Could Motiejunas and Jones both move out of the rotation?

He would do all that and more off the bench where he would have the freedom to do so. The starters were much better defensively with Jones. D-Mo's abilities are better served off the bench.

 

Not at the 4.

 

It is not about who is the better overall player.

It is about who has the bigger upside to play at the PF or being a natural PF. That solves the problem of our team.

If he had the bulk of Kevin Love and rebounding skills and post play he would be considered a natural PF.

For now he is just someone who plays out of position and hitting a hot streak.

To add to your argument.
Naturally a 4 year guy has more experience than two guys who have not played much in their rookie season.

Casspi played the most in his rookie season as opposed to Dmo and Jones.

 

20-30 games of regular season games and PT for them to prove it.

Plan has not changed so far.

Casspi as a starter and the oversized Tower experiment did not work very well.... I wouldn't use the word 'fail' just yet.

Casspi will still get his minutes at the 3 and a little at the 4.

 

You are quick to throw that "gonna be out of the league in so many years" garbage around. You still have not been paying attention. D-Mo and Jones are better at the PF position than Casspi right now. Vice-versa at the SF. Casspi is and will be a situational PF.

 

I don't mean any offense, but Casspi is 6 ft 9 in. Do you feel confident in him playing the 4?

 

The title of your thread implies that both DMo and Jones are out of rotation

and that is probably not going to be the case

Used as a Power Forward sure but he is still misplaced.

Kevin Love or LMA type is the target..... any other is just a place holder until an allstar or a poor man's version ala Patterson is being made available.

Just a regular starting PF in the NBA with the ability of making some shots

 

Rashard Lewis is 6'10 and even lankier and stronger than Casspi, former allstar. (Orlando days and Sonics days)

Ryan Anderson, the league's sharp shooter, built stronger, 6'10, Top 50-60 player in the league

Those are vastly superior players in ability, by physical measures and they played most time in their life as PF.

If you lack confidence in Jo/Dmo a slight upgrade won't do it either.
If at all.

 

Preseason... 1000times stated....worth you know what

DMo still played. Jones rested one night after playing ok 3 games before.

Hardly out of rotation.

 

Maybe I am just stubborn but I still think one of Houston's young bigs (T. Jones, D. Motiejunas, G. Smith) gets flipped at some point before the final roster cuts must be made for a draft pick.

You pretty much saw the regular season minutes allocation tonight, assuming Omer Asik doesn't get traded in the near future, that is:

- All 96 minutes at PG and SG go to J. Harden, J. Lin, and P. Beverly (barring injury, severe foul trouble, and non-blowouts)

- All 48 SF minutes go to C. Parsons and F. Garcia

- C. Parsons gets around 8 minutes/game at PF

- O. Casspi gets 16-24 minutes/game at PF

- Obviously all 48 minutes at C go to D. Howard and O. Asik

- Most if not all remaining PF minutes go to D. Howard or O. Asik in the twin towers lineup

The remaining minutes for T. Jones, D. Motiejunas, and G. Smith = at or very close to zero.

I have made this point several times and I will try to make it again: a draft pick has more value than a non-rotation player. Fine, keep one, probably two of these guys, but it doesn't do anybody any good if/when all three players are routinely logging DNPs.

G. Smith is extremely undervalued (meaning you aren't getting back equal value in a trade) and you may need him to be your backup C if/when Asik gets traded. I say you trade one of the other two (T. Jones or D. Motiejunas) for a first round pick ASAP. I think there are teams out there willing to cough up a first round pick for one of these guys but it will be lottery protected, maybe top 20 overall protected, maybe it becomes less and less protected as time goes by, I don't know.

I honestly can't say who D. Morey wants to keep and who he wants to trade, but I suspect he'll trade whoever can fetch the best return. No clue who that might be.

This also allows you to cut this undrafted VCU guy and R. Williams and keep everybody else.

Probably D. Morey continues to explore trade options as the season progresses but I think we can see what the rotation is going to look like.

 

Alright, look.

All I am saying is for someone who is just 'confident' that he can beat out two marginal players you waste a lot of effort.

I probably should take a break from this conversation so should you....

This will sort out itself naturally. No need to go all out in a discussion like this.

 

imo casspi and garcia are both better options. yet, to a lot of teams, casspi' consistency is still questionable and garcia is a bit too old. thus, their values probably are much lesser than dmo and jones.

morey said it a month earlier we were still not a complete team yet, and rockets are looking forward to upgrade their 4. therefore, one of the main goals for rockets is to snowball their assets. so, i believe dmo and jones will still get majority of the playing time.

additionally, based on the preseason games, i also believe dmo is in a better position than jones. (well, i was disappointed with dmo last year, but he did change my view in the preseason games this year.)

 

Bingo. You still need to play them to raise their trade value.

 

I can see where DMo does play better himself coming off of the bench, but I think the starters played their best offense when DMo was in the game with them.