1st time startin a thread here, and i had a question that no one seems to have discussed yet. after seeing the Rockets "go small" out of necessity (6'6 center anyone? lay-up line?) and with the Fakers still looking like the team to beat in the west , i was wondering how our size matches up to them now. we've added yao, miller, pat, and hill but does that REALLY match up against the likes of gasol, bynum and odom? pat's a rook, hill is still learnin the intricacies of playing center, miller's slowing down and yao and his foot are big question marks. the only known quantaties in our bigs is that scola will still be an iron man and hayes will be punking fools with his outstanding D like always. so just for giggles- if the lakers trot out kobe, artest, gasol, odom and bynum; what would we counter with? what does our bigs line-up look like? chase running point? just kinda thinkin aloud here ppl, thoughts?
If we were in garbage time and Adelman just felt like seeing what a big lineup would play like, hed prolly go with this, i think: Lee Bud Battier/Pat/JJ Miller/Hill Yao/Miller
How would that matchup with lakers? Lee>>>Fish No comment Battier can handle Ron Gasol>>Miller but Miller cant be too bad if Scola can hold his own, sort of. Yao>Bynum Matchups (defense/size wise)=Winnable Skill (our second group vs champs starters)= meh. Lets just hope for intensity.. remember though this is our second/third group, if we put our starters out there, we matchup even better than going big and are much much better obviously.
Code: Position L.A. Height Hou. Height 1 Guard Kobe 6'6" Lee 6'5" 2 Guard Artest 6'7" Martin 6'7" S Fwd Odem 6'10" Jeffries6'11" P Fwd Gasol 7'0" Scola 6'10" Center Bynum 7'0'' Yao 7'6" Other options with size would be Bud at 6'7", Battier at 6'8", Brad Miller 7'0". I would say that is a definite yes that we could man a team that could keep up with the Lakers size.
Reasonable question, OP. My take is simple - if all remain healthy and Hill continues to develop then yes, Rox'r fine. But, I would love an experienced 4/5 back-up. JO'N would have been ideal, but really, the full MLE from C's? Too too much. The TE exactly matches Gortat, and I'd love that. But, @12.6mm? Too, too much. No, Hill's development must be fast-tracked and/or see who is in mid-season need to be DM the GM'd.
Lakers that can handle a healthy Yao. No one in the league does. Which is why they resort to fronting and triple teams, Also chuck hayes played center last year but it is clear there were times he was a mismatch. But at power forward he can guard them all accept the biggest. Like Bosh and Duncan. But remember at times against those we will have Yao backing him up. Yao gives night mares to any team. Scola can score on anyone in the league. Brooks is the fastest best 3 point shooting guard in the league. Martin is the perfect compliment shooting guard for this team. Unlike a certain lady who always thought it had to be on him, Martin just wants to help us win. Our weakest lnk is again our small forward but Battier is a sold defender who knows his role. Play tough D and shoot 3's. When he is hittin his 3's he spreads the floor. The question mark is Budinger. If his defense really has improved over the off season than expect him to be a contributor. Nobody can shoot like him and he has good handles and athleticism. If he can play d he is an upgrade over Battier and better for the team than Ariza. Hey I didn't say better than Ariza. Ariza is a better NBA player but he thought he was better than he is. On this team Ariza was the 5th option and he would not like that role. Battier and Budinger would accept that role without questtion and learn to be the best at doing what can to help us win. So what does that have to do with us matching up with LA bigs. Not much accept I wouldn't worry too much about it. They have to match up with us and the don't do so well in that department. They can't stop Scola or Yao. ANd if we sign Iggy like I think we will he will out physical Odom and match up well with Artest. We are the team that other teams will have to worry about matching up with. **** Bynum and Gasol and Odom! Yao is a coach's nightmare. make no mistake their gameplan will focus on what to do with you. They will have to ask themselves how do we match up with the Rockets. Not the other way around!
Yao must prove he can last thru the whole regular season, the first round, and complete the second round. I don't count Yao as "coming back" b/c there is still question as to whether the rox would have closed out the Lakers in game 7 with Yao playing. To me, besides the obvious need to play well as a team (with a healthy Yao), I want to see the impact of Miller and Hill (and Pat) oh and who we give up after the trade deadline vs who we get and the effect that has on our team vs. the top teams.
I think that in the case that the Lakers use that lineup the Rockets best move would be to counter it rather than try to match up. If the Lakers play a big lineup of: Kobe Artest Odom Gasol Bynum The Rockets can counter with Brooks Martin Battier Scola Yao The Suns had some success in the playoffs against the Lakers by using zone, so that would probably be the best defense for the Rockets to use. Maybe play Battier man to man on Kobe and zone the rest. No one from that Lakers lineup is known as a zone buster so the Rockets could get away with it. On the offensive end the Rockets would cause mismatches of their own. Kobe would be forced into guarding either Brooks or Martin instead of resting while covering Battier. Also, Brooks and Martin are too quick for the defensive duo Kobe and Artest so the Laker bigs would have to step up and help leaving, Yao or Luifa open down low or Battier open in the corner.
Of course we need more height, especially at the point, and more athleticism up front, and also more length. Work. In. Progress.
I think Chuck Hayes is part of any "big" Rockets line-ups. I think you let Yao and Scola worry about Gasol and Bynum and stick Hayes on Odom if you want to concentrate on defense. Hayes can also rotate in on Bynum to allow Yao to guard Gasol. Hayes is the perfect guy to use when doubling big guys, so I think he'll definitely see some action this year. You could easily see Adelman experimenting with playing Miller and Jeffries next to Yao this season, too. He likes to give all the players a chance to figure each other out.
that's great defensively, but is a problem offensively.. unless Chuck has somehow finally developed a jumpshot.
It isn't just the Lakers... look at what the Kings will be putting out there (Cousins, Thompson, Whiteside, Dalembert, Green... all 6'-11" or better; heck, Landry is short at 6'=9"). The Mavs will have Haywood, Chandler, and Dirk above 7'. Teams are getting longer. After Yao, we are pretty short.
From a practical standpoint, we really don't have a true lineup with which we can effectively "go big". Reason being, we'll always have a size advantage in the pivot with Yao, but none of our other players are guys who can really take advantage of their size in the low post over smaller players. Scola generally isn't going to have a size advantage at 4, Brad Miller's a high post player, Shane doesn't post up anymore, Bud's a slasher, Chuck is useless on offense, etc., etc. It was nice when we had a guy like Artest who could punish smaller players on the block. I always like when we would run out a lineup of Brooks, Lowry, Ron, Scola and Yao, and force teams to decide whether they're going to go big or small against us. I'm a little bit worried by the fact that we only have one player who can consistently beat his man off the dribble and score in Brooks and one guy who consistently has a mismatch on the low block. I wish we had one more guy who could command double teams/rotations.
I think this is the line up I would use too. Though I would definitely put in Hill over Miller - going all big can't mean slowing to a molasses pace with Yao and Miller on the court at the same time :grin:
