Why is it taking us so long to adapt to the adelman system?

Sacramento had much better shooters than we did, and passers. On the other hand, we've got way better playmakers and defenders than they ever had. Sacramento couldn't quite put away LA, because they didn't anyone dynamic enough to finish them off. If they had Yao or T-Mac on their team that would've been enough to finish off the Shaq-Kobe Lakers.

Look at this way, Divac was great passing center with decent shot, but he could never draw attention to the post or average as many points as Yao. While, most of the wings were either good passers or great catch and shoot type of players....none of them could create their own offense, like T-Mac and Artest. Remember, their lineup looks like this Divac, Webber, Peja, Christie, and Bibby. It was very good team, but outside of Webber, they had no playmakers. And, Webber was somewhat in decline. The team had great passing big men with great shooters, which is a great combination to produce a high number of assist. But their defense could range from awful to good never great, though.

The Rockets are probably better in certain areas, like post play, all-round defense, and playmakers.

This is team is not horrible, at least not yet. They are only 4-3, remember last year, they got off to a great start, then looked very mediocre for about the first quarter season. I've notice that with Houston for the last 6 years, they don't seem to jump out to great starts. I think the team will play good enough to stay above .500 for the first month or two. Then, I think you can really see how good this team will be from about late Dec to mid Feb. I even said the pre-game post yesterday that even the Rockets managed to win the game or lose in blowout. I wouldn't take alot from it...it is way too early in the season to be declarations or start restructing the team. It's probably going to take time for them to reach good high level of play.

I think posters are so high, because the Rockets have lost in every heartbreaking way imaginable. Losing to Boston in a very close game at home, then losing to Portland on a last 3/10ths of second shot....a 3 pointer. Then we blow 16 point lead and lose by 29. To most common fans, just one is enough to send them into whirlwind.

 

Can't agree more. I do not understand why Rockets can not find good 3pt shooters after so many seasons.

 

Well it doesnt help when none of the players bother cutting.
I honestly can't see how this is different than JVG's offense at all.

 

The answer is- Our players are suited to defence and the inside outside game with strong three point shooting. We dont have the youth nor speed nor accuracy of shooting to play the Adelman game. IMHO
Also the coach seems to have a lack of ability to use the team talent to its potential.

 

We have two superstars who are the key for this team. Than you add Artest and those are 3 main guys on the team and everybody is looking to pass the ball to them. It will work when they will be making shots.

In Sacramento the situation was easy. They really didn't have a real superstar so guys were unselfish. One night Webber score 20, the other night it was Bibby.

 

Right, I get that. So I think preaching a bit of patience, especially with Artest's addition, would be needed. I vehemently agree that there is little movement in the offense.

I think much of the reason McGrady is missing is that:

1. He's shooting contested jumpers where he's fading away from 17 feet.
2. His legs aren't under him at all.

I think freeing him up with some 12 footers, in and around the free throw circle, very much like what Kobe was doing, is something that'll help him get rhythm. I understand people don't want him to shoot, and I obviously don't if he's going to miss, but we can't just have him run into the paint time after time -- that's advocating isolation, in my opinion, on top of that, if he's injured right now. . . going commando in the key will only make him less effective.

Not recently, but I believe he's been able to drive in when he's playing iso and score. We can agree to disagree here, but you have to at least agree he's more successful going towards the basket than he is coming away from it. So why not help him out with some screens closer to the basket (but not on the way TO the basket)? That way, he won't have to fight as hard on offense. What I just said made sense in my head, but let me know if that's unclear, cause I could see it as being very unclear.

 

I don't know that you can say the team is taking a long time to adapt to the offense because we have no real idea how long adapting to this offense takes. I thought the general consensus last year was that Adelmen's offense would take around two years. It could well be that this team just doesn't have the make-up to do what Adelman is asking them to do, but offensive problems could just as easily be due to the impact of injuries on practice time, the incorporation of new players into the team's chemistry, and playing strong opponents. So, I think I'll hold off on any judgements until around the all-star break.

To be honest, I'm more worried about the bad defense and rebounding.

 

Adelman's offense isn't the easiest thign to grasp, it requires lots of reading of the D and cuts and all. Personally, i think he's offense is much more suitable for players with high BBall IQ, guys that know when and where to cut. His offense doesn't revolve around a star player, because he's offense relies onbeing unperdictable. When tmac and yao hold the ball up, it ruins the flow coz other guys tend to stand and watch where they should really be cutting on the weak sides and all.

 

Think players, not systems. They ran the triangle in chicago after jordan and wound up with the 1st pick. They also ran the triangle post shaq and also went lotto land. The job of the coach is to maximize the teams strengths and minimize weaknesses. I think people need to realize that thru the euphoria of this so called dynamic offense, they scored the same amount of pts as under jvg. The "adelman offense" looks better when u have a pg who can shoot and penetrate and a center who can knock down j's and make good passes, but we don't. I think Brooks fit the mold of the pg, but yao makes poor decisions and is a poor ball handler. Adelman will adjust and get the players playing at a high level. He should know tracy is very good 15ft and in, yao is better on the blocks, artest is a mismatch low, scola is pretty good from midrange and hustling and rafer sux. All in all, it will work itself out

 

As long as we have Tmac we will not run Adelman's offense. It's not a total putdown on Tmac but Tmac will never completely buy into a motion offense. He must get his touches and he must get his shots. He is a great passer but it is mostly when he is attacking and then creating on his own. He doesn't care for the pass that leads to the pass that leads to the score. He gets no glory for that. ANd therein you have the number one reason he will never a great player for Adelman's offense. Tmac wants it to be about him. When it's not he broods.

 

Replace t-mac and Yao for proper players, and you have the western conference finals.

This team and especially the 2 super stars yao and mcgrady cant take any of the top 7-8 teams on the west in a series.

Mcgrady will just collapse before game 3 is played.

 

QFT. Obviously there are a lot of factors why the adelman system is not working out, but IMHO shooting is the biggest obstacle they are facing right now. The system relies on spacing, cuts and read-and-react plays, but it relies on good accurate shooting for those things to work out. Look at Adelman's Sacto team before-Divac, Webber, Bibby, Bobby Jackson and especially Stojakovic were great shooters. Its the same last year during the win streak as well: Rafer went on a hot streak, Landry made jump shots and started dunking everywhere and shane battier and luther head started bombing for long range.

In contrast, this season all of the players are not hitting their shots due to a variety of reasons (injury, lack of heart, just plain suckiness etc). Therefore, spacing is useless because guys can't hit shots and people can't cut because everyone is packing the paint daring the Rockets to shoot. We can't even dump the ball to Yao, because now he is missing wide open dunks as well

 

we need yao to do this. Dominate the paint, shoot the three point(play 8), and make the pass to the cutters(play 3).

Actually, the whole team need to this, notice the off ball movement for all the players?

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Like Adelman just said in the Chronicle, we have no desire to resemble the Kings offense. We just want to add more motion within the offense we already have.

People are going to say that Battier will have barely any effect on the offense, which isn't true. He was in the starting lineup when we won 22 in a row. Artest doesn't seem comfortable in the starting lineup, so bringing him off the bench will result in an even better bench. Of course, Battier can make threes at a good %. The starting lineup chemistry we had >>> the current one.

And defense and rebounding does lead to offense believe it or not. This is why not having Mutombo affects us even on offense. He blocks shots, leading to possible fast breaks. He gets offensive rebounds, giving us more possessions. He's a great defensive rebounder, preventing the opponent from getting more possessions. All that matters and is significant to the offense.

 

This may have already been mentioned but Adelman DID coach a team that went to the Finals twice in Portland. That Portland team was very comparable in talent, athleticism and personel to this Rocket team.

The problem is players now are unable to play team ball and many times they are unwilling to even try to learn it.

 

Contrary to what someone said earlier here, the Princeton Offense doesn't require excellent athleticism. Everything I've read about it has said it was designed to allow skilled, team-oriented players to overcome their athletic disadvantages. The Princeton Offense doesn't rely on fast breaks or being able to beat your man off the dribble. It's about shooting and relying on screens set by your teammates to get open.

The shooting is what kills us. Option 1 on this team, T-Mac, is just not an accurate shooter. He's a volume shooter right now, who's often inaccurate and often on his ballhandling skills. He's not the type to run around numerous screens for the catch-and-shoot; he would probably brick the long shot anyway. Option 1A on this team, Yao, should strictly be played as a low post, back-to-the-basket threat (or a finisher off of dribble penetration). His skills are just wasted in the high post. I think it's pretty clear that Yao doesn't fit this offense; his PER and per-minute scoring last season were the lowest since his sophomore year, after those two stats had steadily improved over his first 5 seasons.

The supporting cast hasn't been ideal for this system either. Rafer is a famously bad shot, and Chuck Hayes has almost no offensive skills besides offensive rebounding.

 

it's not like they're deciphering the da vinci code.. everything is pretty much laid out for them to learn and implement.. either they run the offense or they don't... i see them revert back to jvg's offense a lot when there's an offensive breakdown... i guess it's human nature to go back to what you know was working previously... at least try to run the motion offense the duration of the game... mistakes will be made but that's part of the learning process

 

sir, you have the answer.

 

Those were the JVG years. I haven't seen that Yao in a while. Yao excelled under JVG, and IMO he knew how to use him and tailored to his strengths. Sadly, I don't think we will ever see that Yao again.

Maybe someone can send him some tapes of himself from the past to get his confidence back and to motivate him.

 

True, Argentina used a lot of montion offense in 2002, if you want to check a princeston offense (in fiba is called Flex offense) watch some youtube links of that 2002 team, we had no athletic players in nba terms but the offense was effective.