lol I wish I could rep this. 2 of the best defensive big men in the NBA right now is playing on our team. Stupid to say it can't work unless we try.
agreed. lets try and see what happens i actually think our offense will be BETTER now when people drive by Harden, they have 2 7 footers to contend with and imagine the rebounding and outlet passes our bigs will make to Parsons and Lin on the break we are gonna destry alot of teams
WtF does hoops hype know? WtF do any of us know? Obviously none of us are NBA coaches or NBA calibre people. If McHale/Morey think its possible then we should just trust their judgment and not some joe shmoe telling us he knows more than people who actually know what they are doing.
This is from Poopsville. How can any one say "This won't work?" Baloney. You have no more idea if it will work then people who said we will never break the 4 minute mile. Opinions are like rear ends, everybody's got one. How about playing the all time favorite, "I told ya so" later ?
I have read no basketball analyst who has said that Asik-Howard could even possibly work. I actually agree with them. It will not work. Two big men on the court together that don't have to be guarded if they are outside of seven feet from the rim. Doesn't sound like there will be a driving lane open for Lin or Harden. Shame to ditch the best part of both Lin and Harden's games.
Lol And so what? We have two of the best big defensive men playing in the NBA right now. I actually remember the time we had gotten the pick to get Hakeem. Pretty much the consensus at that time was to trade Sampson. That is all everyone I knew talked about. They then said we were going Twin Towers and we still said get rid of Sampson it wouldn't work. Yes the game has changed to where Offensive schemes seem to dictate to not go 2 big men but to say that it won't work is ridiculous. You and anybody else does not know that for sure.
Hilarious that so many of you feel a twin towers line up of Asik and Howard will work. Neither can hit anything outside of 6 ft and neither are capable of guarding power forwards. Dirk, LaMarcus, Lebron, Garnett, K Love, Josh Smith, Pau Gasol, Scola, David West, Paul Millsap, David Lee, and pretty much any other PF with skills would absolutely destroy either of them. While both are elite defenders at the 5 spot, both would get torched at the 4 spot. Even our own T Jones and DMo would just kill them in a game of one on one. Both lack the speed, agility, shooting skills, passing skills, and ball handling skills to play any position other than center. There's a reason why neither has ever played PF for any coach. Does everyone honestly think that just magically they will now be able to do so? Both are borderline stiffs at the center spot, no way in hell can eirher effectively play PF. Asik will be dealt, it's just a matter of time. The whole we'll try the twin towers thing is just posturing to keep Asik pacified and keep teams from low balling us. But Eddie Johnson is on the money in this article and anyone that knows basketball knows it.
That's just surmised opinion. I think Asik has the foot speed to be the best 4 defender on this team.
You do need work on your basketball analytical skills. Hakeem and Sampson offensively are absolutely nothing like Asik and Howard. Until you understand that difference you will keep making absurd statements.
The counter to 2 bigs is going small(or using a stretch 4/5) and pull one of those bigs to the perimeter. This takes away one of the paint clogging bigs in the middle and making it no different from any other defense. The problem historically is that the 2-big lineup will exploit the size advantage at the other end. But how would Asik and Howard operate together? We've seen for years how Yao and Cato/Hayes/Howard(he of the 15-foot clanker) operated in Houston. Imagine that except even worse because Howard lacks Yao's moves and can't operate without space.
You need to work on your reading comprehension. He was not comparing Howard and Asik to Hakeem and Sampson. He was comparing the sentiment at the time. People said that they wouldn't work but they infant did and were very dominant. The same can be said for the discussions in the present, people are clamoring that Howard and Asik will "not work" but he is arguing that instead of concluding that they will fail we ought to take a wait and see approach to see how they mesh. This statement is neither ridiculous and actually shows a good understanding in basic basketball knowledge as well as patience, a key ingredient in building a winning basketball team. I think an absurd statement is claiming that they will "fail" because at the moment their is no data to support that, they haven't even played a game together.
Defensively playing Asik and Howard together would probably be a plus. Offensively, I cannot diagram an offense that would have a 2 or 3 gap driving lane with both on the floor. FYI last season Lin took 49% of his shots closer than 8 feet from the basket. Harden took 44% of his shots closer than 8 feet from the basket. How successful are those shots going to be with both the defensive center and power forward in their face? So what you actually are looking at is a modest defensive gain and a huge offensive loss for the Rockets when both Asik and Howard are on the floor. In the actual restricted area Lin took 39% of his shots last season and Harden took 34% of his shots last season. I believe the success rate for those shots falls dramatically when there is a 6'10" defender in your face.
Lol Thank you for the help. I will try to in the future be more clear. I was born and raised here in Houston and the product of the public school system.
I stand by my reading of his post. It may have superficially been about public opinion, but the actual argument made is obvious.
If the "counter" is so easy why did the Rox get owned by Gasol/Bynum during their 2nd round matchup, the year before Yao Ming retired? Last I recall Gasol isn't exactly a mid range guy, and neither is Bynum however they ended up playing volleyball and just dominated us with two 7 footers. Same thing when we played against the Lakeshow who was without Kobe, they basically won with Howard and Gasol. The counter isn't as effective as you think for the sole reason that you'll still have Asik and/or Howard in the paint. The defense isn't stagnant, Rox players won't be guarding the same guy for 45 mins. A lot of switching is gonna go on, and the diff is instead of having undersized Marcus Morris switching on him, whoever wants to drive in the lane is gonna find either Howard or Asik waiting for him instead. Not only that Howard isn't exactly your typical plodding 7 footer, he's one of the quickest and most athletic big men in the NBA. I'd like to see how many stretch 4s can hit the 3 consistently before Howard is all up in their face with the superman block. Offensively speaking I'm not really sure it will affect the Rox as much as everyone says, a lot of time our scores happen in transition and broken plays, which two things that can happen even with Howard and Asik in the game. Only thing I can see it affecting is our half court execution, but then again we sucked last year in the half court so meh.
We got our head handed to us by all the teams that ran 2 good power bigs out at our small-ball lineup last year.
