I said before lowry has been a career backup but could start on some teams. The difference between me and a few other is I think I see the game different than most. It doesn't make me better or anything either and just because I played D-1 doesn't mean those that haven't can't see it either. I guess my problem with the whole argument are the same ones who keep saying real pg or this other non sense. The game is constantly changing just like in football. In football, you don't see the steve atwater type safeties or the bruising fullback. It has now turned into spread football and multiple sets. In basketball with the no handcheck rules have really opened up how th game is played. I'm all for the old school, traditional derek harper type of pg. Its also nice to see nash,paul,rondo,and kidd, but I also like watching westbrook,rose,parker,williams and guys who also strike fear offensively as a lead guard. I'm not putting brooks in that class no more than i put lowry in the first class, but I do know from the limited time I've seen them in the playoffs, brooks is needed on this team in a major way. Counting on martin in the playoffs is a disaster waiting to happen. Would I trade brooks? Yep. Would I trade lowry? Yep. I would trade anyone as long as it upgrades a position we are weak at like sf and center. If you trade brooks, you better get a guy who can take and make contested shots because in the playoffs, thats what you see more than playing against gsw,sac kings or any other team they're playing right now.
I hope we keep playing the same cupcake schedule as well, but January is much different than December.
Martin, Battier, Scola. He finds them wide open or easy baskets a lot better than Brooks. If you disagree with this you haven't been watching the Rockets. Even last year, Lowry made the whole second team better. Look at Chase last year, and look at him this year. It not all on Lowry on why Chase was so good last year, but Lowry has something to do with it. Aaron Brooks is a good scorer but not a good point guard.
Well Brooks seemed to do pretty well in his first playoffs, while Lowry pretty much stunk it up. I don't really find that amusing; more like discouraging.
If these guys are so much better now it should be easy to prove then. Don't let me stand in your way.
You like to reference the series against the Lakers so I'll bring up that we beat them with Lowry in the starting lineup. 8 pts, 10 assists, 2 steals and plus 18. 14, 6, 8, 1 steal, 2 blocks against the Thunder. Lowry was like 21 then. God forbid that a young player can work hard and develop his game.
Kevin Martin: Code: Season Age Tm Lg G MP PER TS% eFG% ORB% DRB% TRB% AST% STL% BLK% TOV% USG% ORtg DRtg OWS DWS WS WS/48 2009-10 26 HOU NBA 24 859 17.1 .586 .479 1.2 8.4 4.7 10.5 1.4 0.2 11.6 25.4 113 111 1.8 0.5 2.3 0.129 2010-11 27 HOU NBA 28 890 22.4 .635 .530 1.3 9.6 5.5 13.2 0.9 0.4 10.9 28.6 122 113 3.5 0.2 3.7 0.202 Career NBA 383 11872 18.6 .602 .509 2.7 10.8 6.7 10.6 1.5 0.3 10.6 23.9 117 111 30.6 6.2 36.9 0.149 link as you can see Martin played 24 games last season with the rockets with aaron at the starting point guard and 28 games so far this year (22 with Lowry starting) I am not a stats wizard like durvasa but I am going to just use common sense and say that Lowry's play as a starter this season in 22 games probably have more effects on Martin's stats than AB's 5 and Ish's 1. But as you can see Martin's numbers are up all across the board and actually down in turnovers and sadly down in defensive rating as well (but thats no surprise) Luis Scola: Code: Season Age Tm Lg G MP PER TS% eFG% ORB% DRB% TRB% AST% STL% BLK% TOV% USG% ORtg DRtg OWS DWS WS WS/48 2009-10 29 HOU NBA 82 2671 17.2 .550 .514 7.2 23.6 15.1 11.1 1.2 0.7 11.9 22.7 108 107 3.4 3.0 6.3 0.114 2010-11 30 HOU NBA 28 931 20.3 .540 .508 7.7 22.8 15.4 12.8 1.0 1.7 9.0 27.2 109 108 1.6 0.8 2.5 0.127 link As you can see here though scola's PER is up this season the rest of his numbers are roughly the same as last season, some are down and some are up. We can discredit the OWS/DWS column for Scola since he played in 82 games last year and only 28 so far this year so those will be down (Martin at least has played about the same number of games last year with Houston and this year with them) but Scola's usage is up, it looks like his scoring efficiency is slightly down, his rebounding, blocks and assists are up, turnovers down and steals down. I would say that Lowry right now has had no real positive effect on Luis, but he certainly has not had any negative effect on him. edit sorry the original quote/post you were making also had Battier in it so i should include him: Code: Season Age Tm Lg G MP PER TS% eFG% ORB% DRB% TRB% AST% STL% BLK% TOV% USG% ORtg DRtg OWS DWS WS WS/48 2009-10 31 HOU NBA 67 2168 11.1 .541 .511 3.8 13.1 8.2 10.9 1.2 2.6 11.5 11.4 114 108 2.2 2.1 4.3 0.095 2010-11 32 HOU NBA 28 854 12.3 .547 .525 3.9 13.3 8.7 13.1 1.5 3.3 14.7 13.3 109 108 0.8 0.7 1.5 0.082 link as with shane as well his numbers are up slightly all across the board, sadly his turnover rate is too.
No? I find it very amusing. Especially if you think 4.2 points on 32% shooting and 0% shooting from 3 is doing "pretty well". http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/teams/h...gory=nba.stat_category.1&cut_type=&qualified=
you mean the playoff series where he shot 32% including 0-10 from 3 point land. Brooks first playoff was in 2008 against the Jazz and he didnt do too well at all, but hey i guess we all keep forgetting that. though Brooks did play a lot better against Portland though better against portland than against the lakers. brooks had a higher scoring games against the lakers but scored under 12 a game in the loses to them.
Those numbers are actually understated since both Martin and Scola's numbers from last year were also benefited from playing with Lowry- he was on that team too. However this year's improvement should almost exclusively be credited to Lowry, since he was the sole PG for most of the season. EDIT: And to add onto that, you've noticed that Scola efficiency numbers have not increased. This is true, and most of his gains in PER, PPG etc are from an increase in USG%. BUT, credit should be given to Lowry as a key factor in boosting that USG%. It means he is getting the ball to Scola more compared to how many touches Scola got last year.
Brooks should be the 6th man on this team. His ability to score is really needed in the second unit because they often struggle to score. His ability to get to the rim, create for himself, and hit the long range shot will help compensate for that groups problems. The team plays better with Lowry starting. It's pretty obvious by now. It's also obvious that whichever unit he plays with, that group plays TOUGHER and HARDER. For years, our starting unit always started games slowly, without energy or enthuasiam. Defensively, there really is no argument. Lowry is better. Brooks excels offensively and can be a liability defensively (to say it lightly). Putting Brooks in a group with Martin & Scola would give you 3 1-way (offense) players that naturally have an inability to control games due to an inability to control the other teams scoring. Brooks also plays better OFF-THE-BALL. He can focus on scoring more than "running" the offense. He is super fast/quick, so by running him off down screens and back cuts or curls, he is sure to create match up problems. With Brooks running the PG, the ball doesn't move. He is a "pounder" (pounds the ball late into the shot clock) and frequently places himself in a position to force a bad shot.
Another thing to add to this is that when Brooks gets burnt by the opposing teams PG. He will have a decent shot blocker, Jordan Hill, to help out. Unless Jordan moves to the starting line up, which I highly doubt knowing Adelmans man crush with Hayes, AB fits perfect with the second team!
For a guy whose ready to fire back with TS%, one would think you would realize that Martin has a career high TS% this year, .17 points higher than his second best season. You're also conveniently ignoring Martin's career high in 3PT%, coinciding with a career high in 3PT FGA. Scola, meanwhile, is enjoying a career high PPG average while also getting to free-throw line 2 more times than his previous career high -- all with a minimal increase in minutes (.7 more minutes). Don't let me stand in the way of you bringing up two year old stats when Lowry was 22 years old though. No way that a player can improve past 22, right?
So you attribute that all to Lowry? The increase in Martin's scoring efficiency after he joined the Rockets last year (when Brooks was starting) is greater than the increase in his efficiency from last year (with the Rockets) to this year. What's more likely - he's healthier now and on a better team - or Kyle Lowry has made him a better player suddenly in his 7th season? So it's safe to say that Lowry hasn't made Scola a better player? In Battier's 10 years, he's had only 3 years where he's scored less efficiently than this year. I wouldn't say that Lowry has made him any better either.
Okay, so I misspoke. Seems like you guys were pretty quick to notice that. I wonder why? Fact is, Brooks was a rookie in his first playoffs, while Lowry was in his 3rd season. It was Aaron's second season, and Lowry's 3rd, where Brooks was basically the MVP for the Rockets and Lowry was simply terrible. Go ahead and fight over who gets to respond first to those facts.
I guess what it's come down to now is that Lowry has supposedly made Martin better and no one else. Does that seem plausible? Or maybe Martin is just on a hot streak, or on a better team now, or healthier? Scola is attempting 3 more shots a game compared to last year. He's actually shooting a slightly worse percentage. His increase in ppg is explained by his increase in attempts. Or are you going to say that Lowry has made him get fouled more instead, and that's the reason he's scoring more?
we know our rockets facts better than you? i am failing to see how this rookie/3rd season arguments plays in kyle only played in 10 games his rookie year before having to deal with a surgery that cost him the rest of the season. if 10 games = a seasons worth of experience fine i guess. during kyle's rookie year where he only played 10 games, aaron had a full senior season at oregon where he lead that team to an elite birth. so if anything aaron probably in more games (though of course worse competition) and in bigger games (any ncaa tourney game is bigger than a reg season nba game feat the memphis grizzlies) also kyle was and is still younger than aaron during aaron's second season when he was playing his first playoff series so basically when they were both 23 and played in their first playoff series they both played terrible. add in the fact that kyle was just traded to the rockets and had about what 28 games to get to know the team makes it a bit difficult not having a full season + worth of knowing your team and teammates of course a player in Aaron's shoes is going to be playing better than a player in Kyle's shoes. its really a moot point trying to compare aaron's second go around in the playoffs until we see kyle's second go around in the playoffs (hopefully this year) Also I would say that Scola and/or Yao (at least in the portland series) were the team MVPs that year...aaron played exceedingly well but wasnt nearly as consistent as Scola was...but thats just a different story altogether
brooks needs to be sorrounded by all defensive players in the starting 5 like 2 years ago e.g artest battier and with martin soft on d we need lowry you can not have 2 soft gaurds...
First playoffs experience is first playoffs experience. It doesn't matter how many seasons you have under your belt, you will be nervous and it will be a learning experience. Trying to say that Lowry was in his 3rd season and therefore it matters more that he sucked is stupidity at its best. Also, a couple of playoffs are not a good measure of how good a player is during playoffs time. There are a lot of other factors that determine this; matchup, streak, experience, ect. We can also go the other way on this as well. Ariza was amazing during the playoffs for the Lakers and helped his team win the series. By your definition, that makes him better player than say T-Mac, because he has had greater playoffs success. You want to argue facts with insufficient sample sizes? Fine, I can play that game with you. The fact is, when AB has led the team, we didn't even get into the playoffs. He also helped us to an 0-5 hole. Those are the facts.
