Concern over shane battier!

Well the thing is Battier brings so much more to the table than scoring. Sure we'd all love Shane to be more aggresive, but no one is perfect and Battier just does not WANT to be the main man. He's content being one of the role players and while that timidity or unwillingness to make shot after shot and be a bigger role in the offense kinda' pulls us down, all the other things he provides (tough defense, post entry passing, help defense, spacing) outweigh that failing of his. To put it simply, JVG and RA are about as opposite as you can be, and both of them have embraced Battier with open arms. That must mean Battier is doing something right, right? I do think that whoever the leader of the Rox is (apparently its Rafer Alston lol) should have a sitdown with him and tell him to start putting the ball in the damn hole though...

 

I don't think Shane is nowhere near 100%... Maybe he should take some time off... I don't know.

 

Name any team in the league that could possibly say they trust ALL five guys on the court to take big shots. Every team is centred around 2 or 3 players who are there for those reasons, and we happen to be blessed with solid role players around them in Battier, Alston, Barry etc.

PS. As much as people will disagree, Rafer is one of our more clutch players. It sounds odd even me typing it, but its true.

 

I don't have a problem with Batman, but I do have a problem with the size of his contract. It's a lot of money for a role player.

 

He's making around 7 million a year. That's more or less fair value for the type of production he gives. Battier is not just a role player (ala Chuck Hayes), he's an elite role player (ala Posey, that dude from Utah and Maxiell). It just looks horrible because in the Morey era, all the players we've signed have been undervalued. Battier makes about as much as scolandry combined LOL. The only player I'd consider overpaid is Rafer Alston. No way should he getting more than Carl Landry IMHO....well ok maybe a million more since he is a vet and all...but he shouldn't get a cent past 4 mill.

 

I like Battier as a role player, but to me he really is more of a bench player.

I don't think he is a total offensive liability because he can hit the corner three with some consistency, if he sees an opening in the post he will occasionally try to score at the basket and he moves the ball well.

Of course sometime moving the ball is not what you want...Shane is the most passive offensive starter on the team by far and I think teams are aware of that.

I remember a story about Shane when he was at Duke and it was in the off season. Coach K would call Shane to ask how his summer was going and then he would ask him how many points a game he would average and if Shane gave him the wrong answer he would just hang up. Coach K went through this drill every day until Shane gave him the right answer. I don't remember exactly how the story went but I think I read it out of the Chronicle and I'm sure some other posters are bound to remember it. The point is that Shane always has had the ability to be a good offensive player but has always been too passive until he had a coach that demanded he be a bigger part of the offense.

I guess the starting line up I would like to see for the Rockets would not include Shane Battier because I just don't like passive offenive players. I would prefer to see Ron Artest starting at the 3 but if the Rockets are serious about moving him by the trade deadline then I would prefer TMac at the 3 instead of Shane.

Alston, Wafer, TMac, Scola and Yao would start for me with Shane off of the bench.

 

Bench player is what i've been saying. He's not a starter, nor those intangibles are enough to justify his man adjusting Yao's shorts when he has the ball. Wafer has shown all the blind Battier lovers that there are points on the floor. Scola has shown there are points on the floor. I havent been the biggest Scola fan eventhough i do like the fact he plays hard, but scola makes his man guard him. Thats as important as shooting wide open shots. The players have to be a threat on the floor. Thats why Yao does have more space because Hayes isnt out there being not guarded. The rox didnt think they were getting bruce bowen with the #8 pick. If they though that, they shouldve given the spurs the #8 pick for Bowen.

 

give battier props for being a fundamentally sound defender, but he is anything but versatile on offense. if he's not taking open 3s, hes basically doing nothing on offense. he's good for maybe 1 cut to the basket per game. he's horrible for spacing because he absolutely never attacks the basket with the ball. the few times he does, its a train wreck. for someone who supposedly has great fundamentals, he sure is bad at handling the ball. bruce bowen meanwhile has added a midrange jumper to his game, and is far better at taking the ball to the basket.

and im not seeing battier's smart and accurate passing. when it comes to feeding yao in the post, battier telegraphs his passes and doesn't have great timing. if you dont believe me, look at the difference in how easily von wafer gets the ball to yao versus how long it takes battier. part of its due to the lack of respect defenders give battier, so they sag off him much more than they would wafer and get in the way of that entry pass.

im not picking on him now just bc he's been in a slump or whatever you want to call it. ive been unhappy with him ever since he's been a rocket. not because he doesn't bring anything to the table, because he does. he is great at being in position on defense. but aside from that one great asset, he's just a very underwhelming player who, intangibles or not, simply does not show up on the offensive end, save for the occasional 3 pointer.

 

I dont have the meeting before the trade or anything, but i guarantee they didnt think they were getting a 9ppg guy when they traded the #8 and a player. I dont have any proof, but if they did, they were fools. He hasnt improved 1 thing since his rookie year. In fact, he's declined every year. I never thought he would be a 20ppg guy with intangibles, but when rafer steps up as the 3rd scorer, thats injustice. From watching his memphis days, i was expecting 14ppg 5rebs which is easy with Yao and Tracy on the floor. He is getting the same amount of shots in memphis as he is now. The difference is he went to the ft line 200 times 100 times in memphis than to now and also 60% of his shots are 3's now vs 25% then. So I'm waiting for someone to tell me how is that really making you a offensively threatning player?

 

the only reason battier is playing alot is that artest is out.. dam

 

All you are doing is looking at how he scores, which limits your knowledge of how valuable he is. This year the Rockets have won 15 out of the 21 games that Battier has played in. That’s a 71.4% win percentage, which is by far the highest of any other Rocket. Battier also has the highest net point (Points Scored - Points Allowed) per 48 minutes (8.2) than anyone on the team. Almost every statistic you look at shows that the team is better when he is in the game compared to when he is not.

The team is better offensively and defensively when he is on the court. Most fans understand his defensive skills, but few understand how valuable he is offensively. He reads defenses better than anyone on the Rockets. He knows exactly where to be on the court, and knows when to be there. They don’t have a statistics for timing, spacing and court awareness, but these intangibles have a huge impact on the game. It allows your scores to get easier shots, which gives your team a better FG%.

 

Feigen mentioned this a few days ago, and I thought it was interesting.

http://www.82games.com/0809/0809HOUP.HTM

Check out the average row on the top for each player in the tables above. It shows points scored per minute when a given player is on the floor. Guess for which player that number is the highest? Yep -- Shane Battier.

Now, some may argue that this is just a coincidence, that Shane happens to share the floor with our best offensive players. But I recall that Shane's adjusted +/- on the offensive end was positive last season. Again, that's not totally conclusive. But what it suggests, to me, is that Shane isn't the total offensive liability he is often portrayed to be.

Yes, individually he's not close to a great scorer. He's not a "go to" player. He can't make things happen off the dribble. His limitations are well known. But there are a lot of things to running a good offense that fall outside those parameters. Let's take an obvious example: spacing. Chuck Daly once said, "Offense is spacing, and spacing is offense." What contributes to good spacing? Player positioning, knowing how and when to move without the ball within the offensive system, moving the basketball to the open man, sticking to the game plan. Being a great scorer with the basketball is also important, but it's not the only thing.

 

Again, you are too smart to keep bringing up the arguement that the Rox gave up the #8 and a player to get Battier. That makes it seem like we gave up additional value aside from the pick to get him. And you know as well as anyone else who watches any basketball, that dumping Swift was an advantage for us. So word it correctly and say we gave up the #8 pick but forced the Grizz to take Stro in order to get Battier. Thats like saying the Grizz won the Gasol trade because they got two first round picks, Marc Gasol, Javaris Crittendon and another player. (Only thing is that player was Kwame Brown). And no, Im not comparing Battier to Gasol, just using the trade to make a point.

As for everything else you said, Battier's role in Memphis is different then it is here. He didnt have other offensive weapons there like he does now. Does anyone really want him to take a lot more shots? I think he is basically our version of Kyle Korver. Yes, Korver moves a lot more but he cant create his own shot and is not very athletic. Kover is a better shooter, but Battier a far better defender.

 

i get tired of repeating this in all the "battier is overrated, he needs to play less" threads....but his value isn't stats. It's clear that the team plays more cohesive defense when he's playing. The offense does pretty well too, but not because Battier scores. He's DECISIVE! Who else is decisive? WAFER! And how big of a difference has HE been? That's one of the biggest problems this team has. They have all the skills and abilities, but too much hesitation, they don't know whether to pass or shoot sometimes... Wafer doesn't hesitate, he passes, shoots, drives, without thinking twice. Battier does the same thing, he makes his move, whether its passing, shooting, cutting, etc. when you have guys like that everything falls in place.

What happens when tmac holds the ball and everyone else stands around? Confusion. Do they cut, do they give him space to work? No one is really sure. Sometimes he's mostly a passer, sometimes a scorer. What happens when Luther hesitates on a 3? He gets blocked. It applies to all of them. Look at barry, he's been shooting very well ever since he stopped hesitating, now he's 100% sure he's going to shoot as soon as he gets a look. Battier brings a well defined piece to the lineup. you know what his role is on offense and defense and he plays it every game, no hesitation, no holding back, no playing outside his abilities. When guys play like this, the team identity and roles are well defined and everything falls into place, which is exactly why the team did so well without Ron and Tmac. What did the team complain about the most when tmac and ron where coming in and out of games? That they didn't know their role, that it was difficult to know what to do from game to game and there was no consistency in their game plan...Battier brings that to the team

 

Battier is a solid asset to our team and does a great job one on one with the other teams best player. His minutes will be shortened now that Ron is back. However I think he is still doing a great job at his role, we aren't asking him to score 20+ points a game, we are asking him to make sure their guy doesnt, and he has done that. Look how poor grainger played for the pacers the other night. Watch how well Battier defended him. Look at Kobe (yes he scores, but not at such a high percentage as he usually does). Having Battier in the playoffs will really help our chances.

 

That says it all, another Tracy fan trying to deflect critisim towards someone else to try and build him/themselves up. It's always the players that surround Tracy are just not good enough... and it's the trainers fault that Tracy and the Rockets are always injured.

 

I expect his minutes to dip down to 26-28, there is no way we should see him playing 33+ minutes.