Dennis Lindsey on Eliyahu, Badiane and the 26th pick

I would rather hold on to the pick but if the Rockets could combine it with Eliyahu/Snyder and possibly Head to move up in the draft it might help us get a better player.

 

I don't think it was much of an expirement. It lasted all of 1 game, against a Carlos Boozer that started out on fire...he dominated everyone that first month.

Still, it was clear, in JVG's system, Battier at PF didn't work.

Not that it would correlate enormously well to playing on the Rockets under a new coach, but why not look at Rashard's PT on the Sonics last year.

http://www.82games.com/0607/06SEA9C.HTM

He played 14% of the Sonics PF minutes and 43% of their SF minutes. If my math is correct, that means he played 25% of his minutes at PF (.14/(/.14+.43)). And at least on the Sonics, the team was more productive when he played that position.

It is actually similar to what I'd expect on the Rockets...about 1/4 of his minutes at PF, 3/4 at SF, depending on match-ups.

On the other hand, they have Battier having played 20% of his minutes last year at PF, and that doesn't seem right....?

I'm with GATER, though. RAdelman will definitely focus more on the offensive mistmatches some of our lineups create as oppossed to the defensive liabilities (at least a more balanced approach than JVG). Unfortunately, Shane Battier at PF creates no offensive mistmatch in our favor, but still has the same defensive liabilities, because he is even less equiped to guard PF's than Lewis.

Rashard, at a minimum, would be an offensive force. [PG], Bonzi/Head, McGrady, Lewis, Yao should be a team capable of putting up big points. They'd give up more for sure, but the net is all I care about...

 

Aside from hoping we can somehow some way move up five to 10 (I dream) places on the draft board, I also hope and pray we can buy a second rounder from Boston or Seattle, neither of whom need any more young talent over and above their lotto selections.

If not, it would be nice to get the home town boys, Mo Almond and Sean Williams, as well as pick up C.J. Miles as a FA.

 

to those that are positing putting shard at the 4 spot, please take some time to realize the defensive pressure that puts on yao.

1. we'd be undersized and underexperienced at the power forward position.
2. we'd have no shut down defender on the perimeter (battier gone in acquisition).
3. we still have a defensive sieve at the point guard position

add that up and you have a glaring need for an athletic, paint roaming big man. someone ala amare stoudemire or ben wallace. not yao ming. people, we have to play to our strengths. we can have a very, very big team that can post, run and shoot. start with:

mcgrady @ 2
shard @ 3
yao @ 5

and start adding pieces around that. bonzi, if he comes back, would, imo, be best utilized as a bench threat along with luther. bibby, if he comes over, would be our starting point guard (even though his best days are definitely behind him). from there we still have a need for a power forward.

PG: bibby
SG: tmac
sf: shard
pf: ??
c: yao

rotational players: bonzi, luther, rafer, hayes

all we would need is an athletic pf...someone like wilcox would be perfect since he's strong, athletic and not as stupid as stromile.

 

I agree that if we trade Battier for Rashard, we need to get an athletic big man to play starting PF.

Look, if we play Rashard at the 4, I assume that T-Mac would be at the 3. Then we need someone to play SG. Head? Snyder? Or can we depend on Bonzi? Remember when we first got Battier and speculated whether he'd be playing PF? There was the same dilemma. If we played Battier at 4, who's gonna play SG? Was Snyder good enough? We'd be just shifting the hole from the 4 to the 2. Is it worth it?

Battier for Rashard is great. But we still need a starting PF.

 

I know he's not as big as you're talking about, but I'd love to pick up Barnes. Long arms, good defender, athletic as hell, and can shoot the trey. Oh, well... it's fantasy time. However, the Rocks have a history of making unlikely trades that surprise almost everyone, except maybe a guy walking in a mall overhearing a cellphone conversation. Part of our history and heard here first.

 

This is why I keep suggesting gambling on Sean Williams.

PG -- Rafer / V-Span
SG -- T-Mc / Bonzi / Almond
SF -- Rashard / Novak
PF -- Williams / Hayes
C -- Yao / Deke

If there is no Rashard trade -- which I think is the more realistic scenario:

PG -- Rafer / V-Span
SG -- Bonzi / Snyder (Almond?)
SF -- T-Mc / Novak
PF -- Williams / Hayes
C -- Yao / Deke

 

Where are our resident bad-man-aholics, now that he has evidently been consigned to the scrap heap?

There sure were a bunch back in the day. and every few month afterwards.

Mav-Hater? Where you at ?

 

You have me confused. Ill-skilz is the Bad-man basher and he will come. I actually would like to see what the kid has although i have doubts about his lateral quickness to deal with quicker 4's. He does bring a lot of the other things we look for.

 

Heads up: JVG will be on SR610 tomorrow morning at 8:00. He will talk about his tenure with the Rockets, the future of the organization, the NBA Finals, flopping, and the possibility of him coaching high school ball here in Houston!

 

Seriously? Why not UH then? You aren't serious. Right?

 

Cougar High? (Apologies, 80s joke).

 

Why couldn't we do both?

 

Battier got destroyed on the glass and on the block. Yao had to help on defense, got pulled away from the goal, and he couldn't rebound. From all indications through the summer, it was what JVG wanted, but they got the wrong player to do it. Good thing Battier was so good at perimeter defense to fill another gaping hole.

Oh, and Rashard Lewis couldn't guard Juwan Howard.

 

why does everyone think novak can play the 4 effectively but battier cant. battier is a great 3 point shooter, both are weak rebounders, and both struggle to guard 4's?

 

As far as our pick is concerned I agree with Ziggy,we should hold on to it and as I have posted before I think if still there we should pick Afflalo(better then Almond,Byars and such).

DD had a thread recently I believe titled "what makes a good NBA player?",well IMO all the players that make it this far obviously know how to play basketball,but what makes them become good or fail is their attitude,work ethic,willingness to mesh with the rest and become part of a TEAM,heart,IQ and few other little things.

some don't care about these aspects and all they see is how many point someone scores or how high he jumps.well our Rockets needs more then that right now and as far as my studies go Afflalo could even turn to be better then Shane in couple of years(he drives better and has a better mid range game already and is better in clutch).I have been wrong before but I doubt this is one of these cases.

We could use another pick(higher) and try to get Al Thornton,him and afflalo would be perfect for Rick's system with Al needing a little more work but great potential(my only concern about him is his IQ and I am sure our scouts can check into that some more).

And at last,someone said Shane played some PF last year and was getting murdered,IMO this is as baseless as it can be,the only reason he was playing the 2 or 3 was because we had nobody else to defend the opponents best player(on perimeter) and Tmac had too many other responsibilities already.
Do not check the numbers against Tim Duncan or such,noone can shut them down,you hope to slow them down on defense and take them away from the basket on offense.

Excuse the long post.

 

If I weren't serious, then I wouldn't have wasted my time typing that out.

 

why the love for novak at 4 but not battier? i dont get it. the hype right now for the unknown players is always higher than the love for good proven players like battier who have some flaws. and how many guys are we going to rotate next year. sounds like everyone wants to play 10 guys?

 

Ha. Sorry... You don't even wanna hear the mumbo jumbo I have typed up in my day. Sometimes I make the mistake of assuming others can be as immature as I... for example

To Thumbs... The Cougar High joke is still going strong. Seriously though JVG would make an incredible college coach. If he could get someone to recruit for him it would be a done deal. Give him a national championship within 5yrs. That style, in college. WOW.

 

Again, this was 1 game before the "experiment" was canned. And again, Boozer dominated EVERYONE that first month (and for most of the season, for that matter). And the Jaszz started 12-1.

I agree that Battier at PF probably wouldn't have worked. But I think that has as much to do with Battier's offensive limitations as defensive inability to guard PFs.

What's more, Yao played fine that game. 22 pts, 9 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 blocks, 8-12 shooting, 4 TO's, 4 PFs. No, it wasn't a dominating performance, but Yao pretty much hit most of his averages (a little short on points, just barely short on rebounds, but better shooting, passing, blocking). He played 33 minutes...I can't remember the game exactly, that seems a little short, but it was first game of the season. Also, Mehmet Okur sucked that game. He scored 17 points, but on 4-15 shooting, and only grabbed 5 boards (he had double doubles and 50% or above shooting the next 3 games).

We lost that game for pretty much the same reason we lost the series. Boozer and Williams played really well, but to be expected. Yao and Tracy also played well, but not anywhere near as effectively (especially for Tracy, who shot 8-24). Then the Jazz just had more people contributing - Okur and AK47 didn't play great, but Fisher contributed, Harpring contributed, Ronnie Brewer contributed, CJ Miles scored 12 points on 4-5 shooting...the Jazz had more players contributing and running their offense effectively.

Exactly. I agree. It is what JVG wanted. But it was clear....not just from getting outrebounded or giving up 107 points in the Jazz game, that the Battier at PF 1 game experiment probably wouldn't work because what you gave up on defense you didn't even come close to getting back on offense. With another player, that might not be the case.

I'll agree that Rashard isn't the greatest defender, especially at the 4, but I think he is a better post defender than Battier. Not only does he have 2 inches and 10 lbs. on Shane, he is an insanely better athlete, has considerably longer arms and is a much better rebounder.

Rashard pulls down over 2.6 more rebounds per 48 minutes than Shane.

The biggest difference, though, is obviously offensively, where Rashard can create for himself if necessary, is also an above average 3 point shooter and scores in a variety of ways.

Carlos Boozer had the good fortune of barely ever having to play defense against the Rockets. He was able to roam, gobble up boards, and conserve energy for the offensive end. Defending Rashard would be a different story.

Battier was the "glue" of the team in the sense that he was such a good team defensive player. His man to man defense isn't phenomenal...it's still good, don't get me wrong, but he lacks the athleticism or size to be a truly great one on one defender - hence his inability to ever crack the 1st or 2nd team all defense.

Losing Battier would be a blow, but getting Rashard would be fantastic...

Seriously, who can these days