he does need to relax but be a little more assertive. i know hes getting use to the offense but id like to see him come get the ball instead of it being in brooks hands 90% of the time.
Hm. Well, that's a very nice thing for Rick Adelman to do..... I wanted to wait until the Rockets got a few games under their belts, and they figured out how they were going to go about the remainder of this season...... ...but I can't resist here. Anybody wondering if the Rockets are intentionally "losing" games, or are "experimenting" with players and line-ups to see who fits best should know by now that winning (making the playoffs, for instance) may have been a desire, but not a goal for the season. Kevin Martin is a solid player. I'm sorry to say I haven't seen him play very much before now, but I look forward to his time here with the Rockets. Adelman seems to want to reassure Martin that his neck isn't on the line here in the latter portion of this season. The Rockets had no expectations beyond getting through this season with their spirits intact (and netting some players they were willing to have around for the next few seasons), despite the furious start to the year. Martin's acquisition wasn't meant to "save" this season by any stretch of the imagination. Martin is a proven scorer, and a very versatile player offensively. He couldn't carry a Sacramento Kings team for a few seasons by himself though, so Adelman won't ask or expect him to come to the Rockets and attempt it here. Martin obviously has to adjust to his new teammates, and they have to do likewise. I believe that, as long as Martin is free to do what he does best, then he'll be just fine. The plan, people, was to retool around Yao THIS season, with the expectation that Yao's return would be enough on its own to vault the Rockets into championship contender status (excepting the roster tweak here or there). That's a premature assumption for a lot of reasons, but I applaud Daryl Morey and Rick Adelman for positioning the team to make an honest attempt at winning for the next two or three seasons. There's no pressure on anybody to win now. Martin (and the rest of the Rockets) have garnered enough good will to tide them over at least for the next couple of seasons, barring anything disastrous. The Rockets don't have to win as quickly as has been expected in the past. There's enough quality talent here to be competitive. Yao (God willing that he's healthy), will be a better player to anchor the team's hopes on than Martin or anybody else, because win or lose, no one will fault him for it. And where I expect Kevin Martin to have his greatest impact is with Yao, but not necessarily as exclusively a spot-up shooter. Martin and Trevor Ariza will both, in my opinion, be expected to move and cut in the half-court with Yao in the post, because both of those players can effectively finish plays (Martin, of course, will be more consistent). Martin doesn't have to win the hearts and minds of the team or the coach. Everybody here wants him here and believes in him, and are willing to give him the time he needs to be a good piece to the puzzle. And that's all anybody on the outside looking in could realistically ask for. Kevin Martin has the rest of the season to get used to the idea of winning, and accepting a role in that winning that's not too big or not to small for him.... ....and it should be fun to see.....
I don't think you know what you're talking about. Kevin Martin isn't brought here to play defense. THat's why we have Ariza and Battier. Plus Kevin is a win for the Rockets. Carl Landry is indeed good but Kevin Martin is a go to scorer, Carl Landry isn't. When the defense collapse on Carl, he struggle. Kevin Martin brought the Rockets scoring which we desperately need. Kevin Martin is a pretty good passer and he plays the passing lane well so he always gets us at least a steal or two per game. Aside from Lowry, Martin makes smarter passes than Brooks. He will take the pressure away from Ariza. Its only his second game and already people like you are already bashing him. What more do you guys want? The Rockets went out and got a good scoring two guard like we always wanted and needed and then you guys start bashing him like he's not good enough. Expect him to struggle a bit at the beginning because he never play with this group before, he just moved in a new city plus this is his only second team. He's just trying to adjust to the Rockets. The thing about Kevin Martin is that he can score efficently. He don't forces up bad shot like McGrady does. Plus he is only 1 year older than Carl landry.
I am sure it has nothing to do with gaining 4 new players and losing a crucial rotation player in Landry in a trade and Lowry to injury. They are tanking for the season.
Well, BetterThanEver.... ...if the Rockets ARE tanking.... ...then they started doing that long before Kevin Martin and Carl Landry swapped area codes. The Rockets were finally becoming what they always were, BetterThanEver, despite what we saw at the start of the season. And that's a team of good NBA players who would struggle to play .500 basketball for the season without its centerpiece player. The only consistent factor about the Rockets this season has been their competitiveness. They've won games they shouldn't have, and lost games they couldn't have. That sounds like a middle-of-the-road club to me. I know it makes me less of a Rockets fan for saying that. But I said that from the beginning of the season. Some things never really change. The expectations for the Rockets got raised because the players raised them. They weren't supposed to win. Nobody is going to be disappointed if they don't make the postseason, or even if they don't win all of five games the rest of the season. The Rockets are doing better than anybody expected. The team is going to be well-received and lauded for fighting against all odds, no matter how many losses pile up. There's no one here to fault for that, now. So there's room for the team to grow and improve. Nobody in the organization would say that they're tanking, not at least without making it look good, BetterThanEver. Seems the Rockets learned the art of slight-of-hand from somewhere......
Just one thing...Martin is not a great passer. For his usage rate, his assist ratio was extremely low in Sacramento. Still, he WILL be an elite scorer again. Quit whining over the first 2 games. Since the 2nd half of the 2nd game, he's looked great.
I was specifically referring to the "experimentation" of the playing rotation. Lowry went down, they brought in Conroy to take his spot. Conroy sucked. Then, they brought in Temple to fill Conroy's spot, who is mediocre. Then, they got the 4 new players and trade Landry. They have to bring Martin in, because he is the scorer and bring him up to speed. Then they have to try Battier at the 4 in the 1st game, because Landry is gone . It didn't work, so they try Jeffries to the rotation. That's experimentation in the player rotation for tanking? It sounds like an injury and a need to make up for the loss of a PF is the reason for the change in the rotation.
Couldn't have said it better myself. Remember people, Monday was the first practice they had with the new players.
I gotcha, BetterThanEver. I knew for a long time that there were going to be too many moving parts this season, and guys with jobs that were too big for them, to believe anything other than the Rockets would struggle about as often as they would excel. And things would only get worse by the time the trade deadline passed. If you messed up and said that in November (like I did), you were a traitor or an idiot. Especially with the Rockets playing so far over their heads, they couldn't see the ground. Until they landed on it. The Rockets were struggling long before Carl Landry got traded. They had no flux in the lineups to speak of, but Kyle Lowry going down did have cascading consequences. Any success the Rockets were going to have this year was going to be balanced so delicately, that practically everything had to go right for them every game if they were going to win. They're not "experimenting" to find out what works for this season. Not really. They're biding their time until Yao comes back. Whether anybody admits it or not. And that's not really a bad thing, to me. They're not going out and not trying to win, BetterThanEver. They're trying their best. That won't be enough to get them into the postseason, though. If it ever was in the first place.
i'm pretty sure martin will get his game going, adelman will settle on his rotation, and we will make the playoffs/
