Didn't finish reading the whole list. Also don't wanna also go through your favorite +/- or pts scored for Shane in those games. Save us some time and watch the game. You'll see Shane's defense has not been there since last season. He's always atrocious offensively.
When comparing shane's D. Nba player get hot, you can double them or triple them, they will still get their shot, while when they are off, they are just off.
If you read the Michael Lewis article that I posted, it explains that Battier effects the game positively without accumulating normal box score statistics. In fact, the actual title of the article is "The No-Stats All-Star". Based on that it's rather silly to try to argue pro or con on the topic of Battier using conventional stats. Here's an excerpt from the article quoting Morey talking about Battier's value to the team: One well-known statistic the Rockets’ front office pays attention to is plus-minus, which simply measures what happens to the score when any given player is on the court. In its crude form, plus-minus is hardly perfect: a player who finds himself on the same team with the world’s four best basketball players, and who plays only when they do, will have a plus-minus that looks pretty good, even if it says little about his play. Morey says that he and his staff can adjust for these potential distortions — though he is coy about how they do it — and render plus-minus a useful measure of a player’s effect on a basketball game. A good player might be a plus 3 — that is, his team averages 3 points more per game than its opponent when he is on the floor. In his best season, the superstar point guard Steve Nash was a plus 14.5. At the time of the Lakers game, Battier was a plus 10, which put him in the company of Dwight Howard and Kevin Garnett, both perennial All-Stars. For his career he’s a plus 6. “Plus 6 is enormous,” Morey says. “It’s the difference between 41 wins and 60 wins.” He names a few other players who were a plus 6 last season: Vince Carter, Carmelo Anthony, Tracy McGrady. Admittedly, this article is from last season, but you can see that based off Morey's adjusted +/-, Battier is in the upper eschelon of players as far as positively effecting your team. Here's another example: Morey recognized Battier’s effects, but he didn’t know how he achieved them. Two hundred or so basketball games later, he’s the world’s expert on the subject — which he was studying all over again tonight. He pointed out how, instead of grabbing uncertainly for a rebound, for instance, Battier would tip the ball more certainly to a teammate. Guarding a lesser rebounder, Battier would, when the ball was in the air, leave his own man and block out the other team’s best rebounder. “Watch him,” a Houston front-office analyst told me before the game. “When the shot goes up, he’ll go sit on Gasol’s knee.” (Pau Gasol often plays center for the Lakers.) On defense, it was as if Battier had set out to maximize the misery Bryant experiences shooting a basketball, without having his presence recorded in any box score. He blocked the ball when Bryant was taking it from his waist to his chin, for instance, rather than when it was far higher and Bryant was in the act of shooting. “When you watch him,” Morey says, “you see that his whole thing is to stay in front of guys and try to block the player’s vision when he shoots. We didn’t even notice what he was doing until he got here. I wish we could say we did, but we didn’t.” Those are just a couple of examples of things Battier does that aren't reflected in the box score. If you read the article, you'll see that based off of Morey's statistics, Battier is valuable to the team (not individually). It mentions that when Battier is on the floor everyone else plays better and the team wins more. That isn't true for the other defenders that people keep comparing to Battier. If you believe Morey's stats, then it's pointless to argue based on conventional metrics. If you don't believe Morey's stats, then that's a whole different situation. Of course, I'll be skeptical of anyone who claims to understand stats better than Daryl Morey.
IMO, Ariza is not a better perimeter defender than Battier, even now. Ariza may be quicker and gets more steals. But he defends with his hands, not with his feet. And Battier is hands down a better help defender than Ariza. When was the last time you see Ariza made a defensive stop near the basket? Both Battier and Ariza struggle offensively without an elite perimeter creator. Both thrive (in different ways) when playing off a guy like Kobe or McGrady. Ariza may be a better fit offensively on THIS team because he runs better. But it is not necessarily true next year when Yao comes back. Let me throw out IMO a difficult question: If a team is willing to trade a very good offensive wing player (e.g. Igoudala, Butler, Martin, etc.) to us and ask for either Battier or Ariza in return, who would you give?
What about pietrus last year? How about the year gsw beat dallas and barnes or jackson? What about when shane had a healthy tracy and healthy yao during the utah series? What about in memphis when he had pau nd those guys? Don't make it seem like shane has been playing with 0 when in all fairness he has played with 2 guys that were 2nd team all nba.
Your list really makes no sense. Cherry picking the guy wiith the worse game for example like wallace when it was clear jackson was lighting up shane is a stat box chaser.
watching the game last night, Shane did a good job on Wade. Yes Wade got his 37 and his assists but those were not shane's fault. If you watched the game, Wade was able to beat shane off the dribble. Once that happened, nobody came to help shane and he was left on an island by himself. If Wade took a jump shot and made it, shane still did his job by keeping wade out of the paint. If wade makes it, oh well, live to defend another day. Everyone knows wade is not that consistent of a jump shooter, so i would rather him take jump shots all night long. On other possessions, shane was picked off and nobody on the weak side or anyone for that matter came to stop wade. team defense is the name of the game. shane did all he could and nobody else came to help close out on wade. I will agree that shane is a liability on offense, but what else are you going to do. I will live with shane's offensive ineptness. Take shane off the floor and the defense will be worse than what it is.
I think most of us are pretty well-versed in all the articles/love shown to Shane over the past few years. In my eyes, the Battier argument centers more around the idea that he's on the decline. In my eyes, Battier was peaking around the time all these "non-stats" and extra data were being recorded. Watching him over the course of last year and so far this year, I just don't see the same player. We've completely switched our offensive scheme, and it just further exposes Battier flaws. Add to that, that (I believe) he's on the decline, and all the non-stats that he may have helped with in the past I would think are decreasing. I'm a HUGE advocate of trading Battier this season - I feel that Shane is on the decline, but he still carries the same value right now. I just fear that eventually teams will realize Battier isn't the same lockdown defender he was once crowned and we won't get nearly the return we could have if we acted now. Additionally, when we traded for Shane we had a lazy superstar who cared more about the offensive side of the ball. The current Rockets have Ariza, who is more than capable of filling/growing into the role that Battier played for us. Having them both on the team doesn't make much sense to me, as they essentially do the same thing. I'd give up Battier before Ariza everyday of the week, mostly for the reasons above. I think just as a general reason, Ariza's youth makes him much more valuable than Shane. Shane will continue to decline, whereas Ariza will begin to enter his peak. I agree that Ariza fits into this Rockets because of their style of play, but I'm not fully convinced the Rockets will return to slow-down half-court offense with Yao. I know last year Adelman repeatedly said they needed to run when Yao went to the bench, but for some reason the team never made the next step in that direction. I think this team is completely re-vamped in that area, and (hopefully) they'll be able to still run with Yao. At the least, I think that is Adelman's hopes. I agree that Ariza is more hands, whereas Battier tries to be more about the percentages. And I agree that Battier is the better help defender - Battier is clearly the smarter of the two, so he can rotate/pick up assignments better. However, Ariza is in another ballpark athletically, while Shane continues to age/slow down. I think Ariza is a disruptive force on the defensive end, whereas Battier is more of a limit-your-mistakes type defender. Also, I think Ariza will be much better with a big low post defender in Yao. He has great length/athleticism (something you can't teach), which really helps defensively when you have bigs behind you to protect the basket. The Lakers were a GREAT defensive team, mostly because they had giants in the middle (Gasol/Bynum) and length on the perimeter (Ariza/Odom) to disrupt the other team's offensive schemes. The Rockets need to build in a similar model - we need players with length/athleticism.
yeah exactly, because rafer alston is the kind of support you want in a point guard.. and even yao and tmac arent on the same level of the players poey has played with. If battier had smaller contracts and jumped from contender to contender, he'd have those similar opportunities..
This is what I'm pretty much saying, he doesn't fit anymore. i'm not sure he ever fit with the price we gave up, but thats old news. I don't think adelman is going to revert back to the old van gundy style and through a coaches pedigree, they do what they do. I doubt adelman will blend it in just to have a reason to play shane. Just like last year, i don't think he's comfortable with buddinger playing bigger minutes. Just as last year when clearly brooks was the better player over rafer, adelman is loyal to his vets. In sacramento, everytime wallace had the chance to play for either christie or peja, he played well, but when those guys came back, wallace got zero time. I would've hoped or thought by now Chase would be playing more, but the injury and the mini splump set those plans back. The rockets can't get as much as once thought for a guy like shane and everyday it goes down. His footspeed is the one that is really concerning now. He looks alot slower just running down the court every possession.
I read through a lot of the posts in this thread and I agree with what DD says here. It's rather painful to watch Shane, Ariza, and Chuck try to run the half-court offense at times. Shane was brought in to play with Yao and T-Mac, and I thought it worked well with that line up. I don't like Ariza and Shane playing together, so I hope that changes soon. I do think Shane understands his role well, and I see this as a problem for Ariza. I don't think Ariza is a very smart player, and I'm afraid this will not change. Will Ariza be a happy camper being a "role player" for the Rockets?
I am sick of reading posts about trading Battier... I am sick of reading posts about how awful Ariza is. We all get it. While we're at it let's all make threads about what really matters... trading T-mac and complaining about him some more.
If "most of us are pretty well-versed in all the articles/love shown to Shane over the past few years", then why do people continue to try and justfy their argument by quoting conventional stats? Why do they continue to claim that guys like Matt Barnes are an equivilent? When they do that it tells me that they either aren't aware of such information or that they don't understand it. What really matters is how Battier will fit in with the team when Yao returns next season. The Rockets aren't going to make any moves just to improve the team for this year. Any meaningful move will be to strengthen the team for next year and the years after. Even if Battier is in decline, what's the worry? If he's truely on the decline then I'm going to bet that Daryl Morey would be aware of it too. If so, then Battier won't be a good value anymore and will most likely be moved. The absolutely last thing that I'm worried about with the Rockets is Morey's ability to evaluate and value players contributions. If Battier has fallen off then Morey's analysis will show that and he'll deal with it. If Battier isn't traded and continues to get heavy minutes, then I'll believe that Morey's analysis shows that he's still a contributor. Worry about injuries or the trades that will be available to us. Those are legitimate concerns. Daryl Morey's ability to measure a players value and his willingness to make roster moves is a pretty minor worry.
We could just mention tracy and DD will make 60% of the posts. Don't believe me, go look at some of the other threads.
It makes perfect sense. Battier started on Wallace in the first half, he had to switch to Jackson in the second because Ariza was getting embarrassed. Battier didn't have any better luck, likely because, as we all know, Shane's defense comes from studying player tendencies and preferences. He obviously made Wallace his focus in prep since he started on him. Battier fits fine in this lineup provided there is a playmaking wing alongside. Its time to wake up and stop making excuses for Ariza. He needs to be benched or traded immediatley before the league figures out just how terrible he is.
Because you don't need articles to see what a guy does on the court. In the finals, posey would foul the lakers hard through follow throughs and even when la was toying with a shot, he and kg would knock the ball away. There were no articles or think tanks written or talking about this, but what they were doing was showing the lakers that we aren't going to give you anything!. They basically out toughed the lakers. Fisher gets a breakaway and a chance for a and 1, posey comes in as the trailer and spikes the ball away. Gasol goes up and gets fouled, perkins raked hard on his arms. No clinical studies, no new york times, just clean, hard, whistle to whistle basketball. I've seen shane box out big people, but its no differnt than we've seen lowry go in and get rebounds over bigger players. Its called playing basketball. How do you think stockton,nash,and hris paul avg 5 rebs a game? Its because pg's are suppose to be in position to get the longer rebounds above the free throw line. Stockton was great at it and it would start the break. You don't need the basketball with red illustrations to tell you that.
I believ my lying eyes. My lying eyes tell me when shane had the playmaking wing, he did nothing in the playoffs esepcially on the road. My lying eyes also tells me ariza carried la in a critical qt of a pivotal game when the playmaking wing/best player in the game was struggling. You misunderstand me, i have 0 feeling towards any rockets players. I would trade anyone anytime. You've been a rocket fan since 92, well, i've been one since 78. I've seen the reigning mvp and most dominant big get traded in his prime. What makes you think i give a rats ass about ariza,shane, or any other players on this team? I only care about the rockets. I don't go tooth and nail to defend a guy like trevor,bud,brooks or anyone else. Elie,horry,smith,max,thorpe,bobby joe,petererson, and guys like that did way more to help houston to the finals and win rings than anything shane,trevor or even yao and tracy has ever done.I will trade any player as long as it helped the rockets win a title. Anyone can play for the rockets as long as they helped the rockets win a title. Thats the way I've always been, thats the way i will always be. Win or get the f off my team. Take your stats,intangibles,psa's and get to steppin'.
