Oh, the irony. I never liked the ONLY Fan label throwing around in every single thread, and have tried numerous times in vain to argue that such labeling doesn't do any good to anyone. But now this, the label is officially endorsed here by the owner. Great way to unite fans.
I think the diminished role of Omer Asik is at the very core of our defensive decline.... I've stated this during games this season: "The Rockets' team defense is so much better with Asik on the floor, it isn't even funny..." Dwight is a better individual defender, but Asik is a better team defender... That comeback win in Memphis was maybe the most glaring example. Asik is also the best pick-and-roll defender in the business.... Dwight is only average in that regard. But now, with Asik's relationship with the team forever compromised, I don't think we can get this genie back in the bottle. I don't think our defense will be like it was when Asik was the starter. This is why I was so opposed to acquiring Dwight in the first place.... He might be an elite player, but I don't think he's much of an upgrade over Asik.... He's indeed a lot more fun to watch, and does put up better numbers, but does he really make the team better? Secondary aspects to our defensive decline are Pat Bev's injury and a regression in Jeremy Lin's defensive play. The latter I find troubling, it makes me wonder if it could be due to bad advice from our coaching staff.
we were never relevant defensively since big yao went down. r.i.p homie. Then, glorious turkey cam along and the thought was to have a back up because our d suffered tremendously when he sat. At that time time last year, our d was much improved and in some aspects better than this year's D. yes, gary payton was not even starting yet. This year, with glorious dwigh and asik the D took great strides forward as you had a top 2 defensive center in every minute of the game. Asik is the main reason but of course let's blame lin for sgs really going off on us in these past 2 weeks not the fact that the pg position has averaged 9 pts in the games mentioned.
because Dwright did a crappy job on show and delay the ballhandler in PNR and he get touched by bigs with range, whoever elite wing defender you bring in even Gary Paton in his prime you wont solve it. it's a shock to me as a longtime bball fan you didnt see it.
now the owner of this board himself start this LOF turd chasing. good to setting an example to toxic your own lawn.
Of course it's not. But it will certainly do the team good, isn't that what we all want? Or it's really about "I am right", "'We' are right", just like a few annoying so-called "only" fans? Before Lin or any player gets traded, their individual successes are always tied to team success. If you are supporting one player or five players, or the team as a whole, interests are never going to be mutually exclusive. Just like during the "YOF" argument, I never think there is actual Yao Only Fan would wish Rockets to lose, coz that's in no way benefiting Yao. Calling such people YOF is an insult to Yao, for they are actually fans of their shallow selves. Associating such people with Yao, is not fair to Yao. Albeit a much lesser player, Lin doesn't deserve this kind of association either. If I like/dislike a girl, I will just be honest about it. I will NEVER come up with such excuse, as in "I really like her, but she has a few really annoying stalkers following her around, now I just hate her".
That's what it is with Dwight. Cousins, Bargnani and not Hibbard because they have more touch and range. Well, I hope Asik comes back and comes back engaged. It really is a good team, too bad this forum is how it is.
Compared to centers wings have little defensive relevance. That is easily verified by a simple perusal of dRAPM. The simple fact of the matter is that the best defensive wing in the league has half the defensive value of the best centers in the league. Defense is ruled by the likes of Howard, Hibbert, Asik and Gasol in the NBA.
How do you accurately measure something like that? There are huge variables with Bev coming back from injury, with Lin coming back from injury, and with Harden seriously hampered by injury. There is a stretch of games where Harden made an effort, and games where he did not. There are different opponents with different skill sets. The numbers measuring defense might not be useless, but they sure make a strong case for it. The team clearly has better numbers, and the strongest case for Bev making the starting lineup better on defense is that they put him there. But it says nothing for how much better, given that there were all sorts of other reasons for that decision (including the reasonable possiblity of wanting Bev to gel with the starters as Lin is more likely to be moved).
Obviously, it has a lot to do with the lack of BK center, especially when Howard had to sit on the bench for a long stretch of the time, either due to foul trouble, or other team Hack-a-DH. Missing Bev. doesn't help, especially when you have to play Brooks for 20+ minutes, that back court of Harden & Brooks automatically put you to the bottom of the 30 teams. Another major reason get overlooked is Howard's defensive motivation. I noticed that when he was involved more on offense, he was very active on the other end. But he tends to move less when not touch the ball on the offensive end. I don't think he was intentionally playing this way, but it's just natural for someone to react this way, especially him as the offensive focus his whole career before. The Rockets are good enough on offense without Howards' contribution in the regular season, but they need to find a way to utilize him more on offense, otherwise, they will not get a 100% Howard on defense.
The fault in your argument is you assume that just because someone dislikes Lin's fan base, they also dislike Lin. That's simply not true at all.
I didn't assume, and I didn't say all of them. But I guess as a regular, you have heard "let's trade Lin as soon as possible, so we can get rid of his annoying fans" party line, many times.
Variables are always present. You cannot completely dismiss data because of it. I have got news for you, which may be somewhat of a shocker: This organization knows what it is doing. Morey and McHale know what they are doing. They believe, based on scouting, analyitics, experience and other information things we as fans are not privy too, that the team performs better with Beverley starting and Lin off the bench. The data has supported that.
Thanks for reminding me why he's on my ignore list. Our defense is in pretty bad shape. We are mediocre, which isn't where we need to be if we want HCA in the playoffs. Lots of people are saying that lopsided losses skew the average, which they do, but if our "D" wasn't so porous we wouldn't have lost by so many points.
If that's the case, then aren't you preaching to the wrong target audience? I'm sure many of those who want to trade Lin because of his annoying fans, don't actually have anything against Lin himself. Can you say the same for those who are fans of only Jeremy Lin? Maybe you should preach to certain Lin fans what it means to be a fan of the team, and why it's bad for some of these Lin fans to throw out needless vitriol towards other Rocket players in the name of idolizing Lin. It really doesn't seem like you are addressing the root of the problem in this situation. I'm sure you yourself would have seen how supportive this site has been of Lin during Linsanity.
Uhmm.. I believe I just said the Rockets clearly had better numbers. Hard for it to be a shocker. What I also said is that they can have more than one reason for the decisions they make, and to condense it to "the starting unit is much better on defense" might be putting too much weight on one of many criteria they used in making their decision.
