Chron.com Blog - Season Preview I wanted to share the guest blog I wrote for one of the fan blogs on chron.com. The piece will be featured on the front page later this afternoon and since I follow clutchfans.net daily, I wanted the community's opinion on the take. Enjoy!
I liked your point about the team depth. This is the first season in quite a long time when no single player injury appears likely to sink the team's chances of making the playoffs. The Rockets will enjoy double-redundant quality talent at several positions this season. Lets hope that ends up counting for something.
In the first half of the season, the Rockets were winning games because our bench was beating the opposing teams bench. The starters were treading water often just trying to keep up. When Lowery went down, our bench could no longer push us over in games. Then the trade came, and we strengthened our starting line up at the detriment of our bench. Depth is a wonderful thing.
Interesting point about the soccer model. I think there are a couple of relevant differences between pro soccer and the NBA, though: 1. Soccer has 11 players each side, basketball only 5, so it would seem like the effect of sitting out 1 player makes a bigger difference in basketball than in soccer. 2. My (very rudimentary) understanding is that there is a higher disparity in talent level in pro soccer than there is in the NBA due to, among other things, the lack of a salary cap and the huge disparity in spending power. So, a team like Real Madrid could have many stars while their opponent for some of the weeks woudl have none. As such, sitting out one guy is no big deal for the Real Madrids of the world when they play the worst teams. Lakers without Kobe are not quite a 20-win team, but I'd think they have a higher risk of getting beat by, say, the Clippers than Real Madrid does by some of the scrubbier teams they play. Like I said, my soccer knowlege is relatively sparse, so let me know if the above is totally wrong. [rquoter]THE FUTBOL (SOCCER) MODEL FOR THE NBA Sitting out players who are not injured is not new in the sport of Soccer. In fact, its common and used frequently to keep players fresh and less injury prone. Soccer is probably as contact oriented as basketball. In pro-soccer, the best players will sit out every few matches or play limited minutes against less quality opponents. This viewpoint is also used to give the younger players a chance to earn quality minutes and get experience. In the Premier League in England, the maximum amount of games a team could possibly play in a season is 71. If you consider that the maximum amount of games that an NBA basketball team can play is 118, wouldn't you think that this methodology would be as effective in the NBA? [/rquoter]
Great article. The only thing is, Morey did say that we needed a star to contend. The fact that we do not have one (not counting Yao) yet is because he can't find one available, not because he doesn't want to. I think Morey is trying to do Plan A Plan B thing. Plan A is a superstar with a bunch of very good role players. Plan B is a surplus of good role players who can win with sheer depth. Either plan requires the ability of stockpiling good role players, of which Morey is a master.
I think this is a neglected point that Adelman has alluded to in interviews: that given the number of player that can play, when you play, you go 100% all the time. No slacking on defense if you're a primary scorer like Martin. The ability to play hard for shorter periods of time may have an important marginal effect on the effectiveness per minute played. We'll just have to see if that gain in freshness can overcome the potential loss in cohesiveness and chemistry from substituting before you get warmed up.
Good article, I'm still of the belief that this team needs a 4th quarter finisher... and until somebody either steps up into that role or we acquire that somebody, the team will still have too much trouble closing out the close games.
I still feel that AB can be that person. He did it several times last year and due to the large number of offensive weapons we have, he is clutch enough to either take that shot or draw in the defense to assist a teammate with a wide open shot.
fantastic article veeg! i think your win prediction is a little high, but if we can avoid injuries and RA can figure out chemistry and rotations 3rd place IS do-able go rox!
Good article. I think my biggest concern is probably the whole "go-to guy"/"finisher" vs "team" argument. Many people have made it before- basically teams like this will run into trouble in the playoffs when rotations traditionally get shortened up. The question here is: why? I mean, why shorten up your rotation just because the opposing coach did? Just run their shortened rotation into the ground. I guess it's a matter of who is imposing their will on whom. Another problem I see with this model (which is probably an extension of the star vs team argument) is that teams built like this (with tons of depth, no "star" per se) would seem to be built to be sort of "recession proof". Pretty consistently good to excellent, but unlikely to light the world on fire. Which is not a bad prospect, but doesn't winning the championship pretty much mean you have to light the world on fire that season? Obviously there are exceptions (like the most recent Detroit championship), but they're really few and far between.
I think alot of you still underestimate the potential of Aaron Brooks being a closer. The guy made some huge steps last year and he'll only get better. In the 4th quarter, theres no player on our team better
