Bill Walton's thoughts on the NBA season so far--Rox mention...

Guys this is from my ESPN Insider account by Bill Walton--
http://insider.espn.go.com/nba/insider/columns/story?columnist=walton_bill&id=2244952

I just saw it today-but from the mention of Thanksgiving -I guess its a week old...

I posted the entire article below for those interested, but here are the Rox mentions --

And then there is Jeff Van Gundy and his Houston Rockets with their towering mountain, Yao Ming, in the middle. As we watch rudderless, leaderless teams like the Lakers, Knicks and Rockets fall hopelessly behind early in nearly every game, particularly on the road, only to rally late counting on emotion, desperation and then the individual brilliance of Kobe, Marbury or Tracy, we can only wonder what has happened to the ability to teach leadership and the knack of bringing a team together. With Yao Ming's career apparently in reverse at the moment while he flounders in an environment that does not exploit what he can do all the while exposing what he can't, we can only wonder who and what it's going take to shift gears in Houston other than playing every game against Atlanta, or maybe occasionally Toronto.

Yao

7. We hear all the time about the importance of "The Bigs" taking care of business and delivering their teams to the Promised Land, but as soon as things get real dicey, it's always speed, quickness and skill that reign supreme. With a extreme dearth of physically imposing centers who can actually play in today's game, who is out there really doing anything these days besides Ilgauskus? The Rockets find themselves between the proverbial rock and a very hard place. Everybody else is going small and Jeff Van Gundy can't get anything out of Yao who does his best matched head to head with size and strength. Houston finally gets McGrady back against the mighty Hawks, but how long will that last? And now after the two upcoming home games against speed and quickness (Memphis and Boston) the Rockets head to the far west for six straight against teams that don't even pretend to have a center and all they want to do is run, run, run. While we're on the subject of Yao Ming's difficulties, if things continue as they are now (and what would lead me to think any differently) how will things play out at this year's All-Star Game in Houston with Yao Ming being voted in by the fans. This supposed-to-be hometown love fest could have a disappointing ending where everybody sadly doesn't live happily ever after.



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Larry Brown's return to Detroit promises us that it will be an all Larry all the time affair, seemingly just the way Larry likes things. At the end of the day, no matter the game's outcome, about the only thing that we can all be sure of is that somehow everybody will feel sorry for the poor, tormented boy-genius. Imagine though, for a moment, if the tables were turned and Larry had left New York for Detroit. How, I wonder, would the treatment and scrutiny be different for Larry? Hold on while I check with Pat Riley on the fine line between savior and traitor.

Larry Brown
Larry Brown left Detroit in less than ideal circumstances.

And now that the dust is settling in the aftermath, much the way it did when Phil Jackson left the Bulls after their last championship, it is and will most likely remain unclear as to just what did go down and who did what when and why. What we can say with absolute certainty is that Larry got to go home with his money to a situation much more conducive to his personality to a franchise with seemingly endless and unsolvable problems. It has often been said that the worst thing that could ever happen to Larry was that he would someday win the championship, because then he would have nothing more to complain about.

Now we find the Knicks trying to build their future on two guys who the Pistons, arguably one of the NBA's model franchises of this era, wanted no part of and the Pistons only find themselves playing their best ball ever with this current roster. They are on course to secure the home court advantage throughout this season's playoffs which will assuredly be a daunting task for the challengers in San Antonio, Miami, Indiana, Dallas and Cleveland.

All the while doing it "another way" under the fresh, positive, upbeat and constructive tutelage of Flip Saunders who has focused in on the novel approach of winning games by scoring more points than the other guys while developing and building up the talent he has. Imagine that, creating a hopeful and optimistic work environment so that people can grow as a group sure seems to be working for Mike D'Antoni and his Phoenix Suns, who instead of bemoaning their fate with the loss of Amare Stoudemire now seem to be a better team than they were a year ago as the darlings of the league with the obvious exception of the irreplaceable Amare.

Boris Diaw, James Jones and Raja Bell will quickly make basketball fans forget Joe Johnson and Quentin Richardson, while Knicks and Hawks fans will continue pondering, "How much are we paying these guys" and more importantly, "Why" ?????


Diaw a late addition in the Joe Johnson trade and now so eerily reminiscent of Alvin Adams is one of my newest favorite players because he seemingly posts a near triple-double every game. Jones is bigger, more athletic, more disciplined and dedicated than Quentin Richardson who has continued to spiral downhill into the funk from last season's Western Conference Finals disaster and now seems to already have disappeared into the abyss of the Knicks $124 million payroll. Raja Bell after apprenticing under Don Nelson, Avery Johnson and Jerry Sloan just works his tail off and is regularly asked to guard the other team's best player and be urged, if not commanded, to shoot the ball at will. What could be wrong with that?

Unless of course you're Ruben Patterson, Mark Blount, Tim Thomas and Damon Jones that is, who appear to be following the guidance counseling of Latrell Sprewell and are all clearly missing much more than the point, to say nothing of the chance to learn from a master teacher. Nate McMillan, Doc Rivers, Scott Skiles and Mike Brown all bring the great pedigrees and resumes to the table, but it is Mike D'Antoni who has changed this game and league more than anyone in the last two years all the while continually defusing credit, attention and recognition and by the way MAKING IT FUN to be there.

Veterans Kurt Thomas, Jim Jackson and Brian Grant happily play limited minutes off the bench behind no-name cast-offs. Creativity, imagination, initiative and a relentless attack are all encouraged. The best example is Steve Nash who leads the NBA in turnovers and has not heard a contrary or chastising word because the Suns have the longest winning streak in the league and the best road record (along with Detroit at only one loss) and are quietly continue to play the best, most entertaining and smartest ball anywhere.

And then there is Jeff Van Gundy and his Houston Rockets with their towering mountain, Yao Ming, in the middle. As we watch rudderless, leaderless teams like the Lakers, Knicks and Rockets fall hopelessly behind early in nearly every game, particularly on the road, only to rally late counting on emotion, desperation and then the individual brilliance of Kobe, Marbury or Tracy, we can only wonder what has happened to the ability to teach leadership and the knack of bringing a team together. With Yao Ming's career apparently in reverse at the moment while he flounders in an environment that does not exploit what he can do all the while exposing what he can't, we can only wonder who and what it's going take to shift gears in Houston other than playing every game against Atlanta, or maybe occasionally Toronto.

Leadership, like all things, is a developed and nurtured trait. The success stories in today's NBA are all about the guys who have been able to pull their squads together one way or another. Nash and D'Antoni, Baron Davis, Chauncey Billups and Ben Wallace, LeBron James, T.J. Ford, Gregg Popovich, Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili and Tony Parker, Mike Fratello and Shane Battier. How long will it be before we add Oklahoma City's Chris Paul to this list?

SOME RANDOM THOUGHTS WAITING FOR THE NEXT SUNS GAME

Chandler
Chandler

1. Was there anybody else out there looking for a bigger contribution from Tyson Chandler in this week's Game of the Century when the Bulls went to New York? As the starting center for a supposedly up and coming force in the league, a guy who the Bulls are banking on to the tune of $60 million with the departure of Eddy Curry, I was expecting a bit more than the 0 points (without taking a shot) and six fouls in the 17 useless minutes that I saw and to do that on the eve of the 24th anniversary of Kareem passing Oscar Robertson as the NBA's then second leading all time scorer behind Wilt. But then again, while Kareem was always chasing and measuring up to Wilt, Tyson Chandler must be looking to Erick Dampier and the $73 million that Erick was given for regularly putting up Tyson-like "performances."

Frye
Frye

2. When will the myth that "this coach doesn't play rookies" finally die a reasoned and natural death. Rookies don't play because they can't play. The ones that can& do like the Knicks' Channing Frye who has already led his team in scoring three times. The first time a Knick rookie has had that distinction more than once in his first go-around since Mark Jackson did it 11 times in his Rookie of the Year season 18 years ago. Nice drafting, Isaiah!

While we're talking about Channing Frye, I was also thinking if there are any other current coaches at the NCAA level whose players are having more on-court success than Arizona's Lute Olson, particularly when you list the likes of Channing Frye, Gilbert Arenas, Mike Bibby, Jason Terry, Richard Jefferson, Andre Iguadala, Damon Stoudamire, Loren Woods, Salim Stoudamire and Luke Walton. Is there anybody out there still old enough to remember when innovation and peak performance used to be associated with California, UCLA and The Lakers and Arizona was just a desert wasteland.

3. I've always felt that free throw shooting was one aspect of the game that could be directly affected by coaching. The mental training, the repetition, learning how to learn are all the things that come over time from the master teachers. But over the years it's been tough to witness some of the smartest, best and classiest guys in the league struggle so mightily from the line like in San Antonio where in four of the five previous seasons the Spurs have ranked in the bottom five in free throw percentage. This year, with the arrival of new shooting coach, Chip Engelland, the Spurs are hitting at a 74-percent clip. The Spurs haven't shot above 75-percent from the line in 13 years and Tim Duncan is now back up to 78-percent, just a shade off his career best of 80-percent four years ago. Meanwhile out on The Beach, Antoine Walker is shooting 52-percent from the line, which is his fifth straight season in the 50's and this from a guy who, by his shot selection, seems to be convinced that he's the greatest shooter in league history.

4. As George Karl continues to get suspended, all the while costing his team chances to win games (the Nuggets have lost all of the three games that he's already missed and play at the scorching Suns tonight) it is only the facts that point out that Denver has already lost as many games this year as they did all last season under George and that's with Marcus Camby having the season of a lifetime! Can the answer for George in Denver really be Shawn Kemp?

5. When the Knicks with their $124 million dollar payroll were recently manhandled by Charlotte whose payroll is the lowest in the NBA at $33 Million, did anybody in New York think to ask how can this be going on?

6. I found it interesting to see where Toronto rookie Charlie Villanueva compared himself and teammate Chris Bosh to the younger versions of Tim Duncan and David Robinson. While these are nice players, I, for one, am not quite ready to make that leap of faith.

Yao

7. We hear all the time about the importance of "The Bigs" taking care of business and delivering their teams to the Promised Land, but as soon as things get real dicey, it's always speed, quickness and skill that reign supreme. With a extreme dearth of physically imposing centers who can actually play in today's game, who is out there really doing anything these days besides Ilgauskus? The Rockets find themselves between the proverbial rock and a very hard place. Everybody else is going small and Jeff Van Gundy can't get anything out of Yao who does his best matched head to head with size and strength. Houston finally gets McGrady back against the mighty Hawks, but how long will that last? And now after the two upcoming home games against speed and quickness (Memphis and Boston) the Rockets head to the far west for six straight against teams that don't even pretend to have a center and all they want to do is run, run, run. While we're on the subject of Yao Ming's difficulties, if things continue as they are now (and what would lead me to think any differently) how will things play out at this year's All-Star Game in Houston with Yao Ming being voted in by the fans. This supposed-to-be hometown love fest could have a disappointing ending where everybody sadly doesn't live happily ever after.

8. This just in, Flip Saunders likes his team and will gladly take his chances with little Ben Wallace in the middle.

Happy Thanksgiving to all --- but please, enough of the turkeys.

Bill Walton, an NBA analyst for ESPN, is a regular contributor to Insider.

 

I hope this team turns around soon because if it doesn't its just going to kill all the fun of All-Star weekend. There will be a lot of sports media there , and they are going to go on and on and on how this team didn't live up to expectations, how disappointing they are, whether Yao (and maybe even Tracy) belongs there, ...blah blah blah

I honestly didn't expect the Rockets to be this bad. With the All-Star game here this season , I thought it would be a great showcase for our team that was supposed to challenge the Spurs for the Western Conference crown . But worst team in the Western Conference? 3rd worst in the entire league ?? Who knew ??