Thats what i've been saying for a long time. I think rick and jeff were asked to do amazing things without much. People want to scream about the system this or the system that, but it takes really good players to execute and be effective in any system. The Bulls still ran the triangle after Jordan left the bulls. It got them a invite into the lotto and the 1st pick. Look how many teams run the west coast offense in football. Alot of teams run it, but who was the last team to win a superbowl with it? Tampa maybe.After stockton/malone, utah still ran the same offense with guys like eisley, but when they added okur and Boozer and drafted williams and they stayed healthy, now they have a team that will be good for at least 6 or 7 yrs barring injury. Anyone that can look at this team from a purely objective view can see they are a buch of overacheiving players that has to play at their max just to compete. Now because they play for the rox, people on this board like to pump them up more than they should, but come playoff time its easy to see. We can look at adelman old team and see he can coach any team. I mean on that sacramento squad, they had hedo on the bench. Corliss was on the bench. Wallac wasnt even playing. We're not even going to talk about portland when they traded petrovic because he wasnt going to play on a deeply talented team. When you really look at it, in this series, there is only one player in the starting 5 that can replace one of utah's starters and thats tracy. The jazz dont have hayes types and head types on their team. the only 1 dimensional guy they have is korver and hes a bit player that have 1 great skill that compliment everyone else 3 skills. We come off the bench with mike harris,luther head, and chuck hayes, they bring harpring,milsap, and korver. Now, the rockets have 1 guy that can start on utah and a bench thats really good and productive and we're still saying we should win?This team is short and not tlented even with yao. They have no one with a huge upside except brooks and he's size limited.People talk about the missing layups, but that happens when u have short guys trying to finish over longer,bigger guys.When Scola and guys like that try to score over guys 6'9 and long, they're going to miss . Come playoff time u have to raise ur game, but the rox have been doing this all season and they dont have a extra level. I dont think the series is over. I was actually proud that the team still played over their head after yao went down. This year just like in previous years, the rox dont have the talent. i've been saying, gater has been saying and alot of people have been saying it. There are people till talking about this magical system that will turn d-league players into real players. It doent work like that people
I agree with you... The system is fine but i think the rockets have overachieved for a long time now with mediocre talent. You can say all you want about Yao or tmac but it ain't about them. There are teams that get out of the first round with much worse star power. You need a team that is good, not just stars. It was always annoying for me to hear them act like we were just a piece away. We're like a whole team away from competing for a title.
Yep. They don't match up well with any of the top teams. In order for them to beat those teams, they have to play perfectly and make a high percentage of their shots. 36.7% won't beat any of the Western playoff teams (see last Nuggets game for another example). They have better role players in this year's playoffs, but no Yao. The 40-pt loss to Dallas in the playoffs was another example of not having enough talent. I was really disappointed they stopped competing in the second half. Maybe Rick's choice of rotation was to show Les that he needs some better players. If we had a Kyle Corver instead of a Steve Novack, we would be a much better team. We talk about the depth of this team, yet we always seem to have less depth than the other playoff teams.
Sorry, I don't buy it. This team is extremely talented with Yao. Yao, Battier, Scola and McGrady are good NOW, plus Brooks and Landry are great young players. Head and Alston are very good rotational players. That's 8 players, a solid talented core. What we really need is to lock up our starting 5 (replace Alston with a better PG). But our resources are limited. Right now, we don't have any bad contracts. NONE. You might think that is normal, but if you take a look around the league there are MAYBE a couple of teams who have no bad contracts. That doesn't come easy. That takes time, patience and hard work (Darryl Morey). NOW, we are in a position to move into another phase. IMO, this team can very easily be the 1st seed next season if: 1) Its kept intact. No major trades. Rookies grow up. Team knows each other better. Rick has another season to add kinks. 2) We make smart decisions with our MLE and other exceptions. Adding players for part of the MLE won't help us much. We have lots of mediocre players. We need to get someone for the full MLE who is worth the full MLE - i.e. a rotation player (20-30 minutes). Plus, pick up a veteran or two who want to win (Cassell this year for example). That puts us way up there. Our initial 8, plus one more rotation player, plus Bobby Jackson's contract, plus veteran pick ups, plus Darryl Morey's knack at picking good players up in the 20's range, when combined, will make us an excellent team next season. For this season, I do want to say that I wish we had Francis and Wells right now. Not great for a Yao-centered offense, but could have helped us tremendously once Yao got hurt. We were well equipped, just unlucky.
leebigez - We pretty much agree except I see Scola at a much higher level than you do. Unfortunately, you and I are both going to get blasted for being realists that don't have fan spirit. I'll remember my lack of spirit the next time I drop a few hundred driving to Houston for a game or when I get dirty looks wearing red in San Antonio when I drop another couple hundred for a Rockets-Spurs game. And sadly, to make matters worse, all summer we're also going to have to deal with the "it would have been different if Rafer wouldn't have been injured" fan mentality. The pivotal points in recent history were VG winning a meaningless game against DEN and the Rockets business model not accounting for injured stars. In the playoffs, I'd take Brandon Roy and Swift (or Maggliore as that is what MEM got for him) and Wells against the current fan likeable but over achieving assembly. Further, when you have 2 star players with a strong history of injury, it's drop-dead foolish to go the Lottery and come away with talent that the Spurs obtained with portions of an MLE. Bruce Bowen was signed originally for ~$3m. Udoka is his successor and was signed for $1m. Role players are always going to have "warts" on them. But solid NBA role players have physical skills...height, footspeed, athleticism...that compensates for their lack of multiple dimensions. Good NBA teams have a balance of offense, defense, transition to O, and transition to D. The players the Rockets are "collecting" don't have the physical tools which allow them to be successful at more than just 1. We have defenders like Hayes...3 point specialists like Novak...tweeners who can get their shot off in traffic...Landry and Harris. But we flat out don't have players that can play enough defense while they excel in both open court and half court. My firmly believed premise is that players with heighth, speed and athleticism can learn to play great defense...1:1 and team D. Players like Hayes, Battier and Alston don't have that same upside on the offensive end.
When you starting back court is 10/36 and the rest of the team was 19/43, I think you need to look at more than talent level.
This is a great topic and it's so true. Only T-Mac would be able to crack the Jazz rotation. Paul Millsap is still better than our PF's. I'm sick of hearing people say, "Adelman needs to utilize everyone's potential and play to their strengths". We are playing to our strenghts. The Jazz are just better than our strengths.
If the rockets had more talented players they wouldn't have to depend on a poor shooting backcourt. I can't be the only one that gets tired of seeing Bigs drop great passes or not finish right in front of the basket. Obviously we had terrible guard play last night but talented teams can win alot of games when they don't play well. We NEVER win unless most of our guys are playing at their best.
Keywords are "With Yao". Without Yao, we have little to no inside presence. That right there makes it harder on our role players. Then add in all the rookies, 2nd year players, couple dleague players and some vets that teams don't think can do anything anymore. It's a pretty safe bet to say that this team has underachieved.
We are missing Yao. Take Boozer away from the jazz and lets see how they do. The point is not a lack of talent level, but injury.
No..that is NOT the point. The point that YOU have missed is that Yao or McGrady are ALWAYS injured. The point that YOU have missed is that if you are going to keep them together, you'd better have enough players to be able to compete with the WC playoff team with worst road record when you have HCA. If that's not recognized not only by you, but Rockets' managment, we'll be having this same conversation next summer.
With the lack of talent and the injuries they have had to overcome Rockets had no business winning 22 games in a row or even being a 5th seed in probably the toughest conference ever. Even if you are not a Rockets fan, you have to commend them for the amount of discipline and effort they have put out out the entire season. Yes, commend them but do understand that they have seriously overachieved. We have a collection of one trick ponies and no matter what combination we put out in the floor, we always have several liabilities out there. In playoffs, team attack your weaknesses and expose them. Last night here are some of the things that were pretty evident... 1) Our superstar himself has liabilities. It does not matter how focused or how much Tracy is trying, his jumpshot is now as iffy as they come. Jazz were playing him for the jumpshot. On the defensive end, Tracy's defense has been exposed several times as was last night. 2) Put Novak in and the entire Jazz team salivates. Novak on Korver? Kover with back to back 3s. Novak on AK47? AK47 with shades of Hakeem. I thought it was pretty telling when Korver, who a lot of people compare him Novak, went up and blocked Tracy's shot. Even the guy considered to be most one dimensional on the Jazz team can create some and play some defense. 3) Our best defensive player is situational. Shane will play every possession on the defensive end like its his last. The effort will always be there but in order for him to make a difference in the game, he has to be put in the right situation. I have yet to see him change a playoff game defensively. Even with all the struggles AK47 had last year in playoffs, he had more impacts on games that Shane did. This one really hurts in terms of lost opportunities because we gave up a lottery pick for a specialist/situational player. We got a good player but we seriously overpaid for him and did not even address our most glaring needs. 4) Luther head. This has begun as the sequel from last year and you know what they say about sequels. Luther Head has had enough NBA moments to come out with his own personal set of NBA Bloopers videos. His passes are so badly telegraphed that I could reach in through my TV and get some steals. These are just some that stood out. I think we could go on with Hayes, Brooks, or pretty much whoever Rockets have. Bottom line is this. We are just not athletic enough to compete with the big boys. Even Sloan, who traditionally likes players with sound fundamentals, has athletes like boozer, Milsap, and AK47, to throw at you. As of this point, our most athletic player is an undersized second round draft pick. Did you seriously think that he would explode on the Jazz in the playoffs where each and every player gets scouted down to what kind of cereal they like to have in the morning? We are a slow and nonathletic team even when Yao and Rafer come back but we are so disciplined and put out so much effort out there on a nightly basis that the fans at least seem to forget all this. My only request is that Adelman and Morey are realists and realize that this team is lacking in the talent department and not blame it on the absence of Yao and Rafer. Good news: Morey has already stated that they made the moves this year to get some expiring contracts for a big acquisition for next season. If Rockets have dreams of contending for championships then it will all come down to what we get out of that move. Other good news: We managed to get Scola this past off season. Thank you Spurs.
Of course, you expects to win as much with lesser players, isn't OP kind of pointing out the obvious with that being said....didn't Houston win 55 games and about a portion of those without Yao Ming.
Yes I think you're on point here. Realistically, with the exception of McGrady Yao and Scola we don't ahve much of a lineup on the floor at any time. I'll give that Battier is a good defender but I still think we might've been better off with Rudy Gay (who is a superb defender as well and an explosive scorer). We either need a better starting lineup or a more solid bench. If you look at the Pistons, they basically have a killer starting 5 and a pretty bad bench. But Utah is the definition of depth with a pretty good starting 5 and a killer bench at all times.
take away Boozer and they still have WAY more talent than us. They'll have 3 all-stars to our 1 and a cast of role players who play hard AND have alot of talent. Because we have 2 stars we're gonna win alot of games but our team's supporting cast is not even close, NOT EVEN CLOSE, to that of contending teams. That's the reason why everybody gets so worked up about our rookies because its rare for us to see players who can do more than shoot a 3 and hustle.
um, the Pistons probably have DEEPEST bench in the league. Jason Maxiel, Stuckey, Jarvis Hayes, Amir Johnson, Hunter. Hell they could probably beat our strating five.
