I've had some doubts in the back of my mind for a while concerning that. Haven't really ever explored them too deeply. It is troubling to me that he has become so ball dominant and that the perimeter defense is so bad when he is paired up with any kind of average to subpar defender at the point. He was great for the entirety of the regular season and throughout the playoffs. But when we finally got down to crunch time and the Warriors collapsed on him, he couldn't give up the ball and make it work. Too many games in the heart of crunch time when he's got 6+ turnovers. For all his greatness, he's his own worst enemy. I've been on the "We need a 3rd superstar" bandwagon for a long time and I've even suggested we need a 4th superstar as well. Sure looks to me like we're going to have to get another player that is just as good as Harden, that will be able to push Harden off the ball successfully. Lawson, so far, hasn't been able to do that. Too many times when they're both in there and Lawson is spotted up on the wing, which is not his strength. Lawson's strength is handling the top, penetrating, and dishing or drawing the foul. We haven't hardly seen that so far. Right now, I firmly believe we've got to get DMo healthy and when he gets back in there we've got to make him the 2nd option and make sure he gets a ton of touches. In my opinion, DMo is even more important to our offense than Lawson is...especially in light of the fact that Smith is no longer a Rocket. This team just doesn't feel right to me. I've been cautiously optimistic. But I don't see it in the big man rotation. We are relying on a backup big man who has played less than 300 total minutes in his career. And his role is critical with Dwight's health (and DMo's health) such a concern. The other thing bugging me is our small ball lineup just hasn't been the same since we lost Carlos Delfino. We used to dominate with our small ball lineups. Now too often our opponent has the better small-ball lineup. And we struggle just to get an advantage with our small ballers. This combined with the fact that we simply aren't big enough nor skilled enough to play power basketball...has me wondering about this team. You can talk about chemistry and keeping the gang together. But you gotta look at who we gotta beat. I'm not seeing it. They got better. Clips, Spurs, Grizz, Warriors, they're all better. Even with the acquisition of Lawson, without another significant upgrade I don't think we're a top 4 team in the West this season.
Josh Smith was important to that team, I know some people here don't like his inconsistency, but they said the same thing about Robert Horry. Even Hakeem had problems, Game 3 vs Phoenix they triple teamed him, someone had to help. then Vernon Maxwell decided to attack Phoenix. you need one of these guys <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">New favorite player <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/vernonmaxwell?src=hash">#vernonmaxwell</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/rockets?src=hash">#rockets</a> <a href="https://t.co/rVgyfIto0m">https://t.co/rVgyfIto0m</a></p>— T. (@dappyknucks) <a href="https://twitter.com/dappyknucks/status/614633506552070144">June 27, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
You could've saved yourself the trouble OP and just written no team has ever won a Championship with Kevin McHale as a head coach.
great post, basketballholic. the best all night tonight. i feel you're one of my fellow clutch fans who deserve much respect. if i showed any disrespect earlier, i apologize. i agree with many things you said in here. the main thing we differ is still about harden. talent-wise, many former great players aside, i think he's below durant and westbrook. and he couldnt break his 6th-man role when in okc. so my evaluation is that he's first class, but not really top notch. but that's ok. that alone doesnt preclude the possibility that he could lead a team to a championship run. what makes me believe he's not "the one" is his character. and maybe i will give this judgment a detailed shot some time in the future...
maybe you're right in that we need another mad max kinda guy. but seriously, i feel like many fans are way over-estimating the talent level of this current roster. and that's before we even open the talks about stuff such as leadership quality, coaching, or mental toughness, etc. this team is far away from a title contender.
It is 3-4 games out of an 82 game season. Obviously you would rather be 2-1 or 3-1; but it will mean very little by the end of the season.
Don't forget the offensive system. Look I like the Rockets hitting 3 pointers and all, but they take too many 3s. when you miss 3s, that leads to transition buckets for the other team. There's got to be some balance. We really need Dwight.
This is on Harden, not McHale. I don't care who the coach is, a basketball team is only as good as their best player. As long as Harden plays like crap, the Rockets will be crap. The Beard needs to act more like Yao Ming and less like T-Mac and Franchise.
Meh It's only preseason It's only one game It's only the defending champions It's only the 4th best team in the East It's only a team with two top 5 players Cleveland struggled last season Miami Heat started 9-8 - Delusional CF Homers
how long before les starts salary dumping parts of the roster in order to salvage the season for himself by getting back under the lux tax?
Ty Lawson is playing like a capable third-string PG. Way too much of a defensive liability next to Haren. Morey, git'r done: Trade Dwight and TJ for DRose. Sign Joshua Smith.
No. Those guys won 6, 5, and 3 championships respectively. But we are are facing increasingly steeper odds in the loaded West. And if we lose to the Thunder and go to 0-4 and then come back to win a championship then we will be widening the bell curve. What this start tells us is there has to be a major change in this team for them to get up off the deck and win a ring. That means a big change to the rotation or to the coaching staff or a significant shift in playing strategy.
Pointless stat thread. "Only ONE team that had their team goldfish die one a championship since B.C. 290." - Zeus
Starting 0-3 is not meaningless even if there wasn't any "stat" at all. In last year's playoffs one game separated the second seed from the sixth seed. And we all know what the statistics say about home court advantage. Screech! Wait, I forgot, that's a meaningless stat. I'm afraid the Clutch bug has bitten some of you. After watching our team make history and overcome staggering odds to win a championship from the 6th seed in 95, you may think there's some sort of clutch chemical in the Houston water supply. This ain't 1995. And the thing is even that team made a major, major player acquisition that triggered their run.
