So again, DD, the question remains.... ...which of the two (Kevin Martin or Aaron Brooks) would you rather complement? For me, again, it has always been about (in a team setting) who is better at doing their job, rather than who is the better shooter or ball-handler or intangible man. It would seem to work, in theory, a back-court of Martin and Brooks. But each of them has to do their JOB...not simply what each one of them does best. I'm a dinosaur in my thinking on this. Your point guard handles the basketball, makes sure the offense runs the way it's designed to, and makes decisions for the team. Your shooting guard can kill you from the perimeter with his jumpshooting. It's a plus if he can handle the ball and create offense for himself, much the same way your point guard would. Both of them need to be at least decent defensively. At the end of the day, it's up to the players to decide how they're going to play. Symmetry, chemistry, balance.....all of those buzzwords simply mean guys are doing the basic requirements of their jobs (or roles). You need a facilitator at the point. You need a reliable jump shooter at the 2-guard. You need them both to defend adequately enough to keep them both on the floor. We'll see how it shakes itself out.....
A lot of the initial credit goes to Rudy. he demanded his players take the open shot. he used to pull them if they didn't. I saw him yank Elie one time when he passed on an open 3 and then lecture him on the sideline. That is why Maxwell and Smith led the league in 3 pt shooting attempts. Adelman is the same way. He demands you shoot the open shot. He coaches by yanking your minutes. Especially with the rookies. Have you noticed how everyone is improving their open 3pt shooting. Even Budinger who is shooting terribly from behind the arc still doesn't hesitate. The coaches enforce the take it if your open philosophy.
Can he? I mean, just like Durvasa said. I am not sure Kevin can handle the pressure against great teams in the end of games. He is great at scoring 'easy' points which I like to call garbage sometimes. I love KMart but he is not your 1st option (or at least shouldn't be) in my book. I want to see him take over with 3 minutes left with the game tied against San Antonio or Dallas. That's what I want.
That type of accountability is what most good coaches expect from all their players...not just the "role" players or "specialists", Old Man Rock. You don't do any offensive philosophy any justice by not being accountable for your production on that end. "Making up" for woeful offensive production on the defensive end isn't necessarily an team-undermining tactic, from a casual observer's perspective. Your offensive efficiency is no excuse for poor defense. Your stellar defense is no excuse for horrid offense. "Stars" get the brunt of the heavy lifting to do on both ends of the court for their teams. It's expected of them to perform at a high level, and their usage rate as team anchors tends to fly in the face of "efficiency" or PER or plus-minus statistical gauges, to me. But when your other players aren't as accountable as your "stars".... ...if equity in on-court contribution is solely measured in character, rather than accountability..... ...well, you tend to have a team full of players you're fond of.... ...but a team that's not going to win enough. You ask the same things from EVERYBODY. Especially defensively. There's no reason to not play passable defense. But it's much more common to excuse being a liability offensively if you give it the good old college try. That's fine. In college. If you fancy yourself a glue guy, but all you do is gum up the works on offense.... ...you don't win. Or at least, your team doesn't win. It's funny...as good a player as Horry was (and some people still believe that Horry largely underachieved as an individual player, given his overall ability)...if he hadn't been the type of player who did not shy away from taking and making shots.... ..the Rockets could not have won. Same thing with Mario Elie. He couldn't shoot silly-string out of his nose when he joined the Rockets. But he learned that he HAD to do that. That's how you should measure good teammates...or teammates that want to win or are giving their best effort to winning, to me, Old Man Rock. You've got to be just as willing to SHOOT DOWN an opponent as you are willing to LOCK DOWN an opponent. Neither offense nor defense exclusively wins. Balance does that. I've always preferred, on balance, Chuck Hayes to Shane Battier, personally. They're both quality individuals, from all reports. Nothing really wrong with rooting for good guys. But I've always considered Hayes the better player between the two. Hayes' progression offensively proves that. He will never be your 1st or 2nd option (ideally, Hayes wouldn't be your 4th or 5th option), but he has improved dramatically from his days of beating out Stromile Swift by simply drawing consecutive breaths. Hayes hasn't missed a beat, from averaging double figures from assists from Tracy McGrady, to functioning well in a high-post, read-and-react motion offense, where his ball-handling and passing is better than average. He plays well (or as well as he can) no matter what the offense is. and he does it consistently. Hayes reminds me so much of Mario Elie. I can accept Hayes' limitations, because Hayes DOESN'T accept them. He's proven able to competently guard every position on the court at one time or another. That's as rare a thing as you're likely to see, and something you don't need to pour over a stat sheet to recognize. Or write a column about to remind yourself about. Accountability...top to bottom....1 thru 12.... ....I've seen that approach win a lot....
haha...dont care for his shooting form...looks like a chick shooting...but the end result if good, so i'll live with it.
Of course, trugoy. A lot of people don't seem to understand how complete offensively Ray Allen is. Aside from Kevin Garnett, Allen's the largest reason why the Celtics have had the success they've enjoyed. He could essentially be the same player that Paul Pierce is—a player offensively that needs the ball in his hands. Allen displayed great character and a team-first mentality (something that he was never consider to NOT have) by sacrificing playing with the ball as much as embracing playing without it. The fact that he could catch-and-shoot just as well (if not better) as he could dribble-drive was just icing on the cake. Allen's going to the Hall of Fame for a reason. Alot of reasons. And not all of them from the 3-point line....
You might as well want Chuck Hayes or Chase Budinger to take over. He just isnt that type of player. Expecting him to be is only going to lead to dissapointment.
I think what the Rockets are doing is noticing that when it gets late in games, you need players that can create for themselves as well as others. I believe they would like as many of those players on the floor as possible. Brooks, Lee, TWill, and to a lessor extent Lowry and CBud...... IMHO, they would like to surround AB and KL with players that can play offense, defense and create.......which leaves Martin out. I think both KL and AB are about equal in facilitating, the only difference is that one looks for his own shot more often..... I think the team has seen that Martin is a great individual scorer, but when the refs are not biting on his flops, he is pretty danged bad out there, especially on defense. But, his numbers, the great numbers and efficieny he puts up are mouth wateringly droolable ! So, I think teams will covet his scoring, and the Rockets will take advantage of that to fill up a bigger area of need. Just my .02. DD
He sure wasn't efficient last night. Dribble, dribble and more dribble. Kinda reminded me of Francis. I like Brooks as a catch and shoot player. The offense looked stagnant when he was on the court.
Why is it that I never read you saying that about Kyle as he dribbles a lot too? Hmmmm??? Yes, the offense was not in sync, it will take a little time for them to get their mojo back with AB......big deal. DD
I have said that about Kyle. The big difference is that Kyle keeps his dribble alive in the paint and kicks out to the open man.
Or bulls he way into a turnover. Kyle is weak laterally, which is why his defense is vastly overated on this board. He has a bulldog mentality, but he can not stay in front of even the slower PGs..... DD
I'll reference the Warriors games. In game 1, Curry shot 56 % from the field. In the second meeting against Lowry, he shot 42 %. If we win tonight, it will largely be due to Lowry playing 30 plus minutes.
One game is a weak reference point....anyone can be hot or cold when only looking at one game. I guess what you are saying is that we should watch tonight. I am confident I will be proven right. Are you? DD
Am I confident that we will have a better chance of winning tonight as opposed to game 1 against the Warriors? That's a resounding yes. Lowry didn't play in that one and Curry torched us with 25 pts and 11 assists.
Md- You made some very good observations in breaking down miller and k-mart. Trugoy also did a good job at it also in this thread. Let me say this, you can have and be successful with martin and brooks backcourt as long as the other 3 spots compliment them defensively. In fact, it might be easier to find hose other 3 spots than find 2 players to replace brooks and martin. Just like the paces had mckey,davis,and smits the rockets need those kind of guys on the frontline. Now the ultimate goal is the ring and miller and the pacers didn't win it, but they were in conference finals and made it to the finals. I suggested it before, a long,angular,athletic 3,4,5 type of players. This isn't a knock on the guys we have now, its just what I think would really help the backcourt and the team in general. Randolph,Hill,Thabeet as the 3,4,5 with martin and brooks. To me, thats similar to the mckey,davis,smits frontline. Miller, even at 19 ppg and jackson at 13 were the top scorers on those teams, those frontline guys provided enough length and depth to hide the foot quickness of jackson and the strength issues with miller. Guys used to post miller up and he would have issues, but the size of mckey,davis,smits,and davis curtailed alot of that kind of post play. jackson had isssues keeping guys in front, but again the backline could close the rim down a,d force kickouts for longer range shots. In the playoffs, miller was the guy who always took it up a notch. I don't think martin has that same kind of drive miller had, but brooks is the guy who can take and make shots under pressure. There are multiple ways of building a team championship worthy aside from trying to get the superstars here and I'm not against doing that either, but if you're 2 best players are martin and brooks, then it might be easier to hide them or protect them vs wasting years trying to get the shaken loose superstar.
Exactly, leebigez. You've got to balance your team out. But you can only do that if you know or commit to who the team is. If people (meaning the Rockets) are enamored with a Brooks/Martin backcourt (and they have actually shown flashes of being able to play well together—but the onus on it working consistently rests on Brooks)... ...then you need to get a front-line of dirty-work defenders and opportunistic scorers. That Indiana Pacers blueprint from the mid-1990s is just the right type of thinking, leebigez. It remains to be seen what's going to happen now, though, even with Yao, in a roundabout way, solving the dilemma of the extent of his involvement.... The thing is that Rick Adelman's offense is better served with big people who are good passers and ball-handlers at the high post/elbow area, on average. That's how you create the "read-and-react" situations the offense generally thrives on—by creating enough room along the baseline for cutters and slashers. Adelman is a good enough coach to adjust his philosophies to the personnel on hand—but sooner or later, your players have to get it done. Just time now to figure out who those players are.....
I like your thinking aswell, but we do not have Randolph,Hill,Thabeet as the 3,4,5 we only have Hill... To make this happen would take a lot... I would really like to see a team like this.. BUT Scola and Lowry are in their Base Year Contracts and will be very hard to move... One or both will have to go to bring in Randolph & Thabeet IMO...
