[ESPN] Hollinger Player Reports

Hollinger seems pretty certain Artest will start at the 4.

 

So, every single player's PER, other than Yao's, Hayes' and Brooks', is going to go down according to him?

 

Exactly what I was thinking when I read that.

And that Artest-as-starting-PF thing is also dubious to me. I like Hollinger in general. His analysis is usually insightful. But once in a while he makes some comments that are head scratchers.

 

Yeah, those don't seem like accurate scouting reports. I think we all remember Landry's dunks. I also remember Landry being abused on the blocks quite a bit as well.

 

I am assuming that means most of his shots were dunks.

 

I was a taken aback when I saw that too but I think by "below the rim finisher" he means that most of his work is done starting in the area below the rim.

Meaning layups and dunks mostly as compared to jumpers which would not come from below the rim.

 

Yeah, the major hole in Landry's game is his defense. Even Scola is much better.

 

I agree. I don't see any indication of that at all from Adelman. This might be a case of him being uninformed. Or him making up stuff because the stats show Artest to be a good PF.

I think it's quite viable against some lineups. But surely no more than that. And surely not against the likes of the Lakers, Hornets, or SA when Duncan's actually playing PF.

IIRC about PER, it's heavily dependent on usage. Assuming Yao doesn't go season-ending injury on us again, he'll cause everyone else's usage rate to drop significantly.

 

It's not usage rate dependent at all--look at Carl Landry's PER last year. There's every reason to believe T-Mac and Battier's efficiencies will increase with reduced playing time.

Honestly I think Hollinger is just underestimating every Rocket because he's tired of being wrong about them year after year. He had us first last year; we acquired Artest and Barry and now he has us third. Us proving him wrong will be a mistake he'd be only too happy to make.

 

it's at least the second piece he's written with that suggestion. didn't watch enough Kings' games last season to challenge his assertions re Ron's PF credentials.

i do agree with him though that the position labels are somewhat screwy. Duncan is a centre and no label could convince me otherwise.

 

Dekembe Mutombo
last year: Forty-two years old;
this year: Forty-three years old;

I'm not sure whether uncle Deke will sign with the rockets one more time before the season begins, I really hope morey cut one or two guys out of our roster list and take Deke in. Deke is just Forty-three( according to his official birthday he is a little bit younger but.....) and he is expected to keep playing until his son joines NBA to take his stake. I expect the rookie Mutombo to join the rockets where Uncle Mutombo has played for four years and is expected to play several more.

As the time elapses, deke is also aging all the time. deke is much less athletic than he was in 90' and he is still decresing. However, age is not a problem for deke whose mind is just 34 instead of 43. deke tries to block any shot in the paint and still always try to dunk. And his experience for the playoffs will be gonna helpful when we are deep in the playoffs. Plus, his finger has become not only a label of Deke but also a rockets label.

I really hope deke sign with rockets again no matter how little the mean bos offer him, Deke , please think twice or more before deciding to retire or to walk to another team where he can get a litter bit more money. I assume deke is not a money-chaser or he would not have donated so much money for his afraican fellows. I apreciate what deke has done for the black people living in Afraica. Helping the dark-skinned people is just help the light-skinned people as well, becasue the black and white people are all brothers and sisters in the US. Deke has shown the US care to the rest of the world, letting them know that we are not the people who throw our half-eaten hotdogs into dustbin while some others are suffering from starvation. deke deserves a championship ring, for his brilliant career and for his kindheart. So he should stay with us and help us as well as himself win a championship in the upcoming season, or even win two or more rings in the upcoming two or three or more seasons.

 

^^^
Fantastic reading as always Albert.

You da man.

 

One thing that constantly bothers me- After the win against the Hornets in March, T-Mac was shooting 45% from the field for the season, by far his best since 2002-2003. He was taking less shots than previous seasons, hence the dip in PPG, and his assists and rebounds were still there.

I thought that through that time in March, he was playing some of his best ball as a Rocket.

 

That is who I always think about when it comes to Yao in recent years (I did grow up in Indiana). Smits was huge (7'4") and foreign. He wasn't as good as as Yao but Smits came out with a lot of hype did very well playing against the ridiculous era for centers. He was healthy to start (played over 74 every year for first seven years) but then became ridiculed with ankle and foot injuries every year. He would miss about half the season every year after that and eventually retired at 33 which is pretty young for a very talented big man.

Walton is probably the best comparison as far has dominance with foot injuries but Walton played a different style than Yao (Smits was very similar to Yao with great shooting touch) and was a long time ago.

 

Carl may be a below-the-rim finisher off the court.

(I don't even know what that means, but sure sounds dirty.)

 

Was I the only one that thought the description of T-Mac unreasonably negative? I thought him getting some MVP votes last year was justified. And why does Hollinger keep bringing up T-Mac's back problems? He hasn't had back problems in a few years, thanks to Patterson. It's other injuries that are affecting him.

 

Yeah. It seemed to me that a lot of the dropoff in his shooting and all-around play was largely due to his playing a pretty big chunk of the season on a gimpy knee which he couldn't really afford to rest due to Yao's injury (seriously, he looked like he needed a walker in the playoffs). Granted, there's a chance he'll always have some injury nagging at him but if he's really over the knee injury one could assume he'll be closer to his usual self instead of suffering a rapid decline.