For 1st year expectations?? I disagree. Show me the Rudy quote. Rudy has not said he expects him to take a lead role like Francis was expected to. I think you are referring to the BBS's expectations. Struggling is a relative term. I do not expect him to struggle on defense anymore than Horry did. Horry wasn't a SF at Alabama: He was their Center. We can safely say that Griffin's defensive stats exceed Horry, and their defensive roles were the same. Horry had to adjust to a new position, too. And Stacey Augmon frequently patrolled the middle in small lineups for UNLV's amoeba defense. And while Bo Outlaw (a college center/shotblocker) can't make the transition to SF, I think we can all agree that he is not as fast as Horry, Griffin and Augmon. It is not that unprecedented for a sleak and fast, defensive-minded athletic shotblocker to move to the perimeter. The other thing you conveniently ignore is the zone rules now. Covering Jamison and Carter and whoever else will not involve as much ISO defense now. Besides, unless you are way off topic here, you are really saying that Shandon can guard these guys better, worthy of him starting!. Dreamshake is mainly talking about needing Shandon to start to help out with Griffin these first 1 or 2 years. As for Jamison, again you are talking about superstardom pressure applied to 1st yr expectations. Your Jamison example and my Horry example show that needing Shandon to start goes without merit. Tell why 10ppg and 6.5rpg in 22mpg by Jamison is not good starters numbers for Griffin. Jamison failed to meet star potential in his first year, it took him his second yr to hit 19.6 and 8.3 star numbers. good grief. You are the one applying unrealistic 1st yr expectations, if you think Jamison failed just because he didn't compete for ROY.
In regards to the Shandon Anderson should be playing in front of Griffin, yeah, I'm way off that topic. I never mentioned Shandon Anderson once in any of my posts. But part of the original post was about plugging EG immediately and expecting him to live up to his potential. Do I really know what Rudy and the gang is expecting out of him? Not really. None of us do. How much stock can we take with any comments Rudy makes in the media? When I hear coaches make comments that "we never expected in a wildest dreams that so and so was this good." I think that is B.S. in a lot of situations. Also, this BBS and Rocket fans in general expectations can be just as important as "in-house" Rocket expectations in determining the development of a player or team. If an incoming player disappoints fans and their expectations, they can turn on him and become a deciding factor for him to leave for free agency. Also, the player could lose confidence in his ability, so the current environment becomes detrimental for his development. If the environment isn't right..If the fans aren't behind the player..it makes it harder for the decision-makers to stand by their player no matter how much they think of his abilities. Classic examples: Danny Ferry. Top 3 pick in the 1989 draft. After blowing off the Clippers to play overseas, he returns to the US amid high expectations of Cavs fans. He fails to live up to expectations, loses confidence in his outside J, and is mired on the Cavs bench for years. Donyell Marshall. Number 4 pick in the 1994 draft right after Grant Hill. Plays horribly for the Timerwolves right off the bat. Fans start to boo him and his oversize contract(back when rookies could negotiate their contract. HIs deal was if my memory serves me correct for 7 years, 42 million). He gets dealt to Golden State his first season. When he gets to GS, the man averages over 14 ppg, over 6 rpg, and over 1 bpg. Still not enough for fans who are expecting more in return for Chris Webber(via Tommy Googs)Next two seasons, fails to get any meaningful playing time off the bench. Becomes untradeable until 2 years ago when he had a good season. Now plays a key role on the Utah Jazz team. Tim Thomas. Number 7 pick in the 1997 draft. Freshmen sensation at Villanova. Leaves the following spring to pursue NBA dreams. Gets drafted by the Nets and traded for the number 2 pick in the draft. 6'9", 220 lbs. coming out of college. Sounds familiar to someone. Anyways has a decent rookie season. The bottom drops out his 2nd season. Philly fans aren't going to sit by and wait for him to develop. The 76ers end up trading him during his 2nd season. He now thrives in his role with the Bucks making 10 million a year. So the expectations of our beloved BBS and Rocket fans in general does matter. But I guess I could base in house Rocket expectations on Rudy's press conference interview after the draft saying they were looking for perimeter shooting, shot-blocking, rebounding, and some low post presence. They got all of that with Griffin according to Rudy. So I figure some of Rudy's first year expectations might fall somewhere along those lines. Of course, EG is not expected to take a lead role. He's not coming into a rebuilding situation where he has to be the man. But I'm making a educated guess that Rudy wants him to step in immediately and play a integral role in helping us make a run in the playoffs. All signs point to the Rockets standing pat and resigning their own free agents. Would the original Rockets team from last year minus Griffin be able to make a serious run in next year's playoffs? I doubt it. If the original cast is back, I think the Rockets mentality is that Griffin can signicantly help them this year and help out with their weaknesses from last season. I think the Rockets are expecting Griffin to do a lot more for them from the start than the Clips expected from Miles at the start. Anyways, this has gone too far. I'm not saying Griffin is going to be a failure or play below expectations. I'm just saying that there is a decent chance that Griffin might struggle somewhat relative to expectations. And I don't want the Rockets family to be quick to rid themselves of him if he does. And by the way, I am expecting him to start right away at SF and make solid contributions towards our playoff efforts. ------------------
Dreamshake, you say that our small forward rotation will consist of vastly unproven players except for Walt and Bull(who are old and soon to be out of the picture anyway). Therefore we should resign Anderson if we want to win because none of your young gun sf's (Langhi, Griff, T-mo) might really pan out this year. That might be the case, but I don't think it would be hard for any of the above 3 (especially Griffin) to make at least the same amount of contribution that Shandon made. Of course Griffin isn't going to come in and dominate and reach his potential right away, but that is no reason to resign Shandon because even if Griffin (or Langhi and T-mo for that matter) don't have stellar years, I'm quite confident that they will at least have as good of a year as Shandon had last year. Resigning Shandon because Griffin and the other young sf's won't make some kind of dramatic impact is not the right way to go. Even if they don't have great years, they can average Shandon-esque numbers easily. KG averaged 10 his first year, Kobe averaged 7... that's not too far off from Shandon at 8.7 pts a game. And Griff was 1 more year of experience than the high schoolers, and I believe that can make a big difference. Who's to say Griffin can't come in and average at least 8.7 and play better defense and rebounding than Shandon? I certainly think he can. And that's really all we need from him in order to not resign Shandon. ------------------ its not the hours you put in your work that counts, it's the work you put in the hours - alaskansnowman
