Black has stood out to me: so much raw talent. I definitely want to keep him, but Morey gave Dorsey (who looks the same as his first stint, largely lost and ineffective) a two year contract. Papageogreo or whatever his name is flashing some serious potential. When he gets comfortable, I think he is going to be really good. Other than that, no surprises. It is too early to predict outcomes because the roster isn't settled, but I think the Rockets are going to have to really hustle to even get in the playoffs.
although still pretty raw black has surprised me. Dorsey looks pretty lost and uncomfortable through the 2 games he has played. looking forward to seeing daniels play with harden and howard this year consistently. he's gonna get plenty of shots up
Not sure I agree Dmo is ready. His inability to take the ball to the hole in the low post is a major deficiency. That and his predictable hook move.
Totally disagree with that statement if you are speaking all around... Bev is handling his own. We do have issues with the pg right now, but Terry can play that on spells or we can move Terry to sg and Harden to pg.. Agree with you that Jones sucks.. T_Man
Very impressed by Black ability to rebound, play tough post D, and block shots. - Bet on Black all day! Tjones, still too soft after 2 years. Hit the weights son! Isiah Cannan ... too cool for school, if Beverly plays at 10 this dude plays at -1. Too lackadasical like he wants to be the coolest dude on the court. Nicky J.. - RGV will do him good to work on his handles Ish No jumper ... If he had Isiah's jump shot, Isiah would be back in D league DMo... Same as Tjones no improvement and has 1 post move and it's so predictable and doesn't rebound for a center/pf forward. We do we give up on this dude J Dorsey.. Morey lost his mind giving this cat a 2 yr guarantee, is he dating his daughter??? Troy Daniels... not worried abt his O, but his D scares me. Gives up 20 to get 10 Like Big Papa... However, his D is str8 European! Scary at best Goodbye: Adrien, Garcia, and J Dorsey...
The Good: Our starting PG, SG, SF, and C are set. Ariza looks to be an excellent fit. Surprisingly, it seems we'll miss Parsons the least of the 3 rotation guys we lost/traded in the off-season. The defensive focus is evident and will likely translate to results when Howard, Ariza, and Beverley are playing starters minutes in the regular season. We have serviceable backup wings in Daniels and Papanikolaou. They're young and have room for improvement but are ready to play now. A couple of our freebie "bigs" (Black and Adrien) have been decent. The Bad: It's looking more and more like TJones and D-Mo won't ever really "break out" but for size alone they'll likely both be important to our big man rotation. Black and Adrien have been impressive but at 6'8 and 6'7, respectively, you can't expect much. Unfortunately, I believe the two have primarily looked so good because our young bigs have been fairly disappointing. After losing Lin/Parsons we're really lacking in playmakers. We'll have to depend on Papanikolaou, a rookie, to run our offense when Harden or Ish Smith aren't on the court. The team has been constructed to fit Harden/Howard well but if either is off the court our entire approach to offense or defense will have to change.
Rockets have a lot of of rotation-fringe rotation players that would be fine as backup PFs, 3rd string PF, and/or 3rd string center. Just don't know if there is a starting PF or backup center in the bunch. Backup PG has concerns as well. Canaan is weak defensively. Ish is weak offensively. Papanikolaou and Daniels have looked good in my opinion as wing depth.
Your roster looks good but you are gonna have to cut one more player, remember Nick Johnson and Clint Capela? that would be 16 players. Right Now I would cut Garcia and I personally swap Cannan for Ish. I just don't see another Turnover prone Backup PG running our offense. A trade would be great for everybody
My biggest disappointment was watching Canaan playing. He had open 3's and didn't knock a decent percentage of them down. Then again outside of Daniels and Harden there hasn't been consistent shooters on the team these 4 preseason games. Ball movement looked more fluid with the rest of the team because they couldn't rely on Howard/Harden to create open shots for them. Looks like emphasis on defense has been a bit increase. I think Dmo has calmed down a bit and is a bit more confident in his offensive abilities. With him and Jones on the floor, solely as PF/C rebounding has been terrible. Jones looks inconsistent but I remember Bill mentioning that McHale wanted Jones to improve his ball handling and use it more as a strength (which didn't really work out too effectively against Davis bc of his length and ability to cover the paint exceptionally well). The Bill/Bullard mentioned that the starters/main rotation should be seeing the floor more as the preseason winds down so pretty excited about that. Hopefully they can experiment with Terry/Daniels coming off the bench and utilize the energy that Adrien/Black can give us off the bench as well. Most surprising players to be has been Daniels and Black. Black has shown he can rebound and be effective on defense and Daniels has been able to knock down some shots. Definitely a good thing Terry is on this team, he's the perfect veteran to show Daniels how to be an undersized 2 guard coming off the bench. If Daniels can grown into that role our team should be slightly improved.
Pretty much what I expected except Black was a bit of a surprise. Only question marks for me are what Terry is going to bring and who exactly our backup PG is.
Will likely try to trade him or eat two million dollars. If they cut Black and keep Dorsey, I will be so disappointed.
I knew Black was going to be a great player when i saw him during the summer games. Real hustle type of guy, something we need. Just need to a go to move in the post and he seriously can be something great.
