Lin the Brain Parsons the Beauty Harden the Beard Omer the Bull Beverley the Believer We have to have at least 5 B's in the roster. Can't trade any one of those unless we get Dwight the Baby.
I can tell you didn't watch the Rockets last year or you wouldn't make a post like this. Last year Parsons was a top 10 defenders on 2's and 3's. I think Lin is an above average defender at the point and Harden is better at D then he is playing, he is just not giving it his all. You have to remember that this is a growing season for the whole team and everybody is learning their roles.
Underrated part of this is that Parsons is carrying a bigger load offensively whereas last year he hung his hat on his D. I think by next season he will be a lot more comfortable being able to manage both. Also if we get more talent on the offensive end (Lin becoming more consistent, D-mo & Asik developing etc) parsons will be able to focus more on defense. Not to worried. This is a transition year for a lot of players. Lin & Asik transitioning into being starters, harden into being the man, Parsons into bigger responsibility etc.
I agree. In fact Parsons actually commented on this in either a post-game interview or the one with Jonathan Feigen when discussing the Rocket's defense that he believes his individual defense has regressed a bit but it's because he now had more offensive responsibility and that moving forward he would try to improve on his D. Of course, from the time of the interview until now it hasn't materialised but it's nice to know that he has acknowledged it. We've got a good young team here, let's hope Morey doesn't cull their numbers in his never-ending scheme of incremental improvements as their chemistry and culture looks to be growing nicely as is even with the mid-season setback. I feel a lot of it is on McHale but I don't blame him given that he had his entire roster removed from him. Of course it's natural for him to want to invest his trust into Parsons who does have a pretty good offensive skill-set when the rest of his roster is removed and he's inundated with fresh new youngsters. Over the course of the season though I would have liked to see the development of roles wherein Parsons took a step-back offensively and exerted more energy defensively but with the mid-season fiasco, again, you can't identify anyone as being clearly responsible for the lack of development. It'll be interesting to see what happens this off-season.
Both he and Harden played too many minutes. It might be okay if the Rockets play a traditional style. But with the pace they are playing, no one should average more than 35 minutes.
Finally someone with good insight! Good D is mostly effort. If you want Parsons or Harden play good D, limit their minutes. Same goes for Lin or Asik. It's that simple!
Parsons is like most young players, wildly inconsistent, only he seems to have this problem on both ends of the court. Some games his D is stellar, other games he's a traffic cone. Some games he's an offensive juggernaut, other games he can't hit the side of a barn with his shot and is making stupid TOs left and right. Like Lin and other young players think he'll get more consistent with time.
Every wing players on the team does this. They WILL ALWAYS help doubling the post and let the opponent shoot 3s. Coaching staff already said that they don't want opponent to score inside. They all gamble on defense. It's not just only him. His one-on-one defense is there. He struggles fighting through picks and screens. Hell, everybody on this team struggles fighting through picks and screens. Scola was the only one that i thought has great PnR defense for the rockets and helped the wing players. Now that he's gone, they suck.
If you think parson's D is bad please do not watch any tape of harden. The one guy who's defense has improved is Lin, although there is still room for improvement, obviously.
I didn't mean the helping but that he gets bullied when he is inside or he just won't even bother contesting. I should probably download a recording software app so I can provide illustrative examples in future but tonight in the 4th when he got switched onto Favors or someone inside he just looked at them while they waltzed it in for a dunk or lay-up.
And yeah of course I expect him or Delfino to get bullied when matched up against PFs but I mean he can't compete with opposing SFs that are physical and outwork him or that sometimes he won't even bother. Tbh I think Harden's defense has improved over the course of the season. He has his games where I'm like but if you try to reflect back to earlier in the season without the rose-tinted glasses when we first got him he was a revolving door on defense. He's actually somewhat improved in this regard in that he's actually putting some effort in now and again.
The posters who say Parsons should be playing as well as he did last year WHILE improving his offensive game should remember that he's averaging 36 minutes. Last year he was only averaging 28.5 minutes a game while mainly catching alley-oops and playing defense. Sure I think his offensive stats are a bit inflated because of Mchale's "run as fast as you can" offense but it doesn't change the fact that Parson's has to contribute a lot on offense as it is. Take a look a Kobe during the Olympics, he wasn't asked to drop 20+ points a game so he was able to lock down players with his defense.
He is gassed. you cant play full pelt on both ends at this level given how rigorous the season is. He didnt have this offensive responsibiility last year.
Is this an individual player problem or just young team chemistry? According to McHale: “Chemistry's a strange thing. When you've got it, everybody plays a little bit better. When you don't have it, everybody plays just a little worse. I just didn't think that on the team, it was there. Part of it was the tough losses early. I just sensed that it wasn't going in the direction that we wanted it to go.”
Defense wins you games, but scoring get's you paid. If Parsons gets his scoring average close to 20 next year, he's going get paid a lot of money. The kid is not stupid.
