Could Motiejunas and Jones both move out of the rotation?

Good post, I like bev. His contract and what he brings, but in a playoffs series if another team is hitting those shots going on a run & harden/parsons is off we need someone who will be floor general slow everything down in a half court offense & get Howard, parsons, harden better looks. Someone who will execute down the stretch & play Defense.

Hardens great at playmaking but we've saw what happens when he's off we can't expect him to take over a 4th quarter every game in a playoff series "he won't get those calls from the refs you see in the regular season" it's just unrealistic. Coaches like pop will come up with a game plan & force someone else to beat him.

 

Varajao can and does water down the efficiency of volume shooters like Lamarcus. Remember I said one or the other, either be able to water down the efficiency of the opposing teams power forward or be able to offset their scoring by filling it up himself.

Nobody posting about Jones right now is making much of a case for him being the answer for us. Nobody is making the case that "he's just in a shooting slump, he'll come out of it". The case being made right now is about his future potential.

Future potential is fine as long as you're not depending on a kid to start or play major rotation minutes for you.

Here's my point: If Jones doesn't improve his shooting stroke immediately he's going top go right back to the bench from whence he came. They may give him a few more starts but if he keeps throwing up 30 percenters we're going to get another starting pf, maybe Casspi.

 

Jones is the future at PF for this team. This is his first season of major minutes and he's responded well. The only problem here is people expecting Jones to keep a hot streak going all year. By the end of this season, he's going to have enough experience as a starter and playing alongside Howard to perfect his role. He's not going to average 10 rebounds or 40% from 3pt range.

Realistically, he's going to end up shooting 50% from the field, 36% from 3, 7-8 rebounds and about 12ppg. That's excellent given his age and experience.

He doesn't turn the ball over more than he assists, and he blocks 1.5 shots every 24 minutes - both huge bonuses for a young PF. Many times these are signs of a smart player, though not always the case.

The mere fact that he rebounds so well and hits 36% of his shots and blocks shots so well is such a rare combination that's perfect for our team.

I anticipate that, even if we acquire an experienced PF, Jones will still earn his 25 minutes and lock up the starting spot next season.

Very glad we have him, and even more happy that we've had the time to develop him at a good place.

 

Great post. Agree 100%

 

Per Jonathan Feigan this morning --

With the emergence of Terrence Jones as the starting power forward, Morey is not determined to find a starter at the position.

Looks like (against Basketballhollic's valued "Expectations")Terrence Jones is most likely going to be the starter moving forward probably even after the trade, and despite his recent poor shooting from 3 is STILL providing spacing with his movement without the basketball, and ability to take the ball off the dribble. I fully expect Jones to improve from 3 point range eventually, but despite that, it hasn't hurt the team one bit.

The fact is, once inserted into the lineup, the Rockets offense has been #1 in the league, and the defense has dramatically improved to a respectable 13th in the league. Maybe its only going to take All Star level stats on here to shut people up, but there obviously are things that Jones is doing to help that starting unit really break through that the front office believes in long term or else they probably would have already made one of these short sited moves to bring in a band aid who kills future moves like Ilyasova.

FYI, also if the Rockets do trade for Varejao, he will almost certainly be the backup 5. Varejao is absolutely a center, and although he can play some in the high post, McHale will not shift his entire game plan just to suit Varejao's or the fans desire to have him start.

If the Rockets trade for Millsap, I would be more than happy to bring Jones off the bench as the backup 5. Millsap is a damn good player IMO and would seem to not hamper the Rockets long term flexibility to improve beyond the current roster in the near future.

However if you somehow think that the Rockets are not willing or shouldn't be willing to trust Jones & be willing to grow with him for the foreseeable future, it looks like you might be wrong. As long as the team keeps on performing well, and continues to improve, I don't see any reason why the Rockets would cast Jones to the wolves because he doesn't do everything at an all-star level in year 2 of his career.

 

I don't think that Morey is determined to find a new starting PF for Asik, but I also don't think that Morey is determined not to find a new starting PF for Asik, either.

Morey will take the best asset in return, whatever it may be.

 

Morey is after the best pile of assets so he can move them for better fits at the trade deadline or go into the offseason in a position to chase another superstar. Knowing that I don't fully expect him to trade for a PF in the next week based on necessity.

But that also doesn't mean anything when it comes to Jones. Here's the deal dobro: If Jones continues throwing up 30 percenters...he'll go back to the bench and Casspi or some other stop-gap PF will start.

 

PF's whose career 3 point percentages are under 30%
-Chucky Brown- 22% (championship team starting PF)
-Luis Scola- 11%
-Chris Bosh - 29%(championship team starter)
-F. Oberto- 0% (championship team starting PF w Spurs)
-Brandon Bass - 0% with the Magic & was in the most productive offensive lineup with Dwight.

& I could keep on going. These PF's shot under 30% or (0%) from 3 and still managed to be productive PF's with a championship team or alongside a productive Dwight.

Shooting the 3 efficiently is an added plus, but its not the end all be all with spacing. You've argued this to death before, and you just don't seem to realize that there are other things players can do to space the floor than to just shoot the 3. Most of spacing has to do with moving into pockets without the ball, running the court, slashing and cutting with and without the ball.

Add to the fact that in Jones' first 6 games he was shooting around 50% from 3 out of 13 attempts. Maybe he's slumped the past few games to knock his average down significantly, but unlike other PF's like the one's I previously listed, Jones actually has shown the ability to shoot the 3 at times.

If Jones continues to shoot poorly than he simply needs to work on his shot, move in to 18 feet if that shot is better for him, or find ways to move more without the ball to create offense off of the dribble, or slash for easier buckets. Still even if he never develops a consistent 3 point shot, there are still many examples of PF's in the league that have been very affective playing alongside a big that needs spacing without that 3 point shot.

Like Carl alluded to earlier, Morey will simply get the best deal available. Could be a power forward upgrade, could be expirings and picks, could be young talent, or it could be for an all star(keep dreaming). However, the point is the Rockets are not nearly as concerned with Terrence Jones than you seem to be to where they need to make a band aid trade for a high salary PF who really makes no improvement other than added depth & kills their flexibility.

I find it funny that from someone who is so certain that Morey is trying to make a move for another all-star talented player, that at the same hand you would suggest making moves like trading for Ilyasova, Derrick Williams, and whomever else is your answer of the week that would essentially lock the Rockets out of making that next deal either in February or this Summer to get that impact player.

 

Trading for Ilyasova, Millsap, Hawes, Kanter, or any of the players I suggested won't knock us out of making a superstar trade come february. These trades coming involving Asik/Lin and likely others are all about getting another foundation superstar to go with our other 3 guys.

And those things have nothing to do with whether Jones is a rotation player or not. Jones is a rotation player on this team right now out of necessity, not because he's won the job. It looked like for a couple games early that he was going to be da bomb. But I cautioned you then to wait until he had been around the league a time or two and they started figuring out how to defend him.

You can talk all that mess about Jones moving in and shooting the 18 footer but you, me and everybody knows that's not the Rockets game. What you apparently don't know yet is that Jones can't hit the 18 footer consistently enough either to not be a liability offensively for us.

Just stick with your original assertion: He's a POTENTIAL FUTURE ROTATION BIG. That's a pretty accurate assessment of where he's at right now. Dude is not ready. He's been pressed into duty out of necessity. He's shown flashes. But that's it...flashes. And now he's coming back to what he is...a subpar shooter from midrange and from the 3-point line who prefers to drive the ball into the paint and shoot it where he is actually quite good. However that's a one-dimension game that is easily thwarted by the defense fading off him and covering the paint. And defensively he looks very good as long as he's playing next to the best paint defender in the NBA but he is very pedestrian when Dwight goes to the bench and he CANNOT defend the paint against better teams when Dwight sits down.

 

Marcus Morris should still be our franchise player

 

I like Jones future too, but I don't think he's the answer now.

The Rockets defense may have improved - but no thanks to Jones; his defensive rating is lousy and he's been part of some of the worst defensive lineups around and is about as good at boxing out as a bag of sticks.

THat's why Milsap is an upgrade IMO - he's as good as Jones on offense and not as terrible on defense.

 

Yep mentioned before that an upgrade would be welcome in the starting lineup. Milsap is a huge upgrade, adds depths, another solid veteran presence, and more consistent shooting/defensive fundamentals.

However the argument over the past few months on this thread is that Jones and DMo are not decent enough players to be solid rotation players moving forward and should be dumped ASAP. Of course people try to modulate their arguments now but it doesn't change the fact that Jones is currently performing well overall despite his flaws and looks to be a good option at PF if they don't land a sure fire upgrade.

However its important for people to realize that virtually no contending teams have perfect all star caliber players at all 5 positions. Mario Elie wasn't a perfect 20ppg sf for the Rockets but he did his job. Rondo was a very flawed player back in 2007 but did his job well. I'm sure they would have preferred Billups but Rondo was their best option available.

But yeah of course I'm a huge advocate for Millsap. Just not sold on some of these other band aid PFs who have contracts past 2015 when we aren't even sure if they will provide much better production.

 

Jesus, will McHale ever give a chance for Dmo? He's wasting second best talent of basketball country.

 

damn gay is hot.

 

Basketballholic, please tell me why you're so adamant its ring or bust this year? This team isn't ready for a ring yet. Even if u add a solid player like milsap,whom I like a lot,tell me how he helps the situational basketball issues or the turnover problems. What about the constant no contesting of shots I see. Every since celtics won the ring in 1st year,people think that's the norm,but its not. Teams grow and understand each other with time. Jordan,pippen,and grant were together for 4 yrs before they won. Dream,thorpe,kenny,and mad max were together like 5 yrs before they won. No one knows if morey is pursuing this so called 3rd superstar. This whole win now thing have been tried and failed not to long ago. As I've said in my opinion, rondo to houston is a much bigger upgrade than any so called pf upgrade the rockets can realistically get. In fact rondo and a guy like ariza would trump illysova,hawes,milsap,anderson and any other mid tier 4 they can get.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Harden says ankle &quot;very, very, very painful.&quot; Not sure if he'll have to miss time. Has to see how it responds.</p>&mdash; Jason Friedman (@JasonCFriedman) <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonCFriedman/statuses/412401174491303936">December 16, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Hopefully Harden won't miss any games, but if he does they need to let him rest that ankle.

 

Bah, wrong thread. =P

 

please no more of Jones at the 5.
He is getting abused

Go with Greg Smith instead
Terrence is playing with a flue

 

***flu

 

Funny.

Maybe you should tell me what year we should go for a ring?????? Pinpoint it down now.

We've got 2 of the top 10 players in the NBA and a third very good sidekick. We've got 2 of the top 3 defensive centers protecting the paint.

Tell me....WHY SHOULDN'T WE BE GOING FOR A RING??????


If this isn't the year to go for a ring then let's just rest Dwight and James and Chandler, let all the rookies develop, go to the lottery and hopefully pick up Jabari Parker or Joel Embiid and then come back in this theoretical future year that you think we should compete for a ring.