Now that Tmo is back practicing, will he get any time?

I believe that MoT will get the bulk of the minutes, Rudy should want him to get into the flow of real NBA games ASAP, and from there, the coaching staff should be able to evaluate his effectiveness. TMo will probably come into the game when the Rox go small, maybe with Stevie, Cat, Griffin and Ming/Hawkins.

The only problem now is that with MoT and TMo back, where does Boki rank? Barrel bottom i'm guessing.

 

I like MOT alot, he was a big part of that 47 win season 2 year ago. I don't know how much he is going to play in his first game back but I would like him to get aleast 20 minutes.

 

agreed, Rudy will want to use Mo's 1st quarter offensive spurt..I could even see him getting the starting nod over EG..I dont want to see it, but it will happen..EG's offense has been way too sporadic for him to start. Poor Boki...he has to battle soo many people to get time..


KT has been onfire..he gets the lion's share of SF minutes.
Rice will split most of the rest for his supposed offensive contributions.
Hawk has his awesome defense and sporadic offense.
TMo (if still shooting as good as preseason) has a good combination of all desirable traits..defense, hustle, and offense..
Boki will be fortunate to see garbage minutes..I personally think he will get a DNP-CD or bumped to IR once TMo comes back..
it's unfortunate, I think Boki will be a valuable asset once the hernia gets fully recovered and he gets more playing time..which will be a hard thing to get with our forward glut.

Who would have expected us to go from having too many PF's to having too many SF's? In one offseason, we went from the 3 being our thinnest position to ou rmost overloaded one...amazing

 

But it's good to know that with so many different types of players available, we should be able to adjust our lineups to play along with the different styles that other teams bring up.

Imagine a run and gun lineup like the one I mentioned before trying to outrun and out play the Kings or the Mavs. I'm just salivating at that prospect.

Thing is.. does Rudy want to toy with having many different lineups? or will he just stick to 1 standard lineup and go with the same plays no matter what team we're up against?

 

I think you've got to consider Yao Ming's minutes too. Rudy used to slide MoT into the middle.

Will Cato and MoT be plugging the middle?
If so, where does Yao Ming play? Top of the key?

 

well, I was just looking at the SF position..

I wonder if Mo will get any duty at the 5? we really dont need him there..I see RT going with Cato starting..bring in EG to spell him for a while...then YM for some time..see how he's playin..

Once YM gets acclimated, I would love to see him in at the 4 and Cato(as long as he is still kickin as$) at the 5..at least for limited minutes....Twin towers baby! I figger we dont see anything like that till much later in the season..if ever..

 

Get healthy, T-Mo!

The way he was coming along, it's a shame T-Mo went down. If he can play as he's capable...defend, block shots, hit a few jumpers...then he belongs in the rotation.

But, as we know, we have so many forwards. Something's got to give eventually.

 

He's as good as Griffin is, defensively? Huh?

 

I see 13 players on the active Roster...who's going on the injured list?

 

Actually, DearRock... I disagree... but I was just attempting to illustrate something.

If everything you said about Tmo were true... he'd be easily the best front court player on the Rockets. Let me repost the relevant section:

Ain't much left, is there? Just one thing... pure shooting. Which is hardly necessary for a PF (if you believe Morris can play that, if not, it's all academic, since SF's with no O are worthless)...

so, why is he last on the depth chart? If he has all these amazing abilities... if he's just as good or better as everyone else in the front court in essentially every category... why is he an afterthought? Is it just that the Rocket's coaching staff lack your scouting brilliance?

 

It's not a stretch to say that, right now, T-Mo is the best F on our team outside of his scoring.

His shot looked great in the preseason, if he continues to work on it and gets comfortable with the team, I can see him being the natural fit at SF for us.

Ming
Griffin
T-Mo/Boki
Mobley
Francis


That would be our future line up. T-Mo brings everything but scoring right now. If he starts to score consistently, then what? That team is also potentially defensively dominant.

 

I'm guessing Nachbar.

 

Well, saying he is a better rebounder than Taylor is practically the same as saying he is our second-worst rebounding forward. Besides that, I would say your assertion that a small forward without offensive abilities is worthless is complete bunk. Just because you didn't like Shandon Anderson doesn't mean defensive specialist SFs are not desireable.

 

I'll be curious to see if TMo's preseason shooting was a fluke or not. He looked really good and we could use that outside shooting in addition to the flexibility he gives with playing both forward spots. Without that shot though I don't see him having much of a future here.

 

Actually, at one point... I really liked Shandon. When he was here, I was his biggest defender. But since then, I've sort of been converted by the HP/Verse school of "perimeter defense is way, way overrated."

At best... great perimeter defenders seem to knock off 3-4 points off the other guy's average. But, most of the "defensive specialists" are so offensively incompetent that they're a liability, because they score so far under their opponent's average.

Take Bruce Bowen, allegedly the best defense SF in basketball... sure, he may knock 3 points off of the other guy's average... but if the other guy is scoring 20, and Bowen 8... it's still a huge net loss at the position.

I'll give you interior defense - that radically alters the other team's approach to the game, if you can establish a good interior defense. But perimeter defense? Nice to have, but give me the ability to score 10 times out of 10 if I have to pick.