Beverly is not garbage - but he clearly is better used as a spark off the bench that plays 20 minutes a night and gets into the head of the other teams PG. Bev is not a playmaker. He's a pest that can hit an open 3 every now and then. Nothing more, nothing less. If we've had gotten Dragic, Knight or Lawson, Beverly would have been able to move into his real role and he would look pretty good in that role.
You may have a point: When Lin was here, he was tagged to be the secondary playmaker. Bev didn't need to do that, so he could just hound the opposing PGs. Many times McHale played Bev and Lin together. Parsons also handled the ball a lot. When Lin was traded, Bev was asked to expand his offense and create more. It could be we asked him to do something that was not his strength. Add to that it's his contract year, so he's pressured to shine.
But he's not even doing that right now. If he was playing solid D and knocking down 35-40% of his 3's, we'd all be ok with the guy. He still wouldn't be the long-term answer at PG, but we wouldn't be calling him garbage in the GARM and McHale wouldn't be benching him. Think about what that says about his play. McHale rarely benches guys on this team. That's how badly Bev is playing right now. It's even worse when you consider how few options we have at that position. Terry's playing just as badly, yet he's closing out the game last night in Dallas over Bev. The one silver lining in all of this(I hope) is that Morey knows how badly this team needs a PG. And it can't wait any longer. We don't have the luxury of dumping all the playmaking responsibilities on Harden for another season while Morey and Les sit around waiting for Durant to go into free agency(SPOILER ALERT: He's not coming to the Rockets). Bottom line, this summer Morey has one task he must complete. Get a damn point guard. A real one. One who could actually start for at least 10 other teams in this league.
I'm just puzzled on how Bev has regressed so much defensively. I know he tended to get a tad overrated last season but he was still above average on defense. Now, he is almost doing nothing right; fouling jump shooters, going for pump fakes, dumb fouls when we are in the penalty. It seems like teams are using his more known attribute (over-aggression) against him, and its working. Bev has always been a player who relies on being aggressive than making the "smart" play. I think anyone who really watch last season knew that Bev was a zero on offense, especially when he can't hit a three. Last year, he was making the same mistakes as he was this year, namely; horrible/incorrect passes (his post passes are a joke), bad decisions on the fast break (trying to pass to Harden when he has 4 people around him), holding the ball too long, etc. This was barely palpable because he was shooting okay last season, not so much this season. I think the only reason why people are so surprised about how bad Bev has gotten this year is because we had Lin last year. When Bev was bad, we had Lin as a hope to play better. But also, the focus was always on Lin. Lin playing average to pretty bad took precedence on Bev playing horrible in the forum and to almost anyone following the team. Lin was the scapegoat to our point guard problems; if we got nothing from our point guards, it was always "Lin has to play better" rather than "Lin and Bev have got to play better". Bev practically got a free pass for not playing well when we had Lin. Not defending Lin, because he was pretty bad and he was paid to be better than what he was but its true to anyone paying attention.
Beverley played 31.3 mpg last season and 30.9 mpg this season. He is actually playing less. And even at 31.3 last season, it's hardly "heavy minutes" for an NBA player. The injury excuse has some merit. The heavy minutes excuse doesn't.
Something definitely isn't right. He isn't getting up into peoples grills and getting the steals nor the offensive rebounds that he used to. He isn't the greatest, but he certainly isn't THIS bad. We need to shuffle the lineup, and that begins with starting James Harden at PG, and getting some fresh legs in the starting lineup without messing up the band of brothers. Let KJ and Ariza guard the two best perimeter players on the team and really lock down. 1. James Harden 2. KJ McDaniels 3. Trevor Ariza 4. Terrence Jones 5. Donatas Motiejunas This removes Beverly and Dorsey from the starting lineup, and keeps the band of brothers on the bench. Option 1: Harden Option 2: Motiejunas Option 3: TJones 6. Josh Smith 7. Corey Brewer 8. Kostas PapaNickel 9. Patrick Beverley 10. Jason Terry/Pablo Pablo
You took the words right out of my mouth. When we ask Beverley to facilitate an offense, it's like telling a fish to climb a tree. He's a victim of circumstance
Doresy did well for the past a few games...his block on TC was priceless ,the best moment of last night's game.
He hasn't looked good since his MCL tear. I hope we didn't ruin a promising young player's NBA career just so we could choke against Portland in the first round.
For a team whose management preaches efficiency, the rockets sure seem to do this a lot. Beverly as a distributor, Dwight as a post-up player, Ariza as a playmaker, Terry defending quick PGs, Smith as a 3pt shooter... idk, you gotta figure that the guys in charge know what they are doing and can see things that most of us don't see, but damn if there aren't some head-scratching moves and strategies the rockets implement.
If we knew Howard was coming back soon, I would have agreed to your statement. The fact remains that the current rotations aren't working anymore. If we lose tonight (3 losses in a row), changes must be made. Try one of the proposed changes by Knote above.
The worse thing of Beverley's woes is that the only quality point guard in free agency is Brandon Knight and he's a restricted free agent. But it gets worse... The cap room Houston has isn't even close to be able to offer anything respectable to Knight. I really think Morey thought he could get away with Beverley for the season when he brought in Ariza. The inconsistency and timely missed open shots hurt. We can't write this season off yet cuz if Howard comes back anything close to last years playoff Howard then we might have something. If Howard becomes a shadow of what he was in the playoffs last year then the Rockets might be in some real trouble going forward.
The answer isn't starting Harden at PG. If we were to do that, other team would full court press the hell out of him all game long. That will only tire him out faster. We need someone that can at least bring the ball up. We have to stick with Bev and hope he can find his "mojo" back. Probably limit his minutes to around 25 a game and hope Pablo can fill out the rest. That or hope D-Will or someone capable is bought out and signs here.
