Could Motiejunas and Jones both move out of the rotation?

Morey says a lot of thing during the day which is long enough.
Morey has been talking out of his ass sometimes.

Royce White surely top 5 talent, Patterson top 6 talent, hahhahaa. Lamb Top 8 talent.... hahaha

 

I can't think of any team that has no weaknesses at all. Even teams that win championships have weaknesses. No team has a player that dominates at every position. The PF forward position has been and is still a weak area for the Rockets. I don't know if we need someone better than TJones playing power forward, but we probably need another PF that is equal to TJones in the rotation.

I don't see the Rockets as a strong contender this year, but the PF position is only part of it. I don't think Morey is too concerned about winning a championship this year, I think he's looking forward to the next few years.

I think the Rockets could win a championship in the future with TJones in the starting lineup if he continues to improve, and Morey keeps adding talent to the roster.

The Rockets don't necessarily need to be stronger at the PF position than Indiana or Miami in order to beat them, they just need to have a stronger overall team.

At the beginning of the year the Rockets had a huge gaping hole at the PF position, and now we have a 22 yr old that seems to be improving game by game. Yes, in order for the Rockets to win a championship THIS YEAR, they would probably need to upgrade the PF position, and several other positions. But this is a year in which Morey is still building the team.

Right now I'm enjoying watching TJones mature into a solid NBA player, and I really don't know what is ceiling is.

 

Agreed. If we had Phil Jackson as coach that will be an automatic + 5 wins. But yeah.

 

If we had PhilJax we would have + 5 wins...... but can't have the best of them on all positions can't we?

Agreed

 

TJ is ballin for a 2nd year player and he's contributed just as much as any other player on this team. I get your criticisms of him though, but you're picking him apart like he's the star player on the team.

Howard is the guy you need to be worried about. He's the SUPER STAR. A lot of those things you say about TJ apply more so to Howard because TJ is young and on an upward trend. His outside shooting will come, but yet we're waiting on Howard who's a veteran to develop a post game.

We see how far the kid has come in a year so his work ethic really can't be questioned.

As of now _ Howard is in TJ's way... And probably everyone else's too...

 

Wow basketballholic you are tripping for real. You say this team is not champioship caliber team with Jones playing the power forward position. Dude has been one of the consistent players on this team. He don't have to have a freaking jumper. If he continues to do what he does the Rockets will be just fine.
There are other glaring reasons why we are not a champioship caliber team. I do agree that we need another big man or two but Jones has earned that starting spot. Lol stealing minutes huh wow. I've done heard it all.

 

Still agree with basketballholic.

The problem with TJones isn't what you see....its what you don't see. It's the closed lanes that Harden can't always drive against. The extra defender in the restricted area that effects Dwight. The fronts on our wings that causes us to take more contested 3s.

TJones is a good player. He's a good rim protecter and ball handler. He runs the court and has soft hands. He could develop into a very good defender. He will likely never be a good shooter, or at least won't be anytime soon.

What I saw from him last night was the same that we've seen from him all season, but in greater quantity and against the worst team in the league. He ran the court and finished around the rim. He did this more consistently, but his game didn't grow or change.

The Rockets will remain a flawed team so long as he starts at the 4.

 

While I do agree with most of what you said. His player can play off of him when the offense is set but the kid does so many other things well that he over compensates for that drawback. Plus I do think he can develop a mid range jump shot. The Rockets can win with him if there are 3 other 3 pt shooting players on the court with him and Howard.

 

Hilarious that we're having so much debate about a guy that is currently performing at no worse than the 4th best player on the entire team and maybe even 3rd over Parsons in many advanced statistical categories second to only 2 max contract guys. Yeah that guy must be the problem and the one holding this team back from greatness. That was sarcasm in cased you missed it...

 

Agree. The team needs to address the PG position more than anything else, the PF position is the least of their concerns.

 

Of course he would be in the rotation in both Miami and Indiana.

Indiana are rolling with the corpse of Luis Scola playing the backup 4, and Ian LOL Mahinmi as the backup 5. Their current insurance plan, in case of injury, is the corpse of Antawn Jamison.
There is absolutely no doubt that if Morey offered them a 1 on 1 trade of Jones for either of those guys, they would do it, and put him straight into the rotation.

Miami's big man rotation is so awful it doesn't bear mention. Udonis Haslem. Oh my.
Again, If Morey were to offer Jones to Miami, even for free, he would be instantly in their rotation.


Jones is not an all-star, however that doesn't invalidate him as a rotation player. He's showing that even in his second season, he's an NBA rotation player for any team in the league. How much better he gets depends on how much work he does on his shot this off-season.

It isn't Jones' fault that we don't have another option at the 4 spot to back him up.
It isn't Jones' fault we don't have a viable NBA starter at the PG spot.
It isn't Jones fault we don't have a rotation quality 2/3 to come off the bench.

At the start of the season, the Rockets only had 4 guys who are 'rotation quality', and one of them was Asik. Hence the statements that we're not able to contend for a championship this season. Jones brings that total up to 5 NBA rotation quality players (or 4 without Asik playing) - we need to find a starting PG, a backup 4/5, and a backup 2/3. If we filled those needs, we'd be a contending team (with Jones in the rotation, and even as a starter).

 

Basketballholic, I won't bet,but I have so many games on dvr or cpu, its beyond crazy. I've had League Pass since birth,not to mention the countless basketball games I have of the rockets and the nba in general. My biggest point of contention with this who argument is your perception its the big man rotation when its not. Its quality depth,defense,and the backcourt.

The guard play in close games isn't good enough. The guard play in general is good enough. The guy opposte Harden isn't good enough period. The ability of the guy opposite harden isn't good enough period. The guy behind harden is good enough. Harden alone is good enough in the backcourt.

The rockets don't have a player in the backcourt to control the team and get shots when they need them. Even from early in the season,you could see the lack of organization on the court when things are rolling and when things are getting tight. The rockets play good offense when their making shots. You can play good offense without making shots. There have been way too many time the rockets jump to big leads and when the game tightens,guys like brooks,lin,casspi,garcia,harden,and parson are shooting the same shots. As a basketball player and as student of th game,you may shoot a fastbreak heat check 3 when you're up 14 in the 1st qt or even 2nd qt,but you don't shoot that same shot when a team is closing the gap quickly in the 4th qt. That's on court leadership. They could get LMA or love,but the same thing will happen.its not the big man rotation to me,its the other stuff I've outlined.

 

But that's issue with your general premise. It no longer works logically in the scenario you provide. For your thought process to work the replacement for TJ would need to provide a significant improvement deltas for the team *versus the same calculation for a replacement player at another position. With TJ playing at a high level the potential delta has been growing much smaller. When you factor in salary vs. performance then TJ looks even better. We seem to have a bird in the hand at the moment.

 

Yeah I really think the rockets should keep jones. And go for an elite PG.

Kyrie Irving John wall

Maybe rajon rondo(if you have him you need a couple of great 3pt shooters on the bench)

No to Deron Williams.

Chris Paul is out of the question.

Rose being hurt. Is out of the question.

Strphen curry and Damian lillard are both most likely extremely out of the question, and add Russell Westbrook and tony Parker to that.

Soooo really your only options are to upgrade this team are...

John wall
Kyrie Irving
Rajon rondo
Kevin love
Lamarcus Aldrich
Kevin durant
Lebron James

Maybe Demarcus cousins not sure if Howard and him can play together.

Or getting a top 5 pick in the next draft will close to possible without losing Howard harden or parsons. And still then taking a chance because he still a 20 year old rookie.

Morey has options but not as many as people really think to get that 3rd player.

 

There is just no way Bballholic can know what kind of player Terrence Jones is going to become and what a normal contender needs at 1 position unless he can predict the future.

He just can't say one position can determine a championship.
I guess the Heat won with Haslem. The Lakers with Derek Fisher. Celtics won with Perkins.

 

The Pistons won with Prince and Ben Wallace who are specialists.

 

Didn't say that. You're wasting bandwidth.

 

Jones has been great in the role he's been expected to play. The production we've been getting from him, especially this month (17ppg, 11.4 rpg, 2 bpg), is about as good as you're going to get from a power forward playing next to Howard.

It's just rare that you get a C/PF combo that both put up big numbers. Just look at how much Pau Gasol's numbers dipped playing next to Howard last year (13.7 ppg and 8.6 rpg).

I'd be curious what kind of numbers Jones could get on a bad team. I'd bet it wouldn't be far off from Millsap.

 

My issue with Jones is not his talent level or his production. His production has exceeded his draft position and he has performed beyond any reasonable expectations this season. At a minimum he has proven he is a rotation player and has greatly increased his trade value.

The issue I have with Jones is HOW he has gotten his production. He has not developed an outside shot, which is what the Rockets offensive system needs from their PF. Jones has gotten his points by cleaning up inside and off lobs. In many systems there is NOTHING wrong with a PF that gets his points this way. However, in the Rockets system it really hurts the spacing, and lets teams sag off of Jones when he is on the perimeter. Defensively his rotations were terrible to start the season and still need improvement. As a result there is poor communication and switches by the perimeter players as there is no continuity or predictability inside.

Jones blocks shots, he can finish inside, run the floor and at 22 may well develop his handles and outside shot, which would make him a VERY valuable player to any team. Having said that, lets not forget there are issues as to how he fits with the Rockets long term.

Maybe he is a key piece in a trade for a third star. If I am a team like Minnesota or Boston or Milwaukee I have a real interest in Jones. He has developed nicely and has high upside.

 

You make a good point: Because of the system, Jones may be more valuable to another team than to the Rockets. That's precisely the kind of player that ends up getting traded.