You are right about his age. What I meant when I said that he would be 21 next year was that he would be 21 next season...which of course actually starts this year.
What about Arenas and Murphy? They are not on teams with more direction than the Rockets. Jason Kidd was leading his team to the play-offs in his 4th season.
with who, dallas, who did they play? Oh, uh, Arenas and Murphy play on a team which has a coach that was a runner up for "Coach of the Year." So don't say the warriors have no "offensive direction." They're 3rd in the league in scoring.
Yeah, i just found out Kidd was in the playoffs in 1997. Just like i said up in my other post, He is one of the best point guards of all time.
No. Not with Dallas with Phoenix. Jason only played two and a half seasons in Dallas. Now you are making me laugh about Golden State. They have been one of the most pathetic teams in the last several years. To say they are a team with more direction than the Rockets is crazy at this point. Eric Musselman did a good job but the Rockets were still better this year. But as I said in my initial post: While it is impossible to predict how those players would have developed on the Rockets or how Eddie would have developed on one of those teams it is worth noting that Eddie Griffin did not improve on his game much in his second season (if any at all) while all of those players showed significant improvements in their games. So you see I did acknowledge that Eddie might have developed differently on another team. But why did Kenny Thomas seem to be able to develop his game on the Rockets? Maybe its not all of the organizations fault.
yeah, you got a point, but to go back on that G.S thing, those guys started out slow the beginning of the season and they ended up right under our asses. Back to the rockets, the blame shouldn't be all on the coaching staff but they're the boss, i mean it doesn't take a genius to see that discipline isn't set in the minds of the players. Basically, Rudy and his staff seem like they are a little too lenient and need to start lighting some fires underneath these players' asses and quit treating them like a bunch of "short bus" boys and treat them like million dollar men. I mean if a guy is making a million in one year, you better yell at his ass and make sure he does the job the way you want it done. Thanks for your time, gotta go, it was fun.
I forgot to put this, I don't see that "competitive Burn" inside Griffin. And that's what makes a player, regardless of talent.
I have a problem with the discipline on the team as well but my whole point in this thread was about Eddie Griffin and the 2001 draft. I would hope that Eddie would put in as much work as a Kenny Thomas or Othella Harrington in the off-season to try and develop his game. My question is this, if he worked on his game in the off-season which part did he work on?
I was watching an old Rockets game with Calvin Murphy & the other rocket broadcaster (forgot his name). It was a game at the end of the 2000-2001 season (Dream's last!) against Seattle at home. Now, while not admitting that those two are geniuses, something they said I think can be applied to Eddie Griffin's case. Maybe. They were commentating about Seattle's Jelani McCoy. They said that Seattle really played him alot of minutes that season, and that it made sense because it's his third season and that the 3rd is usually the cut-off period on whether or not you're gonna be a star or a dud in the league. I agree on that. Well, Jelani's a dud but it doesn't diminish the fact that to be fair to Griffin, the Rocket's should give Eddie minutes (and touches) this season and make a decision afterwards... if he's typically the same player after all that, send him packing no questions asked. Since people keep talking about POTENTIAL, then it probably is a good idea to check him out for good in his 3rd run around. Like baseball, after 3 strikes, you're out...
How frustrating that was giving so much just to have Griffin and Morris.Or is Rudy who does'nt really know how used his players.Hmm!Interesting thought!
I just wanted to post this quote by Zach Randolph, who the Rockets could have had with their multiple 1st round selections, after the Blazer's lost game 7 to the Mavs: "It hurts," Blazers forward Zach Randolph said, choking back tears. "To play so hard and come back after being down three games. . . . We should have played like that from the beginning of the series. We all played hard and we tried to stick together, but we just couldn't pull it out." Wow a player showing emotion! I player who actually shows he cares after a win or loss. I would love to see Eddie Griffin show half of Randolph's hustle, emotion, and physical game.
Eddie Griffin's Numbers Minutes: 25.24 PPG: 8.71 FG%: 38 3ptFG%: 33 STL: .46 BLK: 1.63 TO: .82 AST: .93 David Wood's Numbers Minutes: 17.33 PPG: 5.27 FG%: 42.41 3ptFG%: 31.11 STL: .71 BLK: .20 TO: 1.09 AST: 1.15 THERE! now what would you guys/gals say if we would have given up first round draft picks for david wood? eddie and david's games are so similar, it's uncanny. "potential"? whatever. whoever keeps saying that is 33.3% right. "pot"-ent-tial. yep. 33.3%.
Also keep in mind that when EG was drafted we were taking one player to pay for instead of 3 1st round picks and only one is starting Jefferson... Collins is a role player and Armstrong I haven't heard anything about... Also we were hoping that EG would be the man in the frontcourt... This wouldn't be a problem if we had not gotten lucky with the 1st pick last season and added a great young center in Yao Mingh... Yao Mingh has made EG expendable now... If we would have not gotten a great young big man we would be giving EG more time to develop... That being said, I was not impressed with anything EG did this past season... NO post game what so ever and only shoots 3's not even 15 footers just 3's!!! I agree that EG should not just be traded for the sake of trading him but its time for him to step up of ship out... I know he's going to only be 21 but in todays game thats not an excuse... Don't lie Amare Stoudamire doing what he did this past season must have put all of us in the "why hasn't EG done anything that Amare has???" attitude... Jermaine O'Neal took more than 5 years to start playing b-ball well on a daily basis... EG may need that type of time also or it could be next season, no one knows...
Way too harsh on Eddie. He is a young kid learning to play in a man's game. He was stuck on the 3point line his rookie season because he didn't have the muscles to go into the post. In his 2nd season, he got a little bigger and tried to go down low a lot more (a lot less 3 pointers). No, he doesn't have Ming's low post moves or Mings power moves or his soft touch (who does?) But he is doing the cuts and offensive rebounds and other dirty jobs that the PF is supposed to do. Now if we didn't get Ming and Eddies was the low post #1 option, I think we would see him do more there. But really, who would you rather get the low-post pass???? So I do think he got better. Not drastically better but better. And BTW, I think having Ming there would cut down Eddie's blocks just a little bit no?? Also, GS picked up Dunlevy but he didn't do crap in his rookie season, that gave Troy Murphy a good shot at PT and allowed him to improve. Yes, MoT didn't do much but remember that KT was a starter and was here until he was traded. So is Eddie's time as a backup "counted" as his failure as a starter? And I'm not a Eddie lover or anything like that, but unless there is something real good in the offer, I won't trade him away.
It may be here in the thread and I missed it, but my understanding is that we made the picks for the Nets. We got who they wanted at those spots, not necessarily who we would have picked had we kept them. So speculating about those players we could have gotten instead of Griffin is based on an assumption. The Rocks might not have taken those guys, or they might have made a deal combining 2 of them to move up or whatever. We really don't know. Just an fyi.
Eddie has the potential to be a superstar, which is what he needs to become to justify trading 3 first rounders for him. 14 points and 9 boards, while a vast improvement for Eddie is not superstar numbers. How many players could give us that if given 35 mintues a night at the 4? Plenty of them. Here's the bottom line on Eddie. If we keep seeing him around town at clubs, he ain't gonna work out. Chris Washburn, Lloyd Daniels, Roy Tarpley, and countless others were loaded with talent too. They could have been superstars in this league. But they couldn't get their act together. This is make or break time for Eddie, this offseason. Either he will get in the gym, or if he doesn't, the Rockets need to dump him for a Zach Randolph, if they can get away with such a steal. If he doesn't get in the gym, and work on his strength, post game, defense, and shot this summer, I think it is time to move on and salvage what we can out of him while he is still wearing the "potential" label.
