I personally think that Cuttino should be coming off the bench. Honestly, to me, the "CAT" is highly over-rated. The only thing the guy is good at doing is jacking up shots and making less than half of it. He should be giving the Rockets a spark off the bench. I think that the Rockets' starting small forward should be Bostjan Nachbar. Here is my starting FIVE for next season: C- MING PF- MOTAYLOR SF- GRIFFIN SG- NACHBAR PG- FRANCIS
Thats a big team, thats actually a nice combo to go with. I agree with u , cuttino's skills are overrated.. He doesnt know how to play team ball, I would trade him if i could. nice post.
Welcome to the board. I'm afraid I completely disagree with your post. Cat's not a perfect player, but he's a gifted scorer. Griffin's not a 3, but even if he were, he hasn't proved that he should start yet. I would love it if Nachbar could effectively play minutes at SG; we'll have to see how good his handles are and how quick he is. My starting five the first game of the season: Cato KT (Mo's suspended the first five games) Rice Cat Stevie Who I hope will be starting the last game of the season: Yao MoTay Nachbar Cat Stevie
Great, let's throw a rookie on the court instead of a proven veteren who can score on anybody and is praised by Rudy T and other coaches. Sure, Nachbar can shoot and dunk, but one of his negatives is his defense, but I guess it doesn't matter and we should make his notable defeciancy worse by making him guard shooting guards. You should be happy we have a guy who makes as little as Mobley does compared to guys with similar stats.
No, he doesn't, but he'd be better than Nachbar at guarding 2guards. Would you want Mobley to try and hold Small Forwards?
Hold on! I'm not sure starting a 19-year old and 2 foreign rookies is the way to make the playoffs next year. I hope Nachbar is as good as management says he is, but none of us have really seen him play yet. Cat's a great one-on-one SG with a great first-step, and we forget that he hits the boards and shoots good FT%. Unfortunately, his shot is streaky, he doesn't look to pass first, and his defense is average at best. In summary, he's an average to above-average SG who should not be relied upon as "the man," but can be a very effective piece of the Rockets puzzle. Assuming Walt's gone, he's the 2nd most experienced player on the team behind Rice. The best case scenario has Nachbar pushing both Cat and Rice for minutes at the 2 and 3, making all three of them better players.
So, Kobe8, how many games have you seen Bostjan play? He's a 2 guard now? We should bench Cat and his 22ppg. and start someone none of us know much about, except that he has been an excellent Euro SF that RT and CD are high on. Geez, why don't we trade Cato, Rice, and whatever for KOBE. We know he's good, don't we.
our biggest hole is at the 3, nachbar is a three. cat is, despite what some of you say, a VERY, VERY talented shooting guard. he is not average. put the two together with some easy math and you got, mobley starting and nachbar waiting out glen rice. i don't see rudy straying too far from that. some people will just have to live with having the best player at his position actually starting.
Let's see....how many SGs shoot at or over 50%? One that I can think of - Brent Barry - and I'm not sure he finished at or above that mark. Mobley is one of the NBA's better pure scorers. He may put up one too many shots or make a bad play here and there, but you have to take the bad with the good. Especially when the alternative is a raw rookie - take that as either Nachbar or Torres. The better option would be to start Mobley and Nachbar at SG and SF respectively and let Nachbar stand around the perimeter and work his way into the offense as the recipient of passes out of the lane as Mobley and Francis drive to the hole.
Mobley's a good player. He is a very good scorer and an average defender because so many of the top SG in the league are like 2, 3, and even 4 inches taller than him. He was a good defender in college because had good size for a shooting guard in Div 1. If he could learn to play the passing lanes better, then he would be a more complete player. You don't see Philly sitting Iverson down because he can't defend most shooting guards. He makes up for it by getting steals and causing turnovers for the other team.
What shooting guard makes more than half of his shots? And as far as Cat "jacking up shots" he averages 18 shots per game, which is roughly equivalent to his level in NBA points per game (13th). For him to be "jacking up" shots to get his points, he would have to shoot more times than a good player to get the same number of points. It's obvious that's not happening, so you can throw that argument out the window. As far as not playing "team" ball, he averages within one assist of every other shooting guard in his class, while playing on a team with a system less condusive for assist and a worse team shooting percentage than Dallas, Minnesota, etc. He's an average defender, which puts him miles ahead of Steve Francis. If you bench Cuttino Mobley, I hope you're ready to bench Wally Szczerbiak, Michael Finley, and Allan Houston too... they're all in about the same class. If anything, Mobley is better than those three.
Don't even bother arguing with these trolls. Its amazing to see how some of these idiots think they are smarter then NBA coaches. I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Rudy might know slightly more about Cuttinos "skills" then some of us. And I am glad only Rudy's opinion matters. I lover Francis and Cuttino, but it is amazing to see how some idiots keep on harping on Cuttino's defense while completely ignoring Francis defense. Mobley is 10 times the defensive player Francis is.
I mean that's got to be the dumbest thing I have ever heard. Put our leading scorer on the bench and put a ROOKIE in his place. (This is where I lose it) You have got to be one of the biggest r****ds I have ever come across here. I mean what in the hell are you smoking. Get a clue. In case you have some sort of a mental block (and it sounds like you do) HE'S A ROOKIE!!!!!!!! (Not to put Nachbar down, I'm sure he'll be a good player) Some people just really piss me off.
