think they would have beaten the Bulls at least one of the 2 years if they had Jordan..if not both. But please stop saying Vernon "locked down" Jordan. Sure, he didn't fear him. Neither did Joe Dumars, among others. Vernon played him tough, just like Bruce Bowen plays Kobe tough. Kobe still torches him sometimes...and Vernon got used by Jordan his share of games also.
