Because as is he is the weakest defensive player on our team, and, if you are to argue that his offensive abilties (solid shooter, great finisher) and intangibles (rebounds, he would still get 4-5 assists, imo, etc) are good enough to merit him being on the court 40 minutes a game, then you have to find some way to negate his defensive inabilities. Guarding opposing teams SG's may not be the answer, but guarding opposing teams SF's defenitely isn't. What else can you do, especially when more than 50% of your defensive inefficiencies (imho) are due to the fact that you just get beat on the exterior too much? Defensively, there are only two other solutions; (1) become soo good a defensive rotation team, that you can handle the large number of penetration kickbacks, or (2) take the Mavs philosophy and go zone a lot more. Personally, I don't like option one because its not just that Steve gets beat, but at times he will literally forget to guard his man altogether (see Seattle game for extreme example), or make random, dumb decision to double, leaving his man wide open. Even the best defensive rotation can't help this. I am more open to choice two, in the sense that I thought we'd see more zone in the 2nd half then we have, and that with Yao as an anchor who has played the zone effectively before it should work, but I don't think zone will get you to the promised land either unless you are superb at it, and because the zone opens up other defeciencies (can lead to rebounding problems, for example, if you don't know who you're suppossed to body up). Take the above, add in the fact that Steve is definitely not a true PG and the ever growing sense that while amazingly talented, the team needs something different out of his position, and what is the solution? IMO, the Rockets need to either seriously spend a lot more time practicing over the offseason (individually and as a team) if they are going to stand pat, or bring in a true PG and move Steve to the 2. Given their inability to do the first part, I am leaning towards moving Steve and bringing in a new PG. It will be an experiment, but it just may work.
