So, hear me out. There's been a lot of proposed trades on this forum to get an upgrade at backup C. But.. do we need one? Last night - our best game of the season - Adams played only 4 minutes. The remainder of the non-Sengun minutes involved Smith and Amen lineups. In fact, some of our most impactful lineups have been with Amen at the 5. So do we really need a traditional backup big? I'm not saying we shouldn't have another big body or two for certain matchups. But generally, why don't we just use Amen and Smith for the majority of the backup big minutes? This also would allow Amen to up his mpg. A lot of teams don't rely on a rotation of typical centers. For example, the starting "center" for the Warriors is 6'9, and his backup is 6'9.
Athletic 7 footers are hard to find. Adams lateral footwork is a liability on defense Amen is too small to play center.
Ideally we need a stretch 5 to allow Thompson to play 4 out in the 2nd unit and occasionally run a tall lineup with Sengun at the 4. Lopez, Isaac, Naz, WCJ, Turner, Jalen Smith, Portis type would be great
My guess is that something works out with Adams, Landale, or JSJ well enough even if a lot won't like that approach.
Yeah, I definitely get this. But that would take a major trade to get a 7'0 floor spacer. I'm talking for now -- I'd rather Smith and Amen take up the majority of the backup minutes as opposed to Landale and Adams.
It's a good question - why not just use Smith as the backup 5? He still needs to put on muscle, but having him at the 5 with Amen and Eason as the forwards still gives plenty of height and rebounding and enough rim protection. It is also the "switch all" lineup. I wonder how that affects Sengun though? It seems that it helps his space to have Smith on the court at the same time. So off-setting their minutes might result in something like only 16 minutes on-court together. The other worry I would have is the toll over the course of the season. Giving Smith bigger bodies to bang against might wear him down too early. Perhaps it is in the coaches planning and they'll bring it out down the stretch and for the playoffs?
Yeah in the mean time that’s fine, it will continue to be situational to our matchups. The nights the giants come to town we will try to roll out Steve, some nights Landale, and against smaller teams Smith Landale can actually hit some 3s if he could get it together that would be great. At some point him or Adams hopefully will bounce back a little.
It would be nice to have a traditional defensive goalie/ lob threat big coming off the bench for a change of pace. But then we would have threads about Alpi should be coming off the bench. If Adam’s can get back to being able to move and jump he will be fine but he hasn’t been himself so far this year.
This question is a joke! You got 3 Center and Adams is a traditonal Center! What the Rockets needs is a good 3 Point Shooter!
We could probably have Myles Turner or Clint Capela for the price of a FRP, but that could be detrimental to our ability to swing that star player down the line. Because everyone is looking to stockpile picks now, Capela could actually be a buyout candidate after the deadline. I’d rather keep all of our picks and see if we can’t find something in the bargain bin to close out the season. We could be a pretty attractive destination at that point.
I think the ideal future state was Adams playing backup 5 with Jabari also getting time there when teams go small. Unfortunately, Adams is looking cooked. I hope he can have a full recovery but we might need to consider an upgrade for the playoffs. Udoka, intelligently, likes to have different looks so he can adjust to different play styles. Sure you can play Amen/Jabari against small teams but you want another big guy (or someone that plays big) when you play the more physical teams or even just if Sengun gets in foul trouble.
It's not a priority. Sengun's going to get the lion's share of minutes at that position no matter who the backup is and Jabari can slide over and be a small ball center. A lot of teams, including good ones like OKC, don't even play backup centers. They just go small. We already have a lot of salary tied up at the center position. Adams and Landale have disappointed, but we shouldn't give up any draft capital or other trade assets to try and upgrade them. We're #1 in the league in rebounds, #2 in defensive rating. If backup center was a pressing need it would have been very evident by now. We're 18th in offensive rating and #26 in three point shooting. Those seem like bigger issues to me.
Jabari is probably our best back up center. If the opponent has a big and slow dude, we can throw Adams at them. Landale is also capable of giving you a good game here and there.
When you look at the bench the back up 1 and 5 dont really do much for us. Reed will eventually come around, at worse it might take him a year or two and we have Holiday in the meantime. Its looks like the backup 5 is our weakest spot so far.
I would just play Jabari at the 5 and Tari at the 4 when the bench is on the floor. Tari takes some of Jabari's minutes at the 4 while Bari rests. Jabari can hang with most backup centers and is a good enough shooter to space the floor. What we really need is a guard who can knock down shots. That's much easier to find anyway. It was supposed to be Reed, but that hasn't worked out so far. Maybe he just needs more time, to be fair.
I agree with your premise. Adams and Jock should get next to zero minutes, and Amen+Tari+Jabari should soak all of those. Might even be a good time to let Cam rumble for 10 minutes in those lineups.
