Mo T vs Griff vs KT

IMHO
C - Cato/Griff
PF - Griff/MO/KT
SF - Oscar/Griff/KT

Who are Rice and Walt and why would we want them to play?
Walt's contract ends after this season, IIRC.

 

IMO it should be:

C - Cato, Collier
PF - Mo, KT
SF - Griffin, Rice, Morris
SG - Mobley, Torres
PG - Francis, Norris

 

C - Cato/Griff
PF - Mo/Griff
SF - KT/Torres/TMo
SG - Mobley, Torres
PG - Francis, Norris

Griff is 1st off the bench logging significant minutes at the 4 and 5.
Torres is 2nd off the bench logging significant minutes backing up Mobley and KT.

Rice and Walt = Trade bait

 

If Griffin keeps getting 20/10 then the point is moot. Neither KT nor Mo Tay is capable of those numbers.

DaDakota

 

C- Cato/ Collier/ Griff
F- Mo t/ Kt/ Griff
Sf- Griff/ rice/ torres
sg- mobley/ who ever
pg- francise/ brown/ norris

 

I believe that Mo or KT will get traded by this summer along with someone else like Norris, Torres, Rice or Collier, and a draft choice for a good center... unless we are able to utilize Griffin at the 5...

 

If everyone remembers, the plan this season was to ease Griffin in but the staff believed that Griff and Taylor could play on the floor at the same time either placing one at center or one at the three. Rudy even suggested that Mo could play the three on offense while switching off on the PF on defense.

I always figured that they would find a way to utilize both of them. They knew going in that EG was more of a 4 than a 3, but that Mo could play on the floor with him. Even Taylor was excited about the pick despite knowing Griff was a PF.

If there is an odd man out, it will be KT, but I still see him getting minutes as a back up at the 4. Rudy loves to move guys around to create mismatches and Mo and EG can both play multiple positions as can Morris, Torres, Francis, Rice, etc.

 

I think it would be a mistake to play Griffin and Taylor together. I don't like Griffin that far away from the basket on defense. One of his best attributes is his shot blocking/intimidation. If he's out guarding Dirk, or Tracy or one of those guys, all he will do is pick up fouls and limit his ability to cut off the lane. Mo can guard the 4, but he can't guard the 4. rudy and company will say the right things at center stage, but i don't think they really wanted to play both there at a extended period of time. If they did, why did they trade for Rice? Why draft Morris? Its like any other team that uses a high draft pick on a position, they're trying to upgrade that position. Ideally, I hope Morris becomes a legit 3 man , Griffin the 4, and Torres the backup like john Battle used to do in Atl, instant offense. Griffin can , in due time bring both of Thomas and taylors ability in 1. So why waste it.

 

I think Maurice and Griff are perfect compliments to each other. Maurice can hit that 18 foot jumper better then anyone I know. Griff has shown some shooting ability as well. On offense there really does not need to be a big differnce between what Maurice and Griffin to. On defense I think Rudy will just look at the matchups to figure out who to put defensively on the three.

I hope Maurice becomes a little bit leaner and quicker so he can hang with atleast the slower three of the league.

 

How about all three
5 - Griffin/Cato/Collier
4 - Taylor/Thomas/Willis
3 - Torres/Rice/Morris/Langhi
2 - Mobley/Morris/Langhi
1 - Francis/Norris/Brown

Just let Walt retire/leave via FA. That looks like a pretty solid team, then we can take the best available C, SF, or SG with our pick if we wind up in the lottery, or we can package our pick with K9 and filler to get a good player in return.

 

I would not play Griffin/Taylor as a 3/4 combo. Depending what happens with their physiques (ie: Griffin grows an inch and puts on some more muscle, or Taylor chisels out his frame/gets stronger), they could possibly be a 4/5 tandem that would give other team fits.

As lee said, Griff's strengths include intimidating. He couldn't intimidate nearly as many shots if he was playing the 3.

Mo was supposed to be leaner and stronger before his injury. I think if he can add some solid muscle, he'd have a chance at surviving at center. This would probably be easier on his injury, as he wouldn't be forced to have a lot of quickness, and even if he lost some of his quickness from the injury, he'd probably be quicker than most other centers.

I feel that Mo won't be movable until he at least gets on the court and shows what he has in him. I wouldn't be surprised if we hang onto all 3, until the trade deadline, and then dealing KT or Mo, depending on what each has shown. Otherwise, if we get a high pick, I wouldn't mind packaging KT with the pick, and getting a stud, like Lamar Odom.

 

Griffin seems a little quicker than Mo Taylor. For that reason, I think (assuming Mo comes back & we don't trade him) we'd most likely see Griffin at the 3 and Mo at the 4. That leaves KT as a bench player.

But that's assuming Mo comes back healthy. How many players fully recover from a torn ACL? It saddens me to think that with the improved play of KT and Griff coming into form, Mo's injury may have made him into trade-bait. We'll hafta wait and see how Mo recovers.

But as far as Griff ... I don't think we'll see him playing much as a center; I think we'll see him playing both forward roles, though. But I'm not at all certain about that.

 

leebigez: The Rockets LOVE Mo Taylor. They honestly had visions of running he and Griffin together on the floor a lot. They believe that Griffin's defense and rebounding combined with Taylor's size and nice jumper are perfect compliments.

They didn't even sign Mo until after they had drafted Griffin. Why draft a top flight PF and then re-sign your best PF for 6 years? It certainly isn't to trade him or they would have done a sign and trade. Also, Taylor won't be worthy of trade bait status even if the Rockets wanted to trade him until he is fully recovered from his injury and has shown he can bounce back - probably late next season.

The reason they made the move for Rice was because they have always wanted him and it made moving Shandon Anderson have value. They drafted Morris because they view him as a utility player who can play a number of positions. He can shoot (not so far, but he can), he can defend and he has good size. Besides, taking a flyer on a guy who is best friends with your PG and may have some skill isn't a big risk.

Prior to Taylor's injury, several people told me and media even said in public that the Rockets had every intention of playing lineups like Norris, Francis, Mobley, Griffin and Taylor or Francis, Mobley, Rice, Griffin and Taylor often.

Rudy loves mixing his lineup's. If you remember, earlier this year, he ran Thomas out there at the 5 on occassion and he even ran Bullard out there at 5 last year. Yes, they've had makeshift lineups due to injury, but Rudy likes to play combinations. He likes creating mismatches that force other teams to play with rotations that are not comfortable to them.

Taylor, Griffin and Morris are all guys that can play multiple positions as are Mobley, Francis and Williams. That is the common thread among many players on this team. Just like Horry, Elie, Anderson, Smith, Chucky Brown and on and on. Rudy loves those types of players because it gives him options. If you recall, during the second championship run, NO ONE believed that Robert Horry could defend guys like Barkley and Malone, but that was who Rudy started at PF. Experts thought that starting Smith, Drexler, Elie, Horry and Dream was way too small a lineup but the Rockets made it work. The Griffin/Taylor situation is no different. It is the combination of players and chemistry that is more important to Rudy and the team than the defined position.

 

If Griff can average close to 15 and 8 or something as a starter, there's no way he loses his starting job next year.

If we lose our #1 pick to Memphis this year, I'd like to see us trade KT for a late #1 pick.

 

I'd love to keep KT, but I think when it comes down to it, it all depends on whether he'd be happy longterm with the Rockets coming off the bench. I like the Malik Rose comparison best in terms of role. I don't see him beating out a healthy Mo. If he were to stay with the Rockets, particularly if Griffin started playing substantial minutes at the 5, KT could definitely see 20-30 mpg with the Rocks. But part of the implication of being an important, but lower player on the depth chart means that KT might not see a contract worth more than 4-5 million a year. I think if some team out there was willing to start him and/or pay him commensurately, he'd want to go. If he does go, I hope we get something for him. As a player he's probably showed the most promise of all the guys we could possibly use for trade-bait.

 

Jeff, Rudy says he loves everyone in public. rudy and his organization always says the right things about a player, but giving the right circumstances, they will trade a player in a heartbeat. I know Rudy plays certain combinations, but thats because of the limited status of other positions. Do you ever think Hakeem would be on the bench and Thomas or any other player playing center if he was killing people like he used to? I remember those stupid combinations costing us a lot of games early last yr also.

Also , you can't compare what you can do to now vs then because of the player Hakeem was. No matter who you put out there with Hakeem, you were still big because of him shutting the basket down. Yes 225lb Horry played Malone, but he knew then, just like now that if he gets beat he has a eraser behind him. I remember people used to say Maxwell could D jordan up, but that was only because he had Hakeem playing goaltender. He said that and went to philly and Jordan dropped 50 on him. Some combo's i can live with, but while trying to get these matchups, you get yourself into mismatches.

Given they drafted Griffin is enough to tell me they really don't love Mo that much. They resigned Mo as a safeguard to Griffin's developement knowing or thinking he wouldn't contribute right now. They loved Kenny Thomas too, but went and signed Taylor a yr after drafting him. They love Mo, but given the rapid developement of Griffin and the steady improvement of Thomas, when he comes back, he'l be a sub. If given the right chance, he'll be traded afterwards. Its a business, nothing personel.

 

This is sort of off topic, but Hakeem was one of the best centers of the game, completely dominated the paint defensively without being an extremely heavy guy. I'm not saying Eddie can be anywhere as good as Hakeem, but what's to stop him from being an adequate center, even in the West, in a mold similar to Hakeem? What made Hakeem so great an interior defensive presence? We already know that being able to block shots does not automatically a good center make. But is being over 250 lbs. really a necessary requirement for being a good center? How did Hakeem stop Shaq from running over him in '95? What about Malone?

I didn't really follow the Rockets until after the '95 championship, so I'm not familiar with vintage Hakeem like many of you guys. But I really would like to see Eddie become a staple at the 5 spot for us. I agree that shotblocking and rebounding do not themselves a center make. I would like to hear more reasons why Eddie can't in time become the Rockets' starting center.

 

Eddie will need to develop a post-up game to become a center.

Olajuwon without a doubt had the best post-up skills of all-time. Griffin rarely posts it up right now.

Defensively, Griffin should be able to guard most centers, provided that he's 6-10 or taller.

The problem is that Olajuwon wasn't the biggest guy, but he was still very strong.

Griffin isn't very strong just yet.