Exactly, everyone so quick to say that Steve didn't play D, but this isn't the same team that Steve played on. This has nothing to do with Steve, this is about this years team.
Exactly what on Defense did Francis give that Barry does not give? I would really like to know because it made me sick when rookies like Luke Ridnour had his coming out party against Steve. The only things that I can think of that Steve gave us that Barry can not are... Acrobatic Dunks Wasted Possessions Turn Overs Bad Passes Pore decision making
I remember Steve blocking McGrady's shot. But I know he was just a stupid, no-fastbreaking, low BBIQ clown. As I said, this won't be the same team Steve played on, this isn't about Steve and Barry. I didn't bring up Steve in this thread, it has nothing to do with it, so I don't know what Steve did to you and the others but please get off it.
In know way is McGrady / Barry back court any worse defensively than Steve / Cat. Barry is every bit as good as Steve (who was bad even last year) on the defensive end McGrady can be just as good if not better than Cat on the defensive end. Loosing Cato does hurt defensively but certainly not enough to make us a bad team. I would just like to add that we won 2 championships with the Jet as our starting point guard and our defense was damn good. Granted we don't have Dream but if Kenny cant ruin a defense then please don't try to convince me that Barry is going to ruin our defense.
If you are claiming that our defense will somehow not be as good now that we have Barry and T-Mac as opposed to Steve and Cat then I certainly don't know how you can disclude Steve from the conversation. Steve was not a good defender and you know it. How many times did we all complain about the no name point guard lighting Steve up. Barry will not weakin our defense because he replaces Steve...thats ludicrous. By the way are you saying that Steve was an intellegent, good fast breaking, high BBIQ player? I think you would be the absolute first to take up that argument.
Did y'all know the Rox ranked 2nd worst in perimeter defense last season??? But overall our D was 4th best. That tells where the Achilles's tendon was in our D.
This doesn't say anything about this year. For one thing, Howard's a better defender than Taylor almost by default, since Taylor doesn't play any D. Also, our defense last year was predicated on having a clog in the middle in Cato. So when he was injured, we just couldn't adjust defensively because a similar replacement wasn't available. But now, JVG will have months to tweak his system for the new personell. In addition, it's quite possible that the Rockets will pick up a Cato-type player in the offseason. In which case, his departure might not be any loss at all. Come on. You should know better than just mention specific instances. Kevin Johnson absolutely posterized Hakeem one play, does this mean Hakeem is a terrible defender? You might not have mentioned Steve, but how can one compare our defense next year with the past year w/o mentioning Steve? Steve's defense last year was hardly exceptional. So it's hard to imagine Barry being much worse unless Barry has no athleticism what so ever. And from what I've seen of Barry, that is definitely NOT the case. JVG isn't going to take a player that he knows has no potential to play defense. The biggest question mark on defense, IMO, is T-Mac. The guy has the potential to absolutely shut down his man, ala Kobe. He did it back with Toronto. His size and athleticism suggests that he can be a much better defender than Cat. But whether he'll live up to such expectations is still unknown.
Yao's defense is in know way overrated. That is just crap. His transition defense is week but his half court defense is very good. no, yao's presence is in no way overrated. it's a big reason why our D is/was so good. people are scared to take it inside (along with cato being there) and just having a 7'5 guy standing there helps. his actual D isn't that good. guards easily use their bodies to hold him off and hit layups, he can't get out to guard jumpers at all, he's slow on the pnr and he doesn't get near as many blocks as you would think a 7'5 guy with his coordination would. now hopefully all that will improve to help compensate for cato's loss because we're gonna need it.
did y'all know that's exactly how our D was schemed to work? guard the inside at all cost and make teams hit jumpers. most every scheme will have a weakness. that is ours, the outside shot. we funnel stuff to a 7'5 and 7'0 guy in the middle, we collapse (overcollapse i would argue) on all penetration and rotate to help at all costs. the result? open 3's. then you just hope that the other team can't knock them down well enough to hurt you. it was a more exaggerated form of the scheme rudy liked. while i still think it could be improved, you can't argue too much with the ppg and fg% we gave up last year.
Because you weren't the one that brought up Steve, it somehow can't become part of the conversation? Others are using him as proof that replacing Francis with Barry won't make us that much worse defensively. Just because you don't want to admit that doesn't mean that Steve "did" something to us. As you pointed out, about the only thing Francis did on occasion that Barry doesn't also do (defensively) was provide some spectacular blocks. Well, I can't speak for JVG or CD, but highlight reel blocks are definitely NOT something I take into consideration when deciding who I want to quarterback my team. Defensively, Francis and Barry are a wash. Besides, having a defensive minded perimeter player really doesn't help your overall team defense as much as inside players. I would much rather go for shooting and passing for my guards than I would defense. If you have the inside big men (Yao + other) to plug up the middle, team defense can cover up the rest of any guard shortcomings on the defensive end. So Steve's defensive skills are very much relevant to this discussion.
Actually the subject of the thread is "A Smarter Team on the Horizon". "Smarter" is a comparitive. Comparitives usually compare two things. What two things are we comparing? This year's team vs. the past years' team. Steve was on the past years' team. Steve's lack of defense and basketball IQ was always a complaint of past years' teams. Steve is no longer here. So now we discuss whether or not the team will play "smarter" without him (and Mobley/Cato). This has everything to do with Steve (as well as the others on those past teams) in comparison to what we may see with the new team, which by the way, is still being put together. .
Regarding Mobley's defense vs. Mcgrady's: Just wanted to point out that McGrady has received votes for the NBA All-Defensive Team in four out of the last five seasons (he received zero votes last season, for obvious reasons). He has never actually made First or Second All-Defensive Team, but he at least received votes. In two seasons, he even received votes for First Team All-Defense. Mobley hasn't ever received one vote for the NBA All-Defensive Team. FWIW, All-Defensive Team is voted on by the coaches.
Indeed. I can't BELIEVE, some people here are considering Cat's D to be excellent. To say T-mac won't be as good as Cat defensively? Just ridiculous. T-mac's defensive game, which he DOES have, and WILL improve with JVG, can be used at two positions, especially with his length and ability to block shots. This is the same guy who averaged near 2 blocks a game in his Toronto years, that's a lot for a SG/SF, where he wasn't relied on to score 30ppg. Branding T-mac as a liability defensively based on his performance in his Orlando "my job's to score" years, is just ridiciulous. T-mac> Cat defensively.
For the record, your description is not JVG's defensive scheme in Houston. If you watched the games closely, you would see that the scheme was to play man to man straight up until there was dribble penetration. Any time there was dribble penetration, the Rockets would automatically soft trap the dribbler and funnel them to the baseline. The reason for the poor perimeter D was that the soft trap double left a 1 on 2 on the weakside where the Rockets were vulnerable to teams that reversed the ball well and had good perimeter shooters. That said, there is nothing about VG's system that makes a player like Barry or Howard a weak link in the chain. In fact, other than shot blocking Howard may actually be a better weakside defender than Cato because he is more mobile.
OT...but this has been bothering me for a while. When and why did Kenny get the nickname "the Jet"? I always hear that on TNT but can't for the life of me remember him having a nickname. While I loved Kenny for being a Rocket, His D was awful. Worse than SF. We would get torched in the playoffs by opposing 1's(KJ, Stockton, whats-his-name from NY). His shot, while effective, was ugly as sin.
Cat was probably the best on the ball defender last year but the Rockets played a team defense similar to a zone.
Defense wasn't exactly our problem last year. I'd trade some defensive efficiency for offensive. I think it's wrong to suggest we will be the worst defensive team in the league next year.
Well if this is a comparative, this year's team may be smarter, but it will be weaker defensively. Key word being "team".
Any team with a 7'6" guy in the middle of the paint is going to be a good defensive team. The rockets will be smarter, and much much better this year. BANK IT !! DD
I agree, not to mention that same 7'6" guy will be having another year another JVG, I seriously doubt he doesn't improve his already more than decent defense. I only see us being weaker defensively by a small margin, factoring the absence of Cato and what I mentioned above. Our perimeter defense won't be affected whatsoever. We sucked last year at defending the 3pt shot, and I see that being the case with T-mac's great defense and height. So, we'll actually be improved on the perimeter defensively. And as far as Brent's D goes, no way he doesn't play as much d as supposedly Francis did last year, if not a tadbit more under JVG utilizing his height at the point and more than adequete speed. Brent, T-mac, JJ > Steve, Cat, JJ defensively and offensively.
