That's an viable alternative. I think Chuck must go to the bench in the long run, which leaves Alston and Shane to pick from. I'd rather take Shane over Rafer.
I never understood the argument having more than one player off the bench that can score. Its not like we take out the whole first unit out while we sub in the second unit.
I agree that we don't need more than one scorer off the bench...it's not like hokey where we're doing a line change here. I say use a starting lineup of Francis / Mcgrady / Battier / Scola / Yao Why Batter? Lemme drop some knowledge: 1. Defense. His D might be a little overated, but it's still good, and undoubtedly better than bonzi's. Starting Bonz likely means Mcgrady has to gaurd the other team's best perimiter scorer when this lineup is in, which wears him down for later in the game. 2. Outside Shot--it's not falling right now (33%), but Shane is a career 39% 3 point shooter, while Bonzi is 33 % for his career, and 14% this year, and would rather shoot a mid range J or attack the hoop. Francis is not a great 3 point shooter either (34 % for his career--as a reference, thats 2% below Rafer's career average) and is more comfrotable driving to the basket. That means with a Francis/T-mac/Bonzi/Scola/Yao lineup, we have NO PLAYERS on the court who shoot the league average (36%) or better from deep (in case you were wondering, t-mac is a 34% 3 pont shooter, this season and for his career). This means teams will pack it in on us to stop penetration and will viscously double yao and scola, because of these players, only T-mac shoots 3's with a great regularity. Any offense runs smoother with a good 3 point shooter or 2 to spread the floor. Shane's numbers will get better. He can be that guy. 3. Bench scoring Gives us a 1-2 punch of Bonzi and James off the bench, which is a solid combo. Battier off the bench....not exactly the "microwave." He's more of a "cog in the machine" than a "spark off the bench" sorta player... 4. Makes both players more effective Bonzi is a really effective 1 v 1 scorer from the elbow or in the low post. Because the starters will try to establish Yao and t-mac, there will be a lot less room to call plays for him. On the flip side of the coin, Battier is NOT an effective 1 v 1 scorer, and is likely to only be effective if he has players like T-Mac and Yao to create shots for him. So I say start Francis, Scola, Battier, Yao, and Mcgrady, and have Bonzi get substantial minutes (and maybe even close games) as the first option off the bench. There's a reason every coach loves Battier. There's a reason he was, at one point, on the Olympic team. He fits in well. His talents are maximized surrounded by the big guns, wheras Bonzi can shine on his own. Sorry for the rant.
agree. Bonzi isnt a shooter. His post presence is a redundant with Yao's. I rather see him off the bench.
put battier in starting lineup for defense and put bonzi on bench for off bench offense. other than that, i like the lineup
I don't think Bonzi is redundant with YAO. I rather see him play with YAO a lot more particularly when YAO is doubled/tripled when against a small lineup. YAO could draw the defense to the upper paint when a team fronting him so that Bonzi can beat his one-on-one defender by driving himself like a "micro-tank" to the low-post. He is always a mismatch against small lineup. On the other end, when defense focus is shift to Bonzi to stop his layup, YAO will feel much comfortable on the offensive end.
Bonzi plays much better with T-Mac in the same lineup. The MJ and Bonzi off the bench scoring punch hasn't worked all season...
Uh, the point of the high post offense with Yao is to open up easy layups from cutters. Bonzi has proven to be one of the best options for that role, and Scola is slowly emerging. It's not at all redundant...
MJ will not fare well with Bonzi as MJ play like a SG (similar to Bonzi) and good to provide the additional scoring power ( he will not pass to Bonzi)
Yao+ Scola+ Battier+ Tracy+ Francis is the starting unit we need. Why start a line up that only your stars can score consistently? It puts us at a disadvantage scoring wise and make it harder for Yao and Tracy to start the games because the defense can focus solely on them. Bonzi, James, Head, Chuck or Rafer can come off the bench. If Chuck and Rafer are not good enough to come off the bench than what makes them good enough to start? True very true. Not only that but we couldn't put any points on the board. Let me ask a question here: If Adelman came into camp without the knowledge of who was the starters lastyear. With a clean slate only his knowledge of what he had seen of the players in camp. Do you think he would have the same starting line up as lastyear? or would it be different?
It's definitely one of the best lineups we have. I was pretty happy to see that lineup on the floor yesterday in the 2nd quarter. ... Why Rafer got all the 2nd half minutes is beyond me.
Also, when yao missed a shot, the ball was always in the paint area, wells is the best to grab those offense rebounds, scola is also pretty good. yao/scola/wells/tmac formed a good group. hopefully sf can join them soon. this group not only can score, but can also grab alot offense rbs.
I finally get to weigh in on this! My fingers have been itching since about the 4:30 mark in the second quarter last night to write about this. I have been saying all along that this was our best lineup to start games: Steve, Tmac, Bonzi, Scola and YAO.... Finally for the first time in 19 games, Rick Stupid Adelman gets an idea to let them all be on the court together for more than a free throw. What happens? We go on a run and build a 13 point lead! What happens after he breaks that lineup and never goes back to it the whole game? We go up and down, never building on that lead by more than 4 more points; only to win the game by the same 13 point margin. Rick Adelman is stupid and scared crapless! How could you play Wafer the ENTIRE second half again? Is he sleeping with Wafer? Did Luis even play in the second half? The rotations of the first half built him his lead, and all he could think of in the second half was to change them so that they could only equal the score of the grizzles in the second half. That's the killer instinct Rick! Tmac and Yao could have rest the WHOLE FOURTH QUARTER if Rick dumbass Adelman would have started that great lineup in the second half. By the fourth quarter, we would have been up by 25 or more. But noooooooooooo, he has this perverted obsession with Wafer. This is making me sick to my stomach! Okay, on another note, Steve is looking a little winded out there still. He needs more game minutes to get into game shape. I dont' think playing sporadic 10 minutes a game is going to help him get ready for a run in the playoffs. Luis is still underdeveloped for not getting consistent minutes of 30 plus a game. He is going to be a stud in this league...period! As I said to all on here before, Bonzi is going to be what we need to get over the hump. I would much rather wait on him to make layups than Shane to make threes! Bonzi makes his layups, someone else has to make Shane's threes. We have a championship team with a lottery bound coach and staff. We have a championship owner and GM with a arrogant slow moving trying to prove himself coach and staff. At this point, Im for Morey firing RA and bringing in any coach that would start this starting lineup, and play Shane, Chuck, MJ and Snyder off the bench. Otherwise, if a coach can't figure out that much as in who to play, WE DON'T NEED HIS OTHER GENIUOSNESS! I hope the Rockets don't feel just because they got another win that their problems are solved. We still will not get off to a majority of good starts with our old lineup. We still will never blow out teams with our old lineup. Tracy and Yao will still need to play 40 plus minutes a night with this lineup and coach in order to win. ( The played 42:24 and 44:13 last night against the stinking Grizzles) And I bet Rick thinks they had a good game cause they beat the stinking Grizzles by 13! Is there any other coach out there that has sense that we can get? Im getting so sick and tired of watching Adelman screw up what was supposed to be a magical season. He is messing with the entertainment portion of my life! I am disliking him wayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy more than Wafer at this point. Wafer has to play his sorry game when he is in there, but it is Rick Im Stupid Adelman who keeps playing him for 38 plus minutes a game! Is he the stupidest coach in the league or what? (please dont give me Wafer numbers from last night to try and convince me he did a good job.....I have two plus seasons of number from him with the Rockets!)
Well I noticed that it was this lineup that built the initial lead. I bet the coaches noticed, too. Calm down a bit. Let's just wait and see if they start using this lineup more. I agree that Steve was obviously out of shape. I bet the back injury did not help and he regressed a bit. Maybe that is why we saw Rafer so much.
Thanks for the warning man...I just took a calm down pill! (just kidding) I don't think Steve was out of the game due to his injury though. I saw one shot of him on the bench with like 5 minutes left in the fourth and you could tell that he was disturbed that he couldn't get in the game. I just think that RA has tunnel vision. And I am really starting to not like him. But, I am flexible. So if RA gets his act together and makes the necessary changes, I will flip the script so to speak. But I don't care about wins and losses right now. He can't fool me by winning a few games with this same lineup and preaching that everything is getting better. WE CAN NOT WIN IN THE PLAYOFFS WITH THIS STARTING LINEUP! SO UNTIL HE CHANGES IT, SEE MY SIGNATURE!
I know it's been said, but watching Tracy zip those passes to Bonzi for score after score was a thing of beauty. The Grizzlies just couldn't handle it. You have to ride that until they (or any other team) stop it, and then when they do, someone else is going to be really, really open. Adelman ball!
From the way Adelman ran the starting lineup and rotations in the second half, seems that during the game he didn't realize what "TEAM" made him get that lead. Maybe he thought Bonzi and Tmac did it all by themselves. But when the Grizzles tried to help or cheat, they had to worry about Yao or Steve getting off. ITS A FREAKING FIVE PLAYER TEAM ADELMAN! Let's hope he gets it from the tapes and makes some changes in the starting lineup tomorrow night! (Although I am not optimistic about it.)
I must have missed something. We won by 13, discovered a potent weapon (at least against the Grizzlies) with Tracy's pinpoint passes to Bonzi, who didn't look surprised to get them and instead scored easily for a season high, and you are "yelling" about Adelman? Who do you think draws up those plays? Bonzi?
