There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding here. No one is saying Brooks is not a good player because he most certainly is. The question is, is he an elite PG that can handle the reins of an offense, to which the answer is no. He is a very quick and very undersized scoring two guard. People keep bring up 5 assists. Those 5 assists come at the costs of almost a turnover an assist, which for a PG, especially in RA's system, is not good. There are at least 5 PG's I would easily take over AB if I could in this league. All of this is moot however until Yao comes back and we see how AB adapts to him, because with Yao clogging up the middle, AB is going to be hard pressed trying to penetrate inside.
and just exactly what elite talent is brooks passing to? funny how people trot that line out yet forget that for the entirety of the season he's been passing it to players like hayes, andersen, ariza, budinger (rookie), hill (rookie), battier, etc. his turnover ratio is higher than it should be because he is 1) very young and 2) has practically been the #1 option on the court at all times, meaning he's been trying to force a lot difficult plays to get something going. not saying he's the best pure PG in the game, but i find a lot of these criticisms - especially in an anomaly of a year such as this one - borderline absurd. i think a fair barometer on his skill level is how does he perform against other so-called elite PG's, and more often than not he plays fantastically.
Still waiting on Tony Parker and Derek Fisher to develop that ELITE court vision you need to be a starting PG on a championship team. Oh wait.... DD
THANK YOU. this asinine notion that AB has to have some sort of crazy court vision and ass/TO ration is based on AB-SO-LUTE-LY NOTHING. Yao is our guy here whether you like it or not. while he is on the court, you NEED to have a pg who can knock down the outside shot or drive and step-back and pop... and that is EXACTLY what AB does and does it well.
That's the point! It was frustrating to see Brooks runs the floor and everyone else follows him and looses the tempo and rhythm. Brooks is never a great POINT guard unless he learns how to run the offense of the team. He is already a good shooting guard.
People keep bring up AST:TO ratio, but as John Hollinger has pointed out this is a flawed measure for point guards. He came up with a metric he calls Pure Point Rating some time ago, defined as: Pure Point = (100* ((Assists * 2/3) - Turnovers))/Minutes Where do Brooks and Lowry stack up, amongst PGs getting significant minutes (> 1800 this season)? Player Team GP MPG Ast/40 TOV/40 PPR 1 paul,chris nor 45 38.1 11.2 2.6 12.1 2 nash,steve pho 78 32.9 13.4 4.5 11.1 3 williams,deron uta 74 37.0 11.5 3.5 10.3 4 kidd,jason dal 78 36.2 10.0 2.7 10.0 5 rondo,rajon bos 79 36.6 10.7 3.3 9.4 6 calderon,jose tor 65 26.9 8.9 2.2 9.2 7 davis,baron lac 75 33.6 9.5 3.3 7.4 8 duhon,chris nyk 64 31.2 7.3 2.1 7.0 9 williams,jason orl 79 20.8 7.1 2.0 6.8 10 westbrook,russel okl 79 34.4 9.3 3.7 6.2 11 ridnour,luke mil 80 21.4 7.3 2.5 6.0 12 blake,steve lac 78 26.6 6.9 2.3 5.6 13 bibby,mike atl 79 27.4 5.7 1.6 5.3 14 lowry,kyle hou 65 24.4 7.1 2.7 5.0 15 nelson,jameer orl 62 28.6 7.5 3.0 5.0 16 miller,andre por 79 30.7 7.1 2.7 5.0 17 felton,raymond cha 78 33.2 6.7 2.5 4.8 18 jack,jarrett tor 79 27.4 7.2 2.9 4.8 19 harris,devin njn 62 34.7 7.8 3.3 4.8 20 bynum,will det 61 26.2 6.9 2.8 4.5 21 conley,mike mem 78 32.1 6.7 2.7 4.5 22 barea,juan_jose dal 76 19.8 6.7 2.7 4.4 23 hinrich,kirk chi 71 33.3 5.4 1.8 4.4 24 jennings,brandon mil 80 32.7 7.1 3.0 4.3 25 udrih,beno sac 77 31.1 5.9 2.2 4.3 26 watson,earl ind 77 29.3 7.0 3.0 4.2 27 collison,darren nor 74 27.3 8.1 3.8 4.0 28 billups,chauncey den 71 34.2 6.6 2.8 4.0 29 williams,lou phi 62 30.1 5.5 2.2 3.6 30 parker,tony san 54 31.1 7.3 3.5 3.5 31 foye,randy was 70 23.8 5.5 2.3 3.5 32 rose,derrick chi 75 36.6 6.6 3.0 3.3 33 williams,mo cle 68 34.3 6.1 2.9 2.9 34 watson,c.j. gsw 65 27.5 4.0 1.5 2.9 35 stuckey,rodney det 72 34.4 5.6 2.6 2.8 36 fisher,derek lal 79 27.2 3.6 1.4 2.7 37 curry,stephen gsw 77 36.0 6.5 3.4 2.4 38 evans,tyreke sac 70 37.5 6.2 3.2 2.2 39 chalmers,mario mia 70 24.6 5.4 2.7 2.2 40 hill,george san 76 29.7 4.0 1.8 2.2 41 sessions,ramon min 79 20.8 5.9 3.1 2.1 42 brooks,aaron hou 79 35.8 6.0 3.2 2.0 43 holiday,jrue phi 71 24.2 6.1 3.5 1.6 44 flynn,jonny min 79 29.0 6.2 4.0 0.3 45 ellis,monta gsw 61 41.2 5.2 3.7 -0.6
Durvasa, That is a meaningless statistical table.....it doesn't do anything in regards to helping define what a PG's role is on Houston and particularly in Adelman's system. Look at Curry on that list, or Evans etc...... Aaron Brooks role is a scoring Point guard, much like Tony Parker in San Antonio....only with a jump shot and not as good at finishing as TP. AB is not a traditional set up PG, he is Chauncey Billups, or Tony Parker etc..that type...which are all at the bottom of that table...but considered to be some of the better PGs. The Rockets need a SCORING point to spread the floor......create spacing, and dribble penetration. AB is dang near perfect for that role. DD
And to follow up ... Since about the All-star break, Brooks has been improving substantially in terms of generating more assists while limiting the turnovers. Of course, it goes without saying that in "Adelman's system" it is not necessary for the PG to be a double-digit assist guy. Nevertheless, I think the above trend reflects a positive development for Brooks, though DD may disagree and consider it "meaningless".
EXACTLY! brooks can be better than tony parker atleast just as good in his prime, he already has the speed, it took tony years to develop his shoot and brooks is already better than him at 3s. Brooks is one of the best 3pt shooters in the league, the guy can be 5 ft back from the line and I'm confident in him. some people say we greatly over rate our own players on this board, it seems quite opposite to me. We took la to 7 games last year with a young squad and we have added small pieces, the lakers seem to have gotten older not better. All we need is yao and a reliable 7ft back up.
I think that the thought is interesting Durv, but the data is inconclusive. Why? Because not every PG is tasked with doing the same thing, some are scoring points, some assist oriented. How do you factor all that in? Lies, damned lies and statistics..... DD
You wrote: [rquoter]Aaron Brooks role is a scoring Point guard, much like Tony Parker in San Antonio....only with a jump shot and not as good at finishing as TP. AB is not a traditional set up PG, he is Chauncey Billups, or Tony Parker etc..that type...which are all at the bottom of that table...but considered to be some of the better PGs.[/rquoter] You correctly note that Brooks isn't a traditional pass-first PG, but is more like Billups or Parker (known to be championship-caliber PGs). And you observe that, like Brooks, those two PGs fall towards the bottom half of the table. So, the table does reflect something meaningful. Brooks is not a "pure" PG in the traditional sense, just like Billups and Parker are also not pure PGs. On the other hand, if we narrow our focus to players like Brooks, where does he fall? Both Billups and Parker still rank ahead of him by a fair margin. You mentioned Mike Bibby before. In his Sacramento career, he had a 3.9 PPR, and this season he has a 5.1 PPR, compared to Brooks who has a 2.0 PPR this season. In fact, if you look at the players are actually in the same vicinity as Brooks in that table, what do you find? They are mainly rookies or players who are really SGs masquerading as PGs (e.g. Monte Ellis, Tyreke Evans). And I don't mean this at all to be a harsh criticism on Brooks, which I guess is how you took it. I think the chart I posted indicates that Aaron has made great strides as the season has worn on. In the last month or so, his PPR has been up in the 3.5-4.0 range, which coincides with Billups, Parker, and (incidentally) Sacramento Bibby. For the role we need him to play, I think that's an improvement over what he was doing in the earlier parts of the season.
Its really trippy how far he has come. Over the past 20 games, his clutch play has improved dramatically, his decision making has improved dramatically. During the first half of the season, I was not entirely sold. But now I really think he can be like the Mike Bibby of this offense (I realize they are different players, I am talking about the role they play only). As much as I love Lowry, I do not think you trade him unless you get a star quality player in return.
I really like AB and I think we should wait and see how the whole team play together next year. However, Fisher had Kobe, Parker had Manu, and Billups' team was just so special (5 or you can even say 7 or 8 really good role players). Any team needs a great play maker or some decent ones (like the old Kings). I look at the current Rockets and I still have some question marks.
If you can get Chris Paul or Deron Williams we all agree go for it. But Give me a trade for a point guard that is a substantial upgrade over AB. No shooting rondo i'm sure he would work great with Yao. If we are going to upgrade the team, which i think we need to do, i believe our assets are better utilized elsewhere, unless we can get one of the truly elite point guards, of which there are only two in my mind. Great big men don't need true point guards, they need shooters or scorers. Derek Fisher Kenny Smith Tony Parker
43% FG will never make him elite. Many T-Mac fans were proud of How great T-Mac was in houston, which I never believed.
This is hilarious. Until Brooks develops a shooting game that isn't behind the 3-point line, he can't be considered to be an ELITE player IMO.
Yep. I'm tired of hearing "He's 25! He can only get better!" No you don't get better just because you are 25. Hate to break it to some of you. Some players actually have one or two years in their prime, and MOST players hit their prime at around the age Brooks is at now. 25-28 most NBA players seem to hit their prime. That's why I think he's as good as he's going to get. I don't see him adding great vision which would take him to Elite level. SORRY! I don't see him getting better on defense....sorry about that.
