Sam, He is not a good passer because he has no one to pass too..... The Blazers have 2 bigs in the lane...TWO.....this gives Brooks no room to make his shot. He could be BETTER at a stop and pop at the FT line.....sure....that would be great...... But he is supposed to drive, and the rest of the players are SUPPOSED to move off the ball to open spaces. It is basketball 101.....even Morey just said on the radio they need his aggression and penetration. Yes, I do like Brooks.....no he is not playing perfectly...but he is doing what he is supposed to do. Now, if he was turning the ball over a lot, then I would be aggreeing with the masses, but the fact is.....he isn't....... He is doing his job.....now the rest of the team needs to help him. Brooks is not the problem here.....the team's lack of moving is.... I do agree with you though that at this stage in his career he is not a great passer, but he is adequate....and in only his 2nd year..... Remember when San Antonio had the same issue with Tony Parker and tried to lure Jason Kidd? That is what would happen if the Rockets stopped developing Brooks. Just give him time. DD
I'm more inclined to believe he's not a good passer because he's a lousy passer. Alston managed to get assists with this group of players despite a pretty limited skill set (and a well chronicled desire to pull the trigger on the jump shot.) T-Mac managed to do it too.....why is it that only Brooks has trouble? Signs point to Brooks being the issue, not the players around him.
How many more assists did Alston get than Brooks? Brooks is at 4.8pg in this series, wasn't Rafer at around 5? Alston was a better passer to Scola, on the high PnR but he rarely made any other pass of consequence and shot too often. I would rather let the team grow with AB, we know what a Rafer led team is going to do.... Sometimes you have to take the lumps of growth, that is what is going on here.....Brooks has some lumpy moments but he will learn. Lots of players are tenative early in their careers as they get their confidence going, at least Brooks is protecting the ball. Don't take my word for it, take Daryl Morey's they like what Brooks is doing.... One funny thing though.....you always seem to give up on young players too quickly....like that is all they will become......and you call me knee jerk... DD
you got it. i'm calling it the way i see it. the shots outside are there and we've seen AB alone pass up quite a few of them which is one of many factors that add to his poor decision making abilities.
Uh, dude stop trying to truncate the stats and only use the playoffs to make Brooks look better due to a sampling error. During the regular season - Alston assisted on 28% of field goals while he was on the floor. Brooks only did 20% (basketballreference). Even a hobbled, uninterested T-mac did 25%. Does that support the conclusion that it's the ineptitude of the Rockets other players (who, by the way, are uniformly praised as among the smartest highest basketball IQ players in teh league in Battier, Scola, Yao) in knowing where to go on the floor? Please find where I gave up on Aaron Brooks - I did no such thing - he is loads better than some previous DD favorites, who simply weren't good enough to stay in the league and showed it. I'm merely acknowledging his limits which you are doing everything in your power to obscure. And please - you are the king knee-jerker on this board. you change your mind every 10 seconds and espouse about 25 mutually exclusive positions at any one moment. Don't even start with that.
Uh, no, they need more players like Brooks who can attack and make the other teams pay for all the attention they are giving to Yao. Like, Wafer, and Lowry etc..... We have Battier and Artest out there, they are redundant...both stand at the 3pt line...we can afford only one at a time......let Ron go, and get a slasher in his place and this team explodes. DD
nah bro we need to focus our offense all around aaron brooks... hes the next tony parker remember??? daryl morey: "we spoke to all the coaches of every team n the Pac-10 and all the team's coaches said the only player that they had to ALL plan their defenses around was Aaron Brooks"
Good job Sam, I can't believe DD pull that card - oh, pile of excuses PG is doing exactly right, it's just the veterans on this team doesn't know what they are doing. Bravo AB, Bravo DD, all others be damned.
DD, You make me laugh. AB is not a good passer because he has no one to pass to??? We've seen so many times Yao sealed his man, yelling for the ball, AB looked at him, then pass to the other side or keeps dribbling. He has a 7'6 open target and he has no one to pass to? He's not a good passeer because he doesn't have court vision, he doesn't have size, and he doesn't have an idea about when, where and how to pass.
AB has no one moving to the open spots or holes in the defense as they rotate to stop his penetration. The only one moving is Scola, and he has no issue getting him the ball, he has missed Yao a few times, but so what? That happens with young PGs. If you ever played PG, or coached a team, you would know what I am talking about when I am saying he has no one to pass the ball to when he drives. Cutters people, cutters.....that is the key.......basketball 101. Does that mean AB has great court vision? No, it is still developing, but part of that is the confidence to pass the ball as well as it is to see it. Some guys have GREAT court vision, Nash, Kidd, Paul etc.....but there are lots that are pretty good at it.....like Parker etc.....I think AB will peak out at the pretty good level. He makes some good passes, but he is not a typical....great court vision guy....doesn't matter, you can win without that guy. None of the Rockets had great court vision in their 2 championship years either. Anyway, we shall see what happens tonight.....I know you guys have given up....fair enough. DD
People need to give AB a break! He is a rookie playing in his first playoff series. I believe much of the Rockets success and failure is due to good/bad coaching. If the player is not shooting, the coach needs to simply tell the player to stop shooting, the same thing can be said with Ron Artest. How does a player continue to shoot a poor percentage and has more shots than the best center in the league. Adelman needs to step up and start coaching!
Well, even by playoff stats, Brooks looks more like he belongs to the bench. Code: +/- stats for Rocket players in the first 5 games of the playoffs Player Gm 1 Gm 2 Gm 3 Gm 4 Gm 5 Brooks +31 -6 -2 -1 -7 Artest +25 -4 -3 +5 -16 Yao +22 -1 +2 +5 -5 Battier +34 +1 +1 -1 -12 Scola +32 -13 +6 +3 -8 Lowry -3 +3 0 +1 -6 Wafer -5 -5 +8 -2 -1 Landry -6 +3 +6 -1 +6 Hayes -1 +4 -3 -4 -6 Except Brooks, all other Rocket starters -- including Dakoda's favorite whipping boy Artest -- have at least 2 plus games in the playoff thus far. The evidence couldn't have been more damning against Brooks as a starter.
AB's problem is not he doesn't have great court vision, it's he has tunnel vision. Court vision is a natual thing, very hard to develop, just like size. Decision making by AB can be improved with experiencs, but court vision and size hardly can unless a player is really young. Apparently AB is not, he has been playing basketball for so many years and still has tunnel vision. If what you said is about Lowry, I might agree with you. Lowry's court vision is adequate, what he needs is experience, chemistry with starters, and 3 point shooting. He may never develop into a good 3 point shooter, but he has everything else to develop into a quality starting PG.
Brooks deserves time to develop=Rox deserve the loss in playoff It cost Rox to develop Brooks, and he is not developable, he just can grab some useless point to get a big contract, nothing more than that.
yeah...every NBA GM is perfect when it comes to talent-scouting... scolas awesome, landrys great (at least he was before)...brooks??????? uhhhhhh just because Morey loves Brooks hes gonna be a superstar...
