"Built for the playoffs"

I don't think they need a sweet shooting PG, they need an attacking PG (which they may already have on the roster).

They could use a hard nose PF that can rebound and block shots......that IMO is the biggest need....

DD

 

With T-mac and Yao, there will always be open shots for other players... no matter what the system. We need players who can hit a high percentage of those open shots (and not have too many other defeciencies... like defense, rebounding, turnovers). The 05 team had much better shooters than this year's team... but they lacked size, strength, and quickness.

An attacking guard is fine for a change of pace, or when one of the big two goes out... but the main rotational need is a presence at PF, a PG who can run any offense, and players who can HIT OPEN SHOTS.

And once again, for emphasis, its D'ANTONI...not d'antonio.

 

Will, I agree with the first half of your post that Rockets are not in the elite group yet. Your stat data is very convincing.

For the 2nd half, I think Rockets with current personnel can play better under a better coach. I agree with Shaq that we got all the pieces. We have a penetration PG in VSpan, a low-post offense player in Wells, a tall and athletic guard in Snyder, a good 3-pointer in Novak. These guys were not utilized at all by JVG. A smarter coach can play these guys' strengths, hide their weakness, and thus get the best out of them. If any one of our bench players shined in the playoff, Rockets could have taken Jazz down.

 

What I am proposing is not having Tmac create the shots every time, but rather have someone else run the PnR with Tmac....and create open shots FOR Tmac.....

An attacking PG who concentrates on the Midrange game ala Tony Parker is more important than one who can shoot the 3 ball.

Someone that can create EASY baskets for the rest of the team makes a massive difference, it makes the whole team better .....just look at how bad the Suns are without Steve Nash.

The Rockets are one attacking PG (Maybe it is V-Span) and one athletic PF who can rebound and block shots away from seriously contending.....with their current roster...IMO.

DD

 

Just to play devil's advocate here...

VSpan could penetrate but was a turnover machine and couldn't hit anything outside of a layup.

Novak was awful and was not a good 3 point shooter in the regular season at all.

Could they be better if they played more? Probably so. Is that JVG's fault? Probably so. Did they perform at an NBA level in the time that they did play? Not even close.

Read the Bonzi thread about Bonzi

Kirk did play when healthy (somewhat) and could be good. Blame JVG for that one.

 

Quit sipping the rockets-red kool-aid. A smarter coach would have never signed off on half of those guys as vital parts to make up their bench rotation of a supposed playoff team.

Hell, smarter coaches have gotten rid of them (Sloan-Snyder).

But yea... lets believe that a new coach will cure everything... EVERYTHING. I hear he's also going to get more out of our sorry announcers (clyde-Matt), will be the cause of adding more HD games to the schedule, and will get us less back to back's in the schedule next year.

He will change EVERYTHING!

 

There just wasn't a bench worth mentioning, or a power forward that would be considered anything but a rotation player anywhere else. That, of course, an a starting point guard who would have made a wonderful backup, but had to start, and had no one behind him. No surprise that the record wasn't much different during the regular season with or without Yao. Our terrible bench and our holes in the starting lineup could handle that stretch with Yao out, with McGrady playing out of his mind (and a lot of games against the East), but we were exposed in the playoffs. Given a healthy pre-injury Yao, we might have beaten the Jazz, but given the rest of the squad, and Tracy trying to do so much that he couldn't do what he does best due to overload, home court was the only thing that allowed us to go 7 with Sloan's far deeper team. That's on reflection... I didn't believe that before the series started. I didn't think our bench, as bad as it was, would go on vacation early.

 

You do not blow up a 52 win team, you tweak in areas you have shortcomings.

Free V-Span at the PG spot......and get an athletic PF......ala a young Robert Horry and this team will explode.

DD

 

The Suns looked pretty bad with Steve Nash minus two great offensive options last night also. Personnel still matters.

I agree with most of what you say... having an above average PG who can impact the game is a need recognized by everybody (including JVG).

I'm not sure if having T-mac set picks is my idea of "offense", but yes... we need somebody other than T-mac to be the one to get the ball to the location where players need it to be successful.

Of course you would like V-Span to be that guy... I'd rather have somebody who I know has done it before. Would you consider the season a failure if the Rockets acquire another option, and he does an adequate (but not all-star) job of doing the same thing you think v-span can do?

Don't be myopic. D'antoni.

 

There's no way we can do anything to be a contender next year.

There is no one off-season cure for this team.

 

that is a good post, will. i almost entirely agree with you on nearly everything. i don't agree with one point, though. the alston and battier trades were no brainers at the time in my book. those trades are not the main problem. the problem is that those trades only are 50 % of the work that should have been done. rafer alston should have never been in a situation where he's forced to be a scorer. and the same is true for shane battier. it's pretty simple. the rockets failed badly at doing the other 50 % of the work. they tried their best and gambled with v-span, bonzi, lucas, snyder and co. but it didn't work out at all. the management failed at bringing in enough talent that is ready to play. it's like you said, with good coaching you can overcome this in the regular season and win against all the lottery teams and steal a game or two from the playoff teams. but in the playoffs you'll get exposed. the rockets got exposed.

the real question now is not the coaching job. the real question is how it could happen that the rockets were forced to gamble. my answer to this question is bad drafting in the past and spending too much money on our two superstars. in the last couple of years because of the bad management decisions we didn't have much talent to develop. and because of yao and t-mac earning way more than 30 mio combined for the next 3 seasons we lack a lot of salary cap flexibility. it's obvious that it's pretty hard to get this team above a certain level in this situation. everything has to work out perfectly. and when your backups at your weakest position fail to deliver and your supposed 3rd scoring option never finds a way to get in shape and fit in with the team you'll get what the rockets got this season.

can morey and les fix this? i have no answer. i'm pretty sure, though, that a coaching change and only minor roster tweaks won't be enough.

 

If they bring in another guy and it improves the Rockets and gets Rafer to the bench, then heck yes, bring em on.

All i care about is the Rockets getting better.

DD

 

What are they? A 52 win team? Or a team that simply beat all the scrubs in the league, but wasn't good enough against the big boys.

What are they? A 52 win team? Or a team that everybody knew wasn't good enough, given the rotation/roster make up.

What are they? Because if they are simply a team that can only beat the bad teams, but can't beat the good ones in a series, they might as well have been the #8 seed.

 

The numbers are not quite right.

I didn't verify the pre-injury record, but looking at the record vs playoff teams since Yao came back from injury, I have:

W: Pho, Lal, Det, Tor, Orl, Njn
L: Gsw, Uth, Pho, Cle

That's 6-4 vs all playoff teams, and 2-3 vs WC playoff teams.

 

All teams beat up on scrub teams. And adding a couple of the right types of players makes all the difference in the world.

Mario Elie is a great example of that.

This team is not a contender yet, but I don't think it is that far away with the right tweaks to the rotation and roster.

DD

 

Utah didn't. They beat up on the good teams. We probably should have paid more attention to that in all our pre-series smack talk about their bad run to end the season.

I think the main thing here is we're trying to compare this Rockets team with the 92-93 Rockets team... the one that only needed a couple of pieces to get them from a 7th game of the west. conference semis to the championship (albeit without having to face seattle, thank god).

I see some similarities, some differences... but most importantly, I see a MUCH tougher road through the west than back then. Back then, all it took was a rookie PG and a free-agent swingman to beat the likes of Phoenix (Barkley-KJ-Majerle) and Utah (Stockton-Malone)... the main competition (I still don't think we would have beaten Seattle... but that's for another thread).

And, keep in mind, that team had to trade for a proven all-star (Drexler) just the following year to stay afloat and have a chance to contend again.

Nowadays, Phoenix, San Antonio, Dallas, Utah, and possibly Golden State, a revived Clippers, a full-strength Denver team? That's a lot of firepower.

I fear it may take more than that this time.

 

Having two "superstars" turned out to be a bust.

 

I thought this stuff was obvious a couple of months ago when we were getting our butts handed to us by Dallas and Phoenix.