Posters are in obvious disaggreement about the quality of the Rocket's supporting cast. If all the role players were available, how do they compare to the role players of the elite teams like the Spurs, Pistons, Heat, etc?
It depends on who you classify as role players on those other teams to compare... When healthy, the Rockets role players are Juwan Howard, Swift, Wesley, Head, Sura, Alston, and Barry. The Pistons are built much different from us. Billups, Rip, and the Wallace's are all arguably of equal importance. Prince, Arroyo, Mcdyess, and Maurice Evans are their role players. It's really hard to compare our role players to theirs, because they are built around 4 players rather than 2...but one thing is for sure in Detroit, everyone knows their role. I feel most of the Rockets players know their role as well...and that is probably a credit to Van Gundy. The Spurs, IMO, easily have the best group of role players in the league. Finley, Bowen, Barry, Van Exel, Nesterovic, Horry, and Mohammed. We're not quite at that level...but I don't think we're that far away. The tough thing about the Spurs is they really have 3 go-to guys...however, compared to the Rockets big 2, we have a much better "closer" in Mcgrady...something that I think is a huge benefit when it comes down to the big games. If we can ever get Swift to pan out (or make a change at PF), and upgrade over Wesley with a guy with equal defense and better shooting, I think we'll be right there.
Depends on how you're rating them. The Role players on this team haven't been playing the part of role player because of all the injuries. They have been asked to carry the load and play bigger mins. If you rating them on that then they are bad. If you are rating them on playing the part of role players on this team, I guess I would have to give an "incomplete" because they haven't been in the position to be a supporting cast yet.
Like GRENDAL and DieHard said, it depends. I would vote incomplete. It's hard to judge role players when they are being asked to do more than what their actual role is or should be. Our role players were not put together to carry the team to the playoffs without TMac and Yao, so it's really hard to judge them in a year like this. On paper, I love our team. If healthy, we have an 11 man rotation! How many teams can say that?
Agreed, given the chance to be role players, players such as Wesley, Anderson, Barry, Sura, Mutombo (remember these guys), Head, and Alston would form a group capable of doing what they are called on to do, hit open shots, dive at loose balls, grab an offensive rebound, make a key pass, etc. Given they are now called upon to be first and second choices on offense isn't what I would call "roll player". They are playing 35+ minutes every night when they should be playing 20+ minutes, bring in fresh legs, bring in an up-tempo game and hit open shots. These guys can do this....and we've all seen it before. But they aren't role players any more. They're prime contributors. Why isn't this more obvious to everyone? And to those who vote that we need to make changes? Who would you change out? What skills would you rather have, that our current crop of role players don't bring? The only skill I'd like to replace is to have an enforcer/rebounder at a front court position. We've got one in Sura, but we need a banger down low. Otherwise, what would you change? Shooters you say? How bout Jon Barry? Perimeter defender? Sura again. Athleticism? How bout Luther Head and Derek Anderson. Hell, we've got players with the right skills, but they're playing out of their intended purpose and are injured.
We need a 4 who bangs much harder. We need a backup 3 6" 9" tall who can score. We need more length in the 1's & 2's - they are uniformly short, and overall don't make up for it with speed/skills - yet. One problem for us over the past three years has been that we end up with a lot of guys with similar games, similar size, similar age, similar passing skills - usually not very good. Should have promised Padgett minutes backing up McGrady - Padge is not a banger, shoots the 3 well, has some length, rebounds much better than Rybo, and would have continued learning JVG's defense....good, not great role player until we drafted a tall 3 backup to McGrady. We are older, shorter and slower than we need to be to win a championship, and our passing and shooting haven't been making up for those deficiencies. (irony) Glad that JVG never gives up but come on - you don't get invited to play in Carnegie Hall based on playing hard. Talent!
