[Chron] Rockets To Pick Up Option On Head's Fourth Season

don't forget that nasty dunk against the Lakers last year

 

yeah, he only passes to the left......

joke aside, 3p shooters are always a good option to have on the bench for any team. And he prove to be a very good shooter as well even in clutch plays. Good move by the management to keep him.

 

Obviously with all these point guards we aren't using Luther as a Point Gaurd, so those of you who are complaining about his ball handling have no argument. He will be the primary backup to T-mac. He was great at Illinois, and if you watch him as a rocket, you can clearly see he has the athleticism. By the sound of the interview, it seems like Adelman wants to see what Luther will bring to the the table. If he develops, then he will be kept, otherwise he'll be gone for the best player available. I think he knows that you can't always rely on Bonzi and Snyder because sometimes Snyder won't produce or Bonzi won't show up. I still think Snyder and Rafer would be a good package to send off for a bigman.

 

I'd reserve Luther for the for the 4th quarter. He's our best clutch shooter. Yes, i think better than tmac now.

 

I agree but I don't want him to bo ONLY shooter. Of course he's the best in 3-points shotin' but he has to improve in ahother skills

 

Man I actually liked a lot of JVG ball, but it totally sacrificed so much of our players abilities so that the system worked like JVG wanted. I mean I just don't see Head as any sort of slasher, and for some reason he couldn't dunk. Could that be all JVG? I really think we can't afford both Snyder and Head and I wanna see Snyder do well as a uber-athletic shooting guard. I hope we can wait till mid season and see if we need another 4 before we drop one, and if so I say we give up our best bait which at the moment is head if there's a 4 that deserves it of course.

 

Now that we've added Francis and Scola....Head might fit in well with this lineup in certain situations:

Francis
Head
Tmac
Scola
Yao

With Francis and Tmac both scorers who attack the basket, Yao in the low post, Scola high post, Head can concentrate on what he does best--hit the open 3's. The defense will be more focused on the other 4 guys and Head won't be asked to do what he's not comfortable with....but towards his strength...knocking down that 3.

By the way, in that article, it says that Adelman thinks Head can do more than what he was doing in the Rockets system....so I'm wondering what Adelman is considering?

 

In JVG's system, Head was cutting to the basket quite a lot. And he had many opportunities to making a penetrating move with the ball and dunk, but he showed very little ability to do so. Cutting and movement without the ball will be an even bigger part of Adelman's offense, so maybe Head will get some more easy buckets.

 

One of the things that made that one awesome dunk of his stand out was simply that he never did it. We were like, "where the hell did that come from?" Adelman might be thinking Head could get some open midrange shots and can hit them. Who knows. Maybe he's trying to drive up his trade value.

 

There is a reason for that.

On those plays.. who was setting a screen for him and passing him the ball?

Yao.

Which means the tallest guy on the court, aka the man playing defense on Yao, was the one picking up the help defense on Luther with the cut. That's going to change a bit of how he ends up attacking the basket.

Plus the motion of the offense last year was most of the time only about three moves/slashes. This doesn't lend people to getting away from their defender as well as a modified motion offense.

I am hopeful that Luther can show some of his athleticism this year, we all know he can shoot, but those who didn't watch him in college are really limited to just having seen him spot up outside and shoot.

I agree with Adelman, there is a lot of talent in Luther that has yet to be seen by Rockets fans.

 

great shooter...I would love to see him next season in better way...
hah still remember those career high 30 points against Warriors last season...
great player...

 

Cmon, thacabbage, you know the lemmings get excited about practically any Rockets news this time of year.

 

2 reasons why Luther Head doesn't dunk so much in the pros has to do with his inability to palm the ball and how slow he is in getting to his maximum vertical.

Luther is athletic. I don't think the 39" vertical he measured out at is a sham, but watch the games and you'll see that he doesn't have that explosive leaping ability that some of the premier athletes have. He gets up, but he doesn't explode off the ground. That and I don't think he has the body strength required to explode off and dunk when the lane is crowded with bigs towering over him. Ben Gordon would be an example of a little-guy with explosive leaping ability.

And his inability to palm the ball is really obvious. Even in that posterisation of Ronny Turiaf, he actually lost the ball on the way up. I still don't know how he managed to get it under control enough to jam it over Turiaf, but it's pretty obvious that you won't see Luther Head pulling many one-handers.

I remember in last year's Rookies vs Sophs game Head had a couple of nice alley-oops. I think that might be easier for him to do, not having to bring the ball up with him and just catching it and throwing it down.

Like what Hayesfan said, Adelman's offense will likely open up the lane a little bit more than when Luther was getting easy baskets off those Yao Ming hand-offs, so who knows, maybe we'll see more of the athleticism that he showed while at Illinois.

 

oh, proper english. luther can't pass well. is that better?

of course management was going to pick up the option, but it doesn't guarantee that management will not eventually trade him.

 

Don't hate.

 

I like head, and Luther's not bad at all.

 

Luther is athletic...he's not like some of those 3 point shooters that have no athletic ability...but who knows how many other areas of the game he can bring... finishing around the basket doesn't just require athleticism...it requires skill. Maybe, that's something he can work on. I still think he's a good asset to have.

 

I feel bad for JVG right here.