Positives and Negatives after 48 games

At the All-Star break things are starting to look pretty bleak but I don’t think that it would be fair to criticize with out at least acknowledging the positives. IMO there have been some significant break throughs during the last several games even though we still have some very glaring problems that need to be solved.

Negitives:

1. Steve Francis, Cuttino Mobley and Moochie Norris. Has there ever been a trio of players that fought harder to reject a new system and style of play even when they have multiple years of failure in there current style of play. These three play as if they are completely clue-less sometimes. What possesses a guard to consistently ignore a 7’5” player standing 6 or 7 feet from the goal and guarded one on one by someone 5 to 7 inches shorter? Especially when that player has demonstrated on multiple occasions that he will get them an easier shot than the one they currently have or he will hit a high percentage of his own shots. How many times do they have to fail with their street ball approach and how many times must they taste success utilizing their big man down low and passing the ball early in the offense before they see the light? Their selfish style of play is directly responsible for our last loss to Dallas and our last loss to Cleveland. If only Steve Francis had played a year or two for Bobby Knight! He would be an entirely different man.

2. Turnovers. At 14.8 per game we are 19th in the league at protecting the ball and the main culprit is Steve Francis who gives up the ball 4.2 times per game.

3. Offense. We waste more possessions dribbling out the clock out than any team I have ever seen. The lack of passing has consistently got us into our offense late into the shot clock and forced us to take bad shots. Our team’s hesitation to consistently use the post as a part of the offense has allowed teams to concentrate their defense more and more on our perimeter players. Add that to the fact that we are one of the worst teams in the league at protecting the ball and it is clear why our offense is one of the worst in the NBA.

4. We are diving in the play-off standings while Minnesota, Phoenix and Utah are playing much better than us and putting some significant ground between us and them. The Lakers are playing as good as any team in the NBA right now and only have one more loss than we do. We have 19 games left on the road vs. 15 at home and we have not proven that we have the ability to win on the road. If you believe that the Laker’s will be in the play-offs as I do then we are already on the outside looking in.


Positives:

1. Yao Ming! It would have been hard for anyone to predict just how skilled this guy is. In my most humble opinion he plays the game the same way that Bird and Magic played it, with his head. He is always looking to include his teammates in on the game. He is the best passer on the team in that he gets the ball to his teammates usually in the best possible position to succeed unlike any of our guards. He appears to have beat the rookie wall and looks primed to have a strong post all-star break finish.

2. Eddie Griffin and Terence Morris are both looking like good picks from a year ago. Eddie has been playing much more aggressive over the last month and has really been rebounding well. He is getting almost 7.5 boards a game with only 24 minutes a game in January. When Eddie made up his mind to get a rebound he usually got it. Terence Morris has just been great to watch. He plays with in himself, does not force anything offensively, rebounds, blocks shots and knocks down the open jumper when he gets the call. How often have we seen Terence play out of control or make a bad pass this year. If not for Kelvin Cato I think you could call Terence the most improved player on the team.

3. Kelvin Cato has been the most improved player on the team. Good attitude, great effort and the guy just flat out rebounds. He is with out a doubt the best rebounder on the team. He loves to play like a big man and runs the floor and can finish a play like a monster. He has played all year like the Kelvin Cato that the Rockets thought they were getting when they signed him to the big contract. If not for Yao Ming he would be starting and probably leading the west in rebounds, he would with out a doubt be one of the NBA’s most improved player if he played starters minutes.

4. Defense. The Rockets are 2nd in the league in opponents field goal percentage, 7th in opponents points per game, 4th in the league with 44.2 rebounding, 3rd in the league in rebounding difference at 3.1 and 2nd in the league in with 6.6 blocks per game.

5. Passing game might be coming around. The Rockets demonstrated for the first time this season against Minnesota what a great offense they could have if they played team ball, utilized the post early and often during the game and allowed Yao Ming to initiate the offense many times during the game. Just to prove that it was not a fluke and that they really were capable of playing an unselfish style of basketball with a fluid passing attack they did it again the next game against Sacramento. They had 54 assists in 2 games! The ball was distributed and everyone received a lot of touches and the Rockets offense looked better than it has ever looked. Unfortunately they ignored their new found success when they hit the road for a repeat up in Minnesota and Cleveland. However, in the 4th quarter of the Cleveland game after playing one on one street ball and ignoring Yao Ming for 3 quarters they once again started putting the ball into the hands of the best passing center in the game. As a result the Rockets made up the 14-point deficit and almost won the game. This is the second time in the last couple of weeks that Rudy T can point to two different offensive approaches in the same game and both times the pro-passing attack and starting the offense in the post was easily the more effective. Perhaps these are steps in the right direction that will pull Steve and Cat (kicking and screaming) into a more efficient offense that will be one of the leagues best.

6. The Bench. Terence Morris and Kelvin Cato have been outstanding coming off of the bench and MoT is starting to have more and more games where he is looking like the MoT that could carry a team offensively. Juaquin Hawkins has been a surprise contributor and even Jason Collier has put in some good minutes this year.

7. We are still on pace to make the play-offs.



So there are my negatives and positives for the Rockets going into the all-star break. I think that Steve and Cat have had a taste of what our offense can do when they play unselfishly and I think that lesson played out again in Cleveland. I think Steve has proven to himself as well as us that he can be an MVP caliber point guard if he will just have a little faith in himself and the system that Rudy T has laid out for the team. I believe that Steve has now had a taste of what could be the most potent offense in the league when he shares the ball and utilizes Yao Ming and he will want another taste and then another until he is hooked. Success is a powerful drug.

The book is still out on Posey in my opinion. While others seem to have gone gaga over him he has not overly impressed me in the last several games, particularly against Sacramento and Dallas. Against Dallas he completely lost his composer and started playing dirty and against Sacramento he looked like a square peg in a round hole chasing Peja Stojakivic around. He has not rebounded particularly well nor has he shot the ball very good. Against Cleveland he had a chance to put us in charge at the free throw line and he choked. He sometimes looks like he plays very much out of control kind of like Cuttino and Steve. There have been games where he has looked all world, playing great defense, making shots and just looking like the perfect small forward. However before I’m sold on him I will have to see a lot more consistent play from him.

I believe the Rockets can make the play-offs if Steve and Cat accept the new offensive concept but to truly advance to the elite of the NBA I believe the Yao Ming will have to assume the role of leader on this team on the court. I don’t believe he is ready for that role now but I think by next year the Rockets must stop being Steve Franchise’s team and make the transformation to Yao Ming’s team. I don’t think it is all that different than when this was Ralph Sampson’s team but it did not take long for us to know that it would become Hakeem Olajuwan's team.

 

The possitive is the fact that he has been much more aggresive since January. He is going after rebounds much better than he was earlier in the year, going after blocked shots and looked better on defense in general.

I have adjusted my expectations on him from last summer when I expected him to take a Kevin Garnet type of leap into this year. I no longer think he will have that type of impact through out his career.

What he can give us and what he is doing better is rebounding and defense. That is a positive IMO.

 

21st in points per game with 92.6
18th in field goal percentage with .438
19th in 3pt field goal percentage with .332
27th in the league at assists per game with 18.2
19th in the league in turnovers per game with 14.8
23rd in the league in assist to turnover ratio with 1.23
12th in the league in offensive rebounds with 12.2

Considering there is only 29 teams in the league I would say that those numbers are well below average. As a matter of fact I would say that those numbers are absolutely pathetic. The only stat that is equal to or better than the mean would be offensive rebounds.

Our offense has wasted offensive possession after offensive possession this season with bad decisions and turnovers. I don’t see how it can be seen as anything other than a negative.