Hahahaha! We don't need his services anymore? Really? Was it coincidence that once he went out, our defense went to utter hell? Dude, we need him and I would ship Ariza's overpaid ass out before him any day of the week. Battier's strength was that he funneled players into Yao and was thought that by JVG and implemented by Adelman. With Yao coming back, we need Battier, period! I say give Toronto what they always wanted in Ariza and include him in a S&T for Bosh.
Haha, I never get tired of this stuff. Battier was acquired because the Rockets said they were in "WIN NOW" mode in 2006. He's been here for four years and we haven't won anything, not even when everybody was healthy. How exactly is Ariza a "WIN Later" guy? Lol. This is the same Trevor Ariza who played extremely well on a consistent basis for the Lakers in the playoffs as he won a championship with them last year. The blind Battier supporters never fail to amaze me with their "logic."
"Jason Friedman of the Houston Press has written the article on Houston General Manager Daryl Morey. It's long as hell, but read it all. It'll make you smarter. Basically, Morey's a very smart and likable guy with diverse interests, who just has a sense of what can be done with quantitative analysis, and what role that analysis can play in sports. His hiring has been cited as basketball's Moneyball moment -- and Morey is to the NBA as Billy Beane is to MLB. Old-timers are chapped that longtime Carroll Dawson assistant Dennis Lindsey didn't get the job -- Lindsey has since departed for the Spurs -- but no one things Morey is a fool. For instance, from a sidebar to Friedman's main article, here's some background into how it is the Rockets came to trade red-hot prospect Rudy Gay for Shane Battier: Here's a small glimpse at what they saw: When Battier was on the court, his team Scored more Rebounded better Fouled less Allowed fewer points Shot better Decreased their opponent's shooting percentage In other words, he was exactly the type of player the numbers said they had to have. "He definitely stood out in all the methods we use," says Morey. "He's someone who creates a large margin over who he's guarding. In the NBA, it's not how many points you score, it's what you do with each time down the floor. And when Shane uses a possession, it's always a high number of points are scored. And when Shane's guarding someone, not many points are scored when the other team uses the possession on the other end of the floor. When he played versus not over his years in Memphis, the team was about eight points per game better, a very significant margin." What we're getting from this is that Battier is doing "the little things." Or "playing smart." Or, essentially, doing the things that win basketball games -- whatever they are -- but don't show up in the traditional box score. Here's the great irony, though: the people who most question putting a "stat guy" at the head of a team are people who are all about those exact things. Because those exact people have been let down by old school stats in the past. From the main article: Take, for instance, former Rocket and current NBA analyst Kenny Smith. "Without question, I'm going to trust my eyes more than the numbers," says Smith. "I never look at the stat sheet. I think stats have value, without question. But it makes me wary if they [the number-crunchers] put value in certain stats that I don't think have value. A player understands this. I could average 17 points a game on a bad team, because in the last eight minutes of the game, the coach leaves me in the game to get my six or seven points against second-string or third-string guys. And when you're on a bad team, guys know how to do that. They know how to get their *numbers." "I want to know what happens in winning time. What happens when guys are making plays to win the game, or when a team is making a 10-0 run? Who's the guy who makes the play to make things happen? I know the look. I know the look that separates aggression from passiveness, dominance from lack of dominance over a person. You can't get that on a stat sheet. Statistics should only validate what you think subjectively. It shouldn't create your subjective view." Perhaps surprisingly, Morey doesn't take issue with Smith's opinions on the subject. "I think that's fair," he says. "In fact, I describe what we do along those lines all the time. No matter what you think, you should want to use objective evidence to confirm or help you question your beliefs." "I think often what you'll find when you're getting negative comments (on statistics), they're basing it on what they're used to being available, which is a regular box score. And there's no question that anything in the box score is highly misleading. So if you're basing your opinions on that - the box scores that they hand out at the games - you're going to have an appropriate negative opinion of what you can understand using analytics. I would even have a negative opinion of [statistical analysis] if that's all I'd ever seen." See? Kenny Smith and Daryl Morey want the same thing: to know what really wins games. In the past, that kind of stuff has been assessed informally, based on who has the killer look in their eyes and all that. And that is not nothing. But now people like Morey and dozens more are showing that statistics can be helpful in that assessment too. It's early for these statistics. But they're not going away. They're helping already, and they'll be helping more in the future." http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/po...d-works-and-why-you-should-love-shane-battier
We know Battier is an elite wing defender and can knock down 3's at a solid percentage. Less known is his passing. Battier finished 3RD in assist ratio among small forwards this year.
"Alexander wasn’t alone. It was, and is, far easier to spot what Battier doesn’t do than what he does. His conventional statistics are unremarkable: he doesn’t score many points, snag many rebounds, block many shots, steal many balls or dish out many assists. On top of that, it is easy to see what he can never do: what points he scores tend to come from jump shots taken immediately after receiving a pass. “That’s the telltale sign of someone who can’t ramp up his offense,” Morey says. “Because you can guard that shot with one player. And until you can’t guard someone with one player, you really haven’t created an offensive situation. Shane can’t create an offensive situation. He needs to be open.” For fun, Morey shows me video of a few rare instances of Battier scoring when he hasn’t *exactly been open. Some large percentage of them came when he was being guarded by an inferior defender — whereupon Battier backed him down and tossed in a left jump-hook. “This is probably, to be honest with you, his only offensive move,” Morey says. “But look, see how he pump fakes.” Battier indeed pump faked, several times, before he shot over a defender. “He does that because he’s worried about his shot being blocked.” Battier’s weaknesses arise from physical limitations. Or, as Morey puts it, “He can’t dribble, he’s slow and hasn’t got much body control.” Battier’s game is a weird combination of obvious weaknesses and nearly invisible strengths. When he is on the court, his teammates get better, often a lot better, and his opponents get worse — often a lot worse. He may not grab huge numbers of rebounds, but he has an uncanny ability to improve his teammates’ rebounding. He doesn’t shoot much, but when he does, he takes only the most efficient shots. He also has a knack for getting the ball to teammates who are in a position to do the same, and he commits few turnovers. On defense, although he routinely guards the N.B.A.’s most prolific scorers, he significantly *reduces their shooting percentages. At the same time he somehow improves the defensive efficiency of his teammates — probably, Morey surmises, by helping them out in all sorts of subtle ways. “I call him Lego,” Morey says. “When he’s on the court, all the pieces start to fit together. And everything that leads to winning that you can get to through intellect instead of innate ability, Shane excels in. I’ll bet he’s in the hundredth percentile of every category.” There are other things Morey has noticed too, but declines to discuss as there is right now in pro basketball real value to new information, and the Rockets feel they have some. What he will say, however, is that the big challenge on any basketball court is to measure the right things. The five players on any basketball team are far more than the sum of their parts; the Rockets devote a lot of energy to untangling subtle interactions among the team’s elements. To get at this they need something that basketball hasn’t historically supplied: meaningful statistics. For most of its history basketball has measured not so much what is important as what is easy to measure — points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocked shots — and these measurements have warped perceptions of the game. (“Someone created the box score,” Morey says, “and he should be shot.”) How many points a player scores, for example, is no true indication of how much he has helped his team. Another example: if you want to know a player’s value as a *rebounder, you need to know not whether he got a rebound but the likelihood of the team getting the rebound when a missed shot enters that player’s zone." http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/15/magazine/15Battier-t.html?pagewanted=all
I hope Battier is not traded. He is still one of the best defenders on the wing because of how hard he makes you work to work every possession. He's our best team defender too(check games he was out)he does a good job of cutting off point gaurds that get by Brooks and getting back to his man.He is also the best post entry passer on the team. There is no one better to help groom Chase, Jermaine, and Jordan Hill. Shane is a class act and I hope he is a rocket until he retires and takes David Sterns job. That said if we could pull a big z with him it would be great.
You mean like game one against the Lakers when he held Kobe to 32 points on 31 shots? Or game 1 at Portland when he held Brandon Roy to 21 points on 23 shots and allowed him to get to the line ONLY ONCE!?
"Scored more Rebounded better Fouled less Allowed fewer points Shot better Decreased their opponent's shooting percentage In other words, he was exactly the type of player the numbers said they had to have." What more can you say? Battier's numbers are hidden in the subtext of games that people either fail to read or just don't understand how to do so.
As usual, dont mention game 2,5,or 7 when he didnt even show up. The next time shane is a factor on the road in the playoffs will be his first.
keep shane guys jeez come on we need his defensive presence and smarts, is it just me or do we resemble the suns team that just swept the spurs. no defense backcourt that can put up point in a hurry nash>brooks but martin>richardson, good wing defender ariza>hill, scoring pf with the only defense available is taking a charge, and well yao>lopez, then go down to the bench they have dragic we have lowry, we got shane they got dudley, big bench scorer in cbud vs their bench scorer barbosa, center on the bench that can shoot the 3 frye vs anderson, thats where their bench ends and we still have hill(who after a year in the league and training camp with adelman could be scary next year) and jefferies. how does this pertain to this thread... if you dont think we our team is top to bottom better than suns right now then you have not seen what we can do. as long as yao comes back and can put up 15 and 8 we have a better squad than a team that just swept its way to the conference finals. if yao comes back as full strength its not even close our team totally trumps the suns squad. and yao doesnt come back picking up a center like brad miller should suffice. we DO NOT need major changes, a minor tweak and we can compete next year, the suns missed the freakin playoffs last year guys all they did was get rid of shaq and added a healthy amare. we need to keep shane and ariza and buddinger, its a long a season and they will all get their chance to contribute, playoffs our about matchups and the more versatility you have the better off you will be. we will need battier corner 3s a some point, just ask the spurs if they wish they still had a good defender who can hit 3s(bruce bown anybody) and i know that even the battier haters can agree battier>bowen
Battier plays far better team and man to man defense than Ariza. Battier also wastes far fewer offensive possessions by taking ill advised shots. He understands taht his offensive skills are lacking, so he does the one thing he can. Space the floor and hit 3s. This year his 3P% was down, however I would bet that had more ot do with the absence of Yao in the middle meaning his shots weren't always wide open. The Laker team that Ariza played on was incredibly stacked and I will not deny that he played great that post season. However down the stretch of teh game I would trust Battier to make a good decision on defense and offense than Ariza. With as potent as an offensive starting lineup we're poised to have, I don't think Ariza's production, especially with the limited efficiency it coems at, is needed. I would rather trade Ariza and resign Battier next season for 2-3 million, and I wouldn't think twice if that option appeared.
I would rather trade Ariza. We won't have the shots to make him happy this year IMO. If we were to get Bosh, you really don't have a ton of shots to go around. Ariza will still want to be "getting his".
