Chronicle: Separating reputation from reality

This article really seems to divide the board members in half. For the record I'm in the half that the article was mostly very accurate.

I know a lot of people are complaining that the article didn't address Steve's assist to TO ratio. The article may have glossed over it a bit, but it didn't totally ignore it.

 

I like the article. It certainly works on the myths - though not always completely. I like it becuase the key issues are being called out - though we may not entirely agree with the recommendations.

I think you guys are being too harsh on Steve - he has a high turnover ratio, but the so called 'class' guards are also not that far. Look at Kidd or Kobe. Anyone who handles the ball for long time in a game is likely to have a high turnover ratio. Of course, some turnovers are real whacky - 24 second violations. Those I cant live with. The we have those dishes to the stands after a freaking penetration. I would take some of those, if I want my PG to go in and dish out - which I think Steve is.

My crib with Steve is about his defense (or lack of) that puts pressure on the whole team. Hopefully JVG will fix that. The reality is I have seen Steve pass to open guys, who get into brickfest. Most games we are able to get decent number of open shots. Are those shots available at the 'shooters' best percentage location, I dunno, but they get enough looks for guys in NBA to knock it down.

I think Yao - offense has to migrate to him, but he also needs to become stronger. He has the skills, no doubt with back to basket as well as passing. But he is slow and generally soft - mentally and physically. Physically I do not want him to change too much - we saw his shooting touch disappear as he was adjusting to his more defined muscles and probably higher weight. I want him to be mentally tougher and demand that the team put everything on the court every single game. More dunking and aggressive rebounding from him will surely set him as the floor leader in a season or two.


And I certainly would love to have posters stating their reasons for them making this a great or lousy article.


Arrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrghhhhh. Are Rox playing any summer league. I think the whole team should be there.

 

uh ... are you guys reading the same thing i am? No it doesnt directly address the assist/TO ratio, but it does address assists that francis potentially could have had (teammates missing opening shots). Thus because of these botched assists, he became more "take matters into my own hands" and isolated alot, meaning more careless turnovers.

 

Err, no. Griffin has virtually no moves in the post at all. He tries to back his man down, and then shoots a turnaround. In every game where he tried this more than once, the defender just stripped the ball on the second attempt.

 

This crap looks like it was approved by or possibly even written altogether by Nelson Luis himself. What a crock of shht.

 

The basic point of the article is that SF should continue being point guard.

Hmmmm no thanks.

Raven

 

all i can say about this article is that the rocket team would be in a bigger trouble than last season if steven and mobley agree with this stupid man. i hope they all wake up as quickly as possible.don't be so selfnish.it is so shame for them to write or think like that. i remember it is yao (a rookie)and possey got A about last season on rocket.com. i think it is not yao that make rudy to have to go away. which one have to go next year or three years later? if it is yao, i am not unhappy,just sorry for that.if it is not yao,who would stand by for them?

 

pretty good article. macbeth-ish.

 

What!?!?! The Rockets DIDN'T iso enough!?!?!

Didn't bother reading the rest of it...

 

I didn't see any mistakes made by our players in that article. Afterall, we are a great team that just mysterically missed 4 playoff in a roll. Too unlucky. Hopefully JVG will bring luck to this poor team, but he should not steal Rudy T.'s credits!

 

We didn't "mysteriously" miss 4 playoffs in a row. First year, Francis a rookie, Barkley out, and Dream only played 44 games. 2nd season, we win the most games by a nonplayoff team ever. When it happened, it was accepted, funny how 2 years later, people act like it didn't happen and that that 2nd season was a total failure. 3rd season, Francis misses a huge chunk of the season and plays quite a few games with intense migraines that would keep most of us here in bed. When it happened, we considered it a tough break. Of course, lucky for us, that tough break contributed in our getting Yao Ming. Now that 3rd season also gets the "I don't want to hear the migraine excuse," treatment. People can claim that the Rockets should have made the playoffs during that 3 year span, but I'm glad we didn't go in year 3 because I'd rather have Ming, a 7'5" piece of the puzzle to building championship team than going to the playoffs and exiting during the first round.

This past season, we should have been in the playoffs. There's no excuse for missing out this year. Had Rudy not been sick, we probably would have been there, but this team shouldn't have been fighting for the 8th seed, we should have been fighting for the 6th or 7th.

 

Guys, I think initially Feigen submitted this to the Chronicle:

"Rudy has been perfect in coaching for the last few years, and SF is the best point guard in NBA. It's the bad luck that caused all the miseries. JVG, don't touch anything of this wonderful system, please".

Then the editor suggested it's too short to fill up space. So Feigen expanded it with couple of hundreds of words.

I think Feigen is still hurting because Larry Smith was not named the new head coach.

 

You're really splitting hairs there Mr. CLutch, you think its not a good article because it doesn't pass sufficient judgment on ISO's? Maybe he doesn't propose any concrete solutions, but I don't thik the purpose of the piece was to do so, it was to identify generic myths that people perpetrate about the rockets.

Thrown together? certainly not more so than that stuff that Dave D'Allesandro wrote last week "Have Yao be the man"....please.

"I just think Brand will work better with Yao than Steve", you castigate Feigen for having weak evidence, yet your justification for trading steve for Brand is a hunch that the two will "work better" together? That's a pretty flimsy case right there.

 

hmmm... You have just spelled out the '"mysteriously" missed 4 playoffs in a row' in plain English. We were a perfect team. It's just that God forbid us from entering the playoff last 4 years. Well, hope the addition of JVG will change God's mind.

I am still not convinced that Steve Francis is the best PG you can get beside Jason Kidd...

oh, Yao was definitely burnt out at the end of the season. He stamina is subpar to NBA standard. A common problem for Asian players in most sports.

 

So now God is to blame for the Rockets not making the playoffs?

A terrible article by Jonathan, who failed to seperate reputation from reality in this article.

 

I do find it rather funny that this article seemed to be directed right at all the same arguments made on this BBS.

1. Francis isn't a PG.
2. Yao doesn't get the ball enough.
3. We iso too much.

Those could be thread titles. Funny.

 

I don't remember saying anything about God, and I most certainly did not call our team perfect. Perfect would mean that we could have won a championship, none of the teams of the last 4 years were championship caliber.

I thought i was pretty straight forward in explaining exactly why we missed the playoffs, if there are people who didn't "get it," let's just hope those aren't the same people who question certain player's IQ's.


I think User is "mysterical" by the way.

 

Right on Jeff. I find it funny that nobody here has really had a problem with Feigan before, but as soon as he says something contrary to what people here believe, the man becomes a hack. I'm surprised that somebody hasn't started a boycott thread where they have a templete letter to send to Feigan telling him he's wrong and one for the editor, telling him to fire feigan or face a boycott of the Chronicle.

 

I must not have understood the article as much as some of you, or you are reading between the lines, a skill I do not have.

I though he was stating what JVG would find out after watching all the game films, an what He would have to work with and correct.

But then maybe I understood it that way because I agree with his last statement. I believe the players on the team will be fine with a different game play that is enforced by the coach. There is not a player on the team that will not try to change as required by JVG.

 

Well, of course everyone is up in arms. Most journalists around the NBA treated the Rockets missing the playoffs and struggling to integrate Yao Ming with a collective, "Isn't that what we said back in September?", which is EXACTLY what they said.

Feigen predicted the exact record of the team almost down to the game and yet he's obviously an idiot ass-kisser because he isn't complaining about the things that seem so obvious to the rest of us.

I don't agree with every word he writes, here or otherwise, but at least I'm honest enough to admit that a guy whose career is made up of covering the team and the league and understanding the inner workings of the Rockets probably knows more than I do when it comes to analyzing players and coaches.