I think if francis keeps up his selfish play he will see less minutes on the court, and if he's sees less minutes on the court he will do whatever it takes to get out there. And in reagards to you comment on moochie, there's always hope
* Adrian Griffin is as good of an on the ball defender as any player on the Rockets current roster. * Eric Piatkowski is 6'7" and a much better team defender than most posters realize. Once he gets into game conditioning, his spot up distance shooting is exactly what the Rox need to create more floor spacing. * The Rockets of the past 3 seasons were a 1 assist per 2 FGM (.500) ratio team. The Van Gundy Rockets: Team......A......FGM...ratio DEN.......21.......37... = .568 MEM......14.......24... = .583 CHI........22.......37... = .595 NJN........17.......35....= .486 ORL........21.......36... = .583 MIA........21.......31... = .677 DAL........23.......33... = .697 PHX........17.......34... = .500 TOR.........11.......31... = .355 A bad recent trend, but not a permanent return to the past! * Trade exception offers will come out of the EC IMO...but not until Feb. Why would any of them want to trade yet when a 4-7 record is within shooting distance of the 8th seed? I'm still positive.
I'm not as impressed as others. This team should only have one loss. The Rockets defense is overrated, too. Vince Carter is the only Raptor that averages double figures, and FOUR players hit double figures with Chris Bosh scoring 25? That's horrible...
Here is my take on you guys saying some of us are making excuses...But weren't we outscored and out played by the Toronto bench? Hell yes we were. And guess what we had no way of competing with the bench in Dallas either. Jeff has been masterful in putting together play/linueps with limited options and getting us to win. Mo taylor off the bench will help out big time. If he gets any where near to the playing level he is cabable of and of course gets the drug situation settled we are set with our first option. I'm not going to mention E.G. (I wish I could) But Erik Piatowski is money on the 3 point line...Look at what he did in L.A. with a team who didn't pass him the ball much. I'm definately pumped about this season. And yes Francis did make some bad decisions yesterday. But give these guys some time. Lets get all of our players back and then give them some time to learn the JVG system... Go Rockets!
One writer in the offseason said we wouldn't know how good the Rockets were going to be until January. Since this summer, I thought the same thing. Until this team has time to absorb what JVG is teaching - IMO, at least 6 months including training camp - and the team has the pieces in place to carry out what he wants, we aren't going to know how good they can be. The fact that they rank near the top of the league in numerous offensive and defensive categories and have a winning record despite not playing at nearly their best is, frankly, quite a surprise to me. I figured we'd float along a few games under .500 until around the all-star break and then begin to gel and string together some wins.
Ahhh, yes...can't get enough of the good ole' "give them time" excuse...Sure didn't take the Lakers long to adjust to two new players in the starting lineup and an out of shape Kobe that missed almost the entire pre-season
I'm sure we would be a lot better if we had 3 future hall of famers and one of them being the most dominant center in the game. And players with tons of playoff experience. I understand that excuse never fits well with fans who want to win right now. I want them to win also.
When we get our players back-Piatowski a Shooter, A Griffin on defence. Mo t a Shooter , E Griffin Defence, we sould be a much better Team with good backups at every position. The BIG question still remains though! Will the Guards play Team Basketball?
What gets me is that we are basically playing with no power forward, although many rumors leaked through the summer about our interest in so-and-so player, or such-and-so player....all of them power forwards (Jermaine O'Neal, Rasheed Wallace [still wonder about that one], Antonio Davis [wonder about that too]). Sorry to be a broken record, but when this team gets all its pieces back together, look for a push for a trade or trades. We can say "this team needs time to gel" and such, but the truth is, JVG has had some time to see what he has, and that involves a lot of immature players. Among those players are the guards who seem to gaff off the plays he calls. This will be interesting. If we can just keep our head above water (and we should have beat Toronto going away), then....then what? Change of some sort.
I generally agree with the negativity about what Steve and Cat can and cannot do. I'm not disagreeing with the fact that they have flaws, and those flaws are unlikely to change in veterans, JVG or no JVG. What impresses me about the team is that defensively, they are slowly building a requtation for playing tough, PLAYOFFS style D. This is what all serious playoff teams have. The Spurs and Lakers have won the last 5, and before them, it was the Bulls and our Rockets. All won with a team built around incredible defense, and enough elite players to make the critical baskets in the 4th quarter. That's all that matters in the postseason. Yes, Steve is not a "true" PG, and Cat takes some stupid shots, and .... So what? Kobe takes bad shots. Iverson isn't a true PG. Did it matter when they were playing in the Finals? If we do nothing else, I would still consider the entire season a success at the end of the year if we maintain a top 5 defense the whole time. After that, adjustments can be made to find the pieces to make this team efficient on offense. And I have no doubt that Steve and Yao will be the focus of that team.
