That'd be a fitting conclusion to this stinkbomb of a season: good enough to miss out on extra lottery balls, while bad enough to miss out on the playoffs.
How exactly is he underrated when his play NEVER translates into WINS?? I mean C'mon. Your statement above proves Howard isn't a good fit for this ballclub. He doesn't rebound well, he hasn't blocked one shot this year. Players who are called on to do the "dirty work" do these types of things. Howard is wasted space on this team, and until he leaves, the Rockets are forever handicapped. It just infuriates me when Rockets fans view these aspects as strengths. who cares if it doesn't translate to wins. Completely, completely untrue. He's not known as a passer. He makes a lot of perimeter jumpers, but misses plenty as well. His post up game is not any good. and on defense all he does is stand there. They only thing Howard did more was score, he didn't provide any of the other things the Rockets need to win, and as a result, the Rockets are 0-13 without both Yao and T-Mac. I'm going to need some evidence of this. a Guy like Robert Horry is the king of your above statement.
Howard is the worst +/- player on this team. I was actually starting to think we really needed him when TMac and Yao were out, but we didn't win anything. Personally, I like him, he's a nice guy. He's not a jerk or anything. But he just doesn't work on this team, especially with Yao on the floor. He's too slow, too flat footed and unathletic, he doesn't rotate fast enough. And his points are meaningless. He's not a primary scorer....period. If we are getting primary production out of Howard, it just means our offense has gone south and he is picking up a bunch of junk. Howard, at this point in his career, is best suited for coming off the bench as the post presence/scorer with the second unit. The combination of him and Yao is just too much slow reacting, non-athletic players on the floor. Yao needs more quickness, more defensive intensity, and a more blood and guts compliment beside him on the floor. At this point, we are better off with either Hayes or Swift in the lineup with Yao and TMac. I would actually prefer some kind of trade to bring in a guy like Reggie Evans to bang and defend down low.....if we aren't going to give Hayes any minutes. It all goes back to the fact that unless both Yao and TMac are on the floor, and unimpeded with any kind of injuries and playing at the top of their games, then we are a below .500 team. Tonight, it was obvious that TMac was hurting. His shot is not there, the explosion is not there, and he is shying away from all contact. He tried to gut it out but he's playing at about 40% out there. If we are going to go anywhere towards a championship, we have to get an upgrade at the 2/3 and the PF slot. Rafer is doing great. He was essentially our second option tonight with McGrady actually waving him out to take care of the basketball while McGrady took possessions off tonight. He's not the problem. The problem is that we have no defender that can even slow down a bigger SG because they just go over the top of Wesley, and the fact that our defensive rotation is too slow and our rebounding too poor with Howard in the game with Yao. We have got to get a 4 on the floor that takes up space and clears out the basket so that we can win the rebounding war. And we have got to get a bigger 2 guard in the rotation that can deter bigger 2/3 combos. If we don't, I'm afraid Dallas is gonna walk right through us come playoff time.
everyone knows tmac is hurting (back,....) so why doesnt JVG change up the offense to not have tmac have to carry the team, the only way they win is if tmac has a great game, cept for the philly game, phillys 24 turnovers contributed to that, but damn why wont JVG change is style, chuck hayes anyone??
why the hell did jvg: a. not have tmac on kobe til it was too late b. double team kobe!! let those scrubs shoot the ball.
I am amazed at how Howard just went from a 20/10 player to what he is now...he's playing so crappy with no alertness or awareness or sense of urgency out there. I can't believe a professional NBA player could go overnight from putting up all-star numbers to an NBA scrub in no time! I am very, very disappointed, especially since I was defending the guy in the past when people got on his case. My only regret now is that we didn't shop him during that period in which he was playing top-notch basketball, but again, may be we did and there were no takers. IMO, the only move that materialized this season is the Alston trade, because it netted us a starting PG for the next few seasons; that leaves two more starting spots to be filled. IMO, the Rockets' mindset here should be to try if they can to trade Swift or Howard to a team that has a starting-caliber SG or PF, so that way we could at least solidify another position going into the next season...I just hope and pray that they're not short-sighted or self-interested enough to try and pull half-arsed trades to protect their jobs and try to desperately salvage this season...
The only thing I can figure out is 1) little Chuckie must have really doo-dooed in practice or 2) we are giving away minutes to somebody that we are trying to trade. (I hope it's Howard)
JVG is stubborn. Tinman, your opening post is gold. Do you write for AB or something? What's your day job?
I was at the game. Few things i noticed. JVG BLOWS!!!! I saw Lakers getting way too many offensive rebounds and converting them into 2nd chance points....But no, JVG still does not want to bring in Yao and Hayes in the game at the same time to get some defensive rebounds. I dont get it....Hayes has been playing so good on the defensive end and rebounding he could have helped us so much tonite but he barely got to play. I am fed up of this coach....i just dont understant his gameplan sometime.
Man what is with 'Stro and not being able to hold onto the ball. It is like he has Yao Ming '04 Syndrome. The three passes he lost today would not have won us th e game but it would have helped the cause.
I like Stro as much as anybody on this board, but his lack of hands absolutely killed us tonight. I'm THIS close to jumping off his bandwagon. I wonder if New Jersey would really give us two first rounders for him?
Howard is a role player and his role is not to do the "dirty work". He is in there to do everything I stated in my last post. He is not a good rebounder, but he is adequate. He is not there to block shots, that's Yao's job to block/change/intimidate shots in the paint. Well, go ask all the Vince Young supporters if those "aspects" are strengths or not. And, if we are relying on Howard to translate wins, we are in trouble. He is the role player, not one of the two allstars this team is built around. Well, I'm not going to argue with you here cause I'm not sure what you are watching. The man has a deadly shot from 18-20 ft. out and would not have a career 17 ppg player without have a nice post-up game. What more do you want him to do? You want him to become a great rebounder and shot blocker in a snap of the fingers? He picked up some scoring slack that they were missing with Yao out and became a post-up offensive presence that they didn't have from any other part of the roster. And AGAIN, this team is built around TMac & Yao. When those two guys are out, you're going to have a HELL OF A TIME beating anyone in this league. Again, not sure what evidence you want to see. You can't show veteran leadership, professionalism and basketball IQ in the box score. I know what type of player everyone wants him to be but you look at a guy like Udonis Haslem (who many on these boards have expressed would like having playing next to Yao as the starting PF), and Howard is averaging 3 more points, less than 1 rebound, and .1 less block per game than Haslem this year. The numbers are VERY comparable. I'm not going to argue my point anymore about Howards. Otherwise, people are going to start thinking I'm related or stalking the man. I just don't understand the lack of fanfare this guy recieves. He is, by no means, the perfct PF but let's give him his due credit.
I'll say it again. I was never in favor of hiring JVG. I wanted Dunleavy. The Rox already had a good defense under Rudy. The D wasn't the problem. The problem was the offense. And JVG knows nothing about a successful offense.
I predict Stro will be gone by Feb 23rd. He's so unreliable and clearly not what we need. If it becomes totally obvious we will miss the playoffs before the deadline, I'd say it's 99% likely. The guy just doesn't have it what it takes to be a starter on a very good team. I shudder to think what kind of shell he would go into during playoff pressure. If the Nets or any other team is dumb enough to give us a 1st rounder, we should take it. JH is untradeable and pathetic Stro can't even dislodge him from the starting lineup. Bye bye Stro, ahead of time. Don't let the door hit you.
my day job?? i like to keep my identity a secret cause i'm considered a hero here... i work for a large corporation in texas that sells computers. that's the only clue i give you you know what also kills me about JVG? he doesnt look like he's having fun. Rudy T is a roller coaster of emotions. I miss that guy, i know we had some bad seasons under him, but the guy cared so much about the rockets and it seems the players loved him.
Stro will do well with the Nets or Suns. All he has to do is catch and dunk. Our team is a half court team, so that's why he's lost. Look at Kenyon Martin, that dude is making that cash because of Kidd. I hate Kidd, but I do recognize that he's great in the open court. We need a half court guy who can rebound, block shots, and shoot 3s. Oops, that's Robert Horry.
well for whatever reason, we got 50 wins. all people know is that the rockets were 7th best in the league and had mcgrady, yao and were coached by jvg. people LOATHE jvg because his basketball is boring to watch. painful. has no flowing offense. well his team is built around a center, and arguably one of the best all-around players/wingmen in the game...WHEN HEALTHY OF F*CKING COURSE. this team is built around a superstar, this team lives and dies with him, last season, if he sneezed, the rockets couldn't buy a bucket. but when he took strides, we strided (<---- word?) i think it's strode. we strode along with him. we strided/strode to 50 wins. yes i'm talking about tmac. this season he's been wheezing everygame. he's not attacking the rim because he's afraid his back will blow out. he's not moving like he used to. if this keeps up for the rest of his career this is going to suck. but for now, assuming he gets healthy, we'll have one heck of a team again because he'll have no limitations. people assume yao is 100%, tmac is 100% therefore the rockets are 100% and ready to make the run to the playoffs...yet in reality we are maybe 50% what we could be, not even. people are expecting juwon howard to just pick up the slack as if tracy mcgrady and yao were there!?!?! the guy is a role player, not God. people want JVG to play severely underexperianced players such as hayes against veterans like webber!? good luck with that. the reason jvg doesn't want to change his strategy (even though it's r****ded sometimes) is beceause he has a pretty darn good thing going for this team when they have hte pieces. when he didn't , what was he supposed to do? it's not like 6 of our role players were injured, 2 superstars and 4 importnat role players were injured. btw you can't argue jvg not being a good coach by this season alone, well you could, but he's never missed the playoffs until yet (maybe). that's saying something...
