The hard-on for D-Mo here is baffling. He's had plenty of opportunity and hasn't shown anything. That's not on McHale; D-Mo isn't ready to play. Watch as he rides the pine on some other team before going to Europe. Everyone who was rooting for D-Mo in his rivalry with Terrence Jones, I'm sorry your guy lost. But, check out Jones. He's doing good things for the Rockets and he's shaping up alright. Be happy for the Rockets at least, even as you weep for D-Mo's career. Forced to play young, and had a successful season anyway. One that feautured a quickly-blossoming Chandler Parsons and no slow-developing Motiejunas. Asik started pouting because Jones beat him out for the starter spot. And Jones has been a pleasant surprise since then, doing all the things we wished Asik could do. When Asik returns, Jones will remain the starter. Since Asik can't play Twin Towers with Howard, Jones isn't likely to lose many minutes either. As pedestrian a player as Smith is, he still got 10 minutes in the game when he returned and Motie rode the bench. If Motie holds any promise at all, I would hope he could at least beat out Greg Smith for minutes. But, he can't. He could, but why bother with a player that shows nothing? Greg Smith at least has a future as a minimum wage journeyman. 9 players isn't a short rotation. 10 players is a long rotation, while 8 is typical come the playoffs. So 9 is pretty average. The other guys are there for guys with potential and for guys who can play when rotation players are injured. Motie can serve in the latter role, but every time he plays minutes he looks less like someone in the former.
Donuts plaid less than 20 minutes with regular starters this season. You can't tell if he fits well or not when giving him playing time with bench players and team down or up by 20 or something. There is no motivation to defend well or play at all when the game is done already. Just sayin, but Donuts/Parsons/Harden/Garcia/Lin won that game against Grizzlies, there was 5 blocks in 12 minutes with this lineup, 50%FG and 1 turnover. He didn't play regular minutes with any other starting rotation.
Les Alexander does not want us to watch Rockets games. If he did, the games would be televised rather than restricted.
Some OOF made that tho. This is one hell of a stupid diagram without any proof and source. I can made up couple for you too.
I always thought Dmo has the upside of a rotation player, so this isn't a good time to trade him with his awful stats this season. Hopefully we don't pay too much to dump his contract.
1. For some reason, people only remember rookies who don't play as "young players" and discount all instances of guys who do get to play with various excuses. Parsons has played regular minutes for McHale since his rookie season, Patrick Patterson played as a 2nd and 3rd year guy for McHale, Jeremy Lin was in his first full season as a regular last year playing for McHale, Pat Beverley was an NBA rookie, Marcus Morris was a regular rotation guy in his 2nd season, Omer Asik was in his 3rd year and his first as a starter, TJones and Smith are both younger than DMo, even James Harden was only 23 when he became the star of the team with McHale coaching. Plenty of guys got their chances with McHale coaching. 2. Sure a team can both win and develop young guys at the same time. Specifically this is what the Rockets have been doing the entire time that McHale's been here with the list of young guys above. The key here is that you can do both when you play you guys who are ready to contribute. You can both win and give minutes to TJones to "develop" him but right now you can't do that with Motiejunas because he isn't as good at winning basketball at this moment. 3. People shouting "how is a guy supposed to get better without being fed minutes?" are ridiculous. How do you think TJones got better when he was not in the rotation to begin the season? He did it by working on his game in the summer and during the season at practices with the assistant coaches. He did by growing and adapting his skills to fit the team's needs and the demands of NBA competition. How do you think Marcus Morris got himself into the rotation and played pretty competently when he didn't play as a rookie? Same thing. Yes, playing time tends to help a guy grow better, but a lot of "developing" comes without fans in the seats. 4. The benefit of being fed a bunch of minutes as a young player before you are ready to compete in the NBA just so you can supposedly "develop" is dubious at best. Every year we see young guys, particularly on losing/tanking teams being fed these minutes and a good portion of them never get anywhere in their career. Some of course do get better this way but is the success rate of this force feeding better than making guys earn their minutes by showing that they are ready?
You're talking out of your ass, sir. DMo dominated in DL. 36.3mpg, 23.5ppg (on .514 FG%), 10.8rpg, 2.8apg,
Lol. You seem to miscomprehend my first statement and i'm not a rockets fan. Wow! So you agree with me that Jones just got major playing time later after Asik started pouting and went down with injury? Smith beat out every other PF? Lol. If Smith beat out every one else, why was Jones ahead of the rotation this year then?
Kind of bummed to hear this. Obviously, there's a reason the organization is open to moving him outside of the fact that he requested a trade. None of us will ever know exactly what happened behind-the-scenes, but clearly he had a chance to the win the starting PF spot and failed to do so. Not only that, but once the Twin Towers experiment failed, opportunity knocked once again and he failed to capitalize. Such things will happen when you're 22/23-years-old. I still think D-Mo has a bright future and I'll be sad to see him go. But I'll understand.
Thank you. Being fed steady minutes on a good team like the Rockets is much better than getting sporadic garbage time in blowouts. Howard has played more than 40 minutes in 4 of Houston's last 8 games. Wouldn't it be reasonable to get 10-12 minutes to Motiejunas as his backup, during an active result and for once play to his strengths on offense (post ups), rather than resorting to small-ball with Jones as center? Although he isn't a good rim protector, Donatas can't be worse than Greg Smith (our defense plummeted for a reason when Asik went to the bench last season) and DMo should be able to get the inside position on offense (unfortunately, his teammates overlook him almost every time). A backup center role is still better than camping on the 3-point line as a stretch four, which he clearly isn't.
Very true... He's too good to be in the Dleague, but doesn't have the consistency to play in the NBA. He's caught in no man's land and needs a bad team (or at least a team without another PF project) to play on to actually get minutes. However, I'd rather keep him for his potential. Maybe we can move Casspi over to the 3 and have DMo play over Garcia.
DMo definitely played better than T-Jones when it comes down to D-League. Of course, he doesn't seem to be able to stay on the court, because Jones is the better defender and gets the playing time because of it. And therefore, DMo's NBA stats are significantly worse than Terrence's. Yet, DMo's offensive game is much better imo. He's a far superior passer and playmaker, much higher BBIQ. Shooting touch is similar in both of them. T-Jones is a better rebounder and shot-blocker though. Food for thought. Motiejunas: 36.3mpg, 23.5ppg (on .514 FG%), 10.8rpg, 2.8apg Jones: 30.9mpg, 19.0ppg (on .479 FG%), 9.0rpg, 2.5apg
