is balling. He's currently averaging 21.7 points, 3.3 rebounds, and 8.3 assists. He's shooting 49% from the field and 38.9% from downtown. Oh and he's getting a steal a game. I know, I know, we've only played Portland and GS and this may be inflating his numbers. GS because of their insane pace, and Portland because Brooks seems to love the match-up with his b****, Steve Blake. I just thought we should give our starting PG some props for so far not just meeting expectations but actually surpassing them (I thought he'd average around 4 assists/game). His play seems to have taken a backseat to Ariza's emergence, but in my opinion Brooks has been the catalyst for the Rocket's offense. He's also quickly becoming my favorite Rocket to watch (since T-Mac decided to become a senior citizen). Great job so far, AB!
Chris Pual and Deron WIliams both got insane stats during their 3rd year. I believe Brooks is that calibar too.
He may be on a hot streak, but he has definately done better than I thought he would. I was thinking something like 16ppg and 6 apg, and he may well end up at that. But at least he is capable of 20+ppg when we need it. I mean, we got nothing from Scola or Battier last night. I would have figured without a stud go to guy we would need contributions from everyone. But with 3-4 guys stepping up per night, our offense should be allright.
I seem to remember myself saying something along the lines of there being no way he'd average more than 4 or 5 assists this year, but he's doing a pretty solid job of shutting me up thus far.
Please don't ever mention Aaron Brooks' name in the same sentence as Paul and Williams. Brooks is a nice talent, but he is nowhere near the class of Paul or Williams, the two best PGs in the league.
Everyone seems to have made their predictions about what kind of year the Rockets will have based on LAST season's performance and statistics. Now everyone acts surprised that a couple of players are putting up big numbers. The Rockets are chock full of young, improving players who are taking on different roles this year than they have in the past. That's why all the dire predictions and junk about "they don't have any stars" was so funny. News flash: Players develop. Some of them get better year to year. New stars emerge. You can't just break down last year's statistics and make any kind of accurate prediction about this year. Maybe Brooks is truly breaking out and will continue to put up big numbers the rest of this year. Maybe he won't. Maybe someone else will. It does seem like a pretty good bet that he'll make a leap forward this year. The question is, how big a leap will it be? There's a very good chance one or two other Rockets will have breakout years, too. Will one be Ariza? Maybe. Even if he doesn't have a huge year, but just a good one, the Rockets will have gotten their money's worth for him. They didn't pay superstar money.
It's not unheard of to predict future performance using current information. Obviously the team is in a different situation right now given the gaping hole our two stars have left, but to a certain extent you should be able to predict what kind of year our players will have. We all expected Brooks to up his scoring since that's his niche, anyway. What was unexpected was his assist numbers going up the way it has over the past few games. He's never shown the ability to be an elite passer in the past, but now he looks pretty damn good at it. He knows when to deliver a pass after a drive to the rim and when to keep his dribble alive when there aren't any openings. Sure, players develop, but I don't think you can tell with a straight face that you expected Ariza to score 26 and 33 points in consecutive games this early in the season. The point is that our players are exceeding expectations as of now, and it's been a pleasant surprise.
agree. i never understood why people hated on Brooks saying he wasn't a good play maker. sure he makes some bad decisions but over all he does a good job of distributing the ball. now in the past years with yao he wasn't able to fully play his game... breaking the defense down and dishing out. he was forced to dump the ball in the post, doesn't get an assist if yao scores. i'd love to see more pick n rolls with landry and scola... like phoenix used to constantly do with nash/amare.
a lot of the chinese fans on here are pretty clueless when talking about players not named Yao. Many of them hated on him when playing with Yao because brooks made some dumb passes sometimes, but was still way better than rafer. "Brooks is too stupid Pg he so dumb he can no pass to player on rocket." Once you read dumbass phrases like that, realize who it is that is saying it... The hate on brooks last season was so unwarranted it wasn't even funny.
