5 Reasons Why I Think The Rockets Could Be Better Next Season

Jones is very inconsistent. DMO is wildly inconsistent and mistake prone. Those guys are not going to give you too much more than last year I think.

Kostas - that's a wild card but hard to see him worse than Casspi. Ariza - who knows what you get in terms of 3 point shooting, but he's not nearly as versatile of a scorer as Parsons. I think that's a net negative.

Daniels is so tiny. Lin is a bigger loss than people realize. Dorsey is no Asik.

I mean, it's really hard to see how we will be better. Maybe defensively but even then....this coaching staff doens't know how to teach team D.

 

2012-2013 roster were better than this at same point,

Add Dwight, Ariza and half dozen unproven players

Lost Asik, Parsons, Lin, Delfino, Patterson, Morris

 

I am on this!

 

Exactly how I feel. We are going to wear harden and Dwight out and they're going to be gassed come postseason time.

 

I mean he's not THAT tiny. 6'4 201 lbs is decent.

 

I think even you realize that this is dishonest, half-analysis.

 

i would say yes and no to a lot of the OP's points. i'm not counting on anything from johnson, capela, or covington, since all 3 will probably spend the year in RGV. ish smith and dorsey are insurance policies / added bench depth. they will be the 11th and 12th guys. they're not taking off the warm ups.

the bench should be made up of: canaan, daniels, papa (at the 3/4), and dmo (at the 4/5). possibly adrien gets some run depending on matchups.


here's what we know:

ariza vs parsons - better 3 and D, worse at creating for himself and others.

canaan/daniels vs lin - better 3, same D, worse at creating for themselves and others.

dmo vs asik - straight O for D trade. except asik's D was there every night. dmo's O is dependent on getting the ball, the matchup with the other team, and his own consistency.

what we know is that we are a better shooting team, but worse at creating shots. better perimeter D, but worse interior D.

here's what we don't know:

papa vs garcia/casspi - will he be the second coming of casspi or can he actually play defense and rebound? BEST case scenario is that he solidifies our already improved perimeter D and 3 point shooting, but also doesn't provide an ability to create offense for himself or others.

jones 2015 vs jones 2014 - this is the biggest x factor. how much will he improve, and where will he improve? BEST case scenario is he adds a more consistent 3 point shot, to add to already improved shooting. can he improve his 1-1 skills enough to be a legit 3rd option on a contender? probably not over 1 summer. can his defense improve? sure.

overall:

we know we improved at 3s and perimeter D. there is also a chance at further improvement of both depending on papa and TJ. we know we regressed at interior D and 1-1 play.

it looks like a heavy burden will be on harden to create more for himself and others on offense, leading to him taking defensive possessions as chances to rest. there is a chance that jones and bev are able to step up and fill the offensive hole that parsons and lin left behind. there is an equal chance that they can't.

while our perimeter defense improved, our offense will be heavily weighted to our stars, and thus become more predictable in half court. i would also add that we haven't replaced sampson, and at this point in the offseason it looks like we are going with what we have on the coaching staff.

i'm not buying that we can be better overall than last year with a worse coaching staff, worse offense, and worse interior defense. the perimeter defense, and 3 point shooting will only make up for so much. i think at best we are similar to last year (50-55 wins) but at worst we are no longer a playoff team (44-49 wins). thinking realistically, we will probably end up somewhere in the middle of those two projections... around 47-52 wins, on the playoff bubble, ending somewhere between 7th-10th in the west. parsons, asik, lin, and sampson meant a lot to last year's success, and i'm not convinced that any of their replacements are an improvement.

 

thanks Crash, apologies on the belated reply...love your posts too

not sure I want to see Ariza dribble and create, we saw that before

agree Jones dribble drives could be good.......he has to raise his 3 pt percentage for this to happen, still not sure why defenses closed out so hard to him last season, perceived threat of his outside shooting rather than his actual numbers

i don't have a solution or a player that would fit that could be had, and understand your idea of making the offense about Dwight and shooters when Haren is on the bench, which will be interesting in itself in the hope that McHale can manage the rotations to ensure one of them is on the floor.....

i'm trying really hard to be optimistic, but the lack of second 1 or 2 that can create from themselves or a team-mate is a glaring hole right now, don't even think it has to be a starter just someone to play 20-25 minutes a night.... Sessions might be a good fit, without this extra player if feels like Haren will have to carry and even bigger offensive load and while that might be awesome short term, I'm not sure its sustainable and could lead to over-use, an injury, the ability to be shut down in playoffs or at a minimum more cool defensive youtube videos.

 

Basketball is a team sport. Spurs won a title without a single top 10 player. We have enough talent to win if the team jells behind Harden and Howard, finds an identity, plays hard and with a chip on its collective shoulder. We'll see, but I never for a second thought last year that we were losing because of lack of talent. When we lost was when the team didn't play right.

This year we lose three very capable NBA players in Parsons, Lin and Asik. But all three of them contributed to our lack of identity last year. Parsons and Lin are too much of showmen, they need to be featured, which was at odds with this being the H&H team. Omer was a drama-queen.

Now we have the pecking order straight, with role players behind Harden and Dwight. Bev, Jeff Adrien, and young Nick Johnson are tough warrior-type pieces...

D-Mo, TJ and Adrien will provide 48minutes of adequate PF play ( not All star, but adequate).

The big question mark in mind is the three-spot:

1. Is contract-year Ariza a mirage, or has he finally found his NBA niche. If he plays like last year, he's the steal of the FA season, for sure. But at the same time last year was a major aberration of his career numbers.

2. What are getting in the Smear? I think the comps to Casspi are unfair. Casspi has shown that he's incapable of playing the SF and his perceived value was as an unconventional PF. Had some early success last year, but then got exposed. K-papa is being brought to play SF, but can he play at an NBA level? Will he maintain his stroke under increased physical demands? Can he stay in front of NBA-level wings?

In any case, I think we'll see a lot of harden at the 3, even if Papa/Ariza turn out OK. If Daniels is to play significant minutes, it will benefit to play alongside James, as a spot-up threat.

 

Fantastic analysis!

My goodness.

The upside on this team is highly dependent upon cannan/daniels/pap being competent. Unlikely to see our bench being above average at this point, but one can definitely hope.


Oh and people need to remember that a) Asik had almost 0 impact on regular season as a whining POS. That and he demented our offence in the playoffs as well.

and b) that lin was wildly inconsistent. Only played well when harden was out (which by the way is actually a big loss for this rockets team).

 

Essentially the conclusion is that Jones need to break out, which I think most folks with a relatively objective POV agree with, but the problem with your comparison is this...

Age 22 free throw shooting : Jones .605, Lowry .801, .Ariza .653, Lin .760
Age 23 shooting : Lowry: .272, Ariza .319, Lin .320

So not only was Jones a significantly worse shooter than everyone you noted from the line (usually a good indicator of a player's touch. note that Ariza played very few minutes in age 22 season) but all those guys were still meh shooters from 3s in their age 23 season.

Lin and Lowry's FT % generally suggest they had the touch, to be at least an average 3 point shooter, which they did gradually become, Ariza is probably the more positive comparison to Jones in that he didn't come in looking like he could be a consistent shooter at all (well below .700 FT% most of his first few years.) but gradually grew into one, unfortunately I would note that only really happened in his last 2 season, and really just last year were we kinda sure he really figured out how to shoot and not just a fluky slightly better shooting season. last year was his age 28 season.

I believe that Jones will be good, but I have a lot of doubt if that he'll be good enough that quickly. and the Rocket's window could be smaller than a lot of folks seem to assume, given that if next season doesn't go well Dwight is already entering what could be his final season in 15-16.

Like, I"m pretty sure Terrence Jones in his prime will be a good enough role PF on a contender, but I'm pretty skeptical if he can be that in age 23. anyone watching realize that he takes forever to wind up a jump shot, which doesn't seem to indicate good timing, however he also have the advantage (relative to guards like Lowry and Lin) that few people if any will contest his 3 pointer. so the difficulty level is a bit lower, but still...

I'd say you should be more realistic and see him shoot .700 + from the line for a full season first. generally speaking no one that doesn't shoot .700 from the line with any sort of decent sample size is going to be a consistent outside threat.

 

Better, sure...maybe. But improved-enough to beat the Clippers? I don't see it unfortunately.

 

I just can't wait for the season to start. All this speculation is agonizing.

 

He looks diminutive on the court. Can't believe he is really 6'4 and 201lbs. Looks more like 6'2 and 180lbs!

Why would you say that? Ariza in 10 year career has had 1, I repeat ONE season where he was awesome from 3 point land - and that was last year in a contract year. Somehow I don't have a lot of faith in him shooting 40% again this year.

 

So let me get this straight... Your shooting touch improves because your contract is up? And it declines because you have a new contract? So are you purposely missing shots once you have a new contract? The whole contract year BS is overblown when it comes to shooting. You may play D harder in a contract year or hustle more. But shooting is shooting. You either make the shot or miss it. Nobody is sitting there saying "I can miss this 3 pointer now because I have a new contract!"

 

There have been 16 seasons where a player has shot 40% or greater from 3, and 70% or less from the line, with at least 1 make per game.

http://bkref.com/tiny/KajLc

There have been 59 times where a player shot league average(36%).

http://bkref.com/tiny/WgjK5

In the last ten years, there have been 3-4 guys per season who have hit that second mark, so it's rare, but not unheard of.

 

Haven't you heard that players work extra hard during offseason on his contract year?

NBA is a business. Most of role players are in for the money and the security of a long contract. There is no better way to package an NBA role player than to have outstanding stats during contract year. The incentive to work extra hard in the offseason is in the millions for an above average role players. It might not be the case with Ariza but it sure happens more than you think.

 

As others have noted, a lot of young, unproven players will have to step up their game for this team to be successful this year. Sure, the Jones/Dmo tandem may prove capable to man the PF spot, Canaan may be ready to lead the second unit, and the Euro league chemistry between Dorsey and Papa may prove effective off an NBA bench, but that is a whole lot of if's.

Then again, there's really no sense in getting too riled up, because we may have to wait until the trade deadline to really know what this season's playoff team will look like.