Hayes v. Howard v. Battier at PF: Why Start Howard?

Battier, is a better, and more reliable, player than Swift.

I don't care if Juwan is officially the starter as long as Battier gets more minutes there. Our best team in most situations will have Yao, Batt and Tmac on the frontline. Juwan can also get extra minutes in sharing the back-up C duties with Deke.

 

BTW, in response to Desert Scar, I don't believe rebounding is purely a function of quickness, but rather a function of having good rebounders. The Mavs have Howard, who is an excellent rebounder for a SF, as well as several big 1's (Harris, Daniels). Nowitzki is also oversized as well as quicker than most PF's giving them a lot of extra rebounding at that position.

A frontline of Yao/Battier/TMac is rather iffy in terms of rebounding. Yao and TMac are above average, but Battier could have problems vs. big 4's. None of our guards are particularly good rebounders. We were able to get away with having a crappy rebounder at the 4 two years ago (Howard) only because Sura was such a good rebounder from the 1 position. IMO, that may have been Sura's most valuable trait.

 

ON a CHAMPIONSHIP CONTENDER we need a better STARTING POWER FORWARD
than these three !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

You mean like CHUCKY BROWN?!?!?!?!?!

 

Reason to start Howard? There is NO reason. PER and per-minute numbers aren't voodoo stats, and supposedly reasearch has confirmed that most players' efficiency is consistent given more playing. If anything, players perform better when given a decent amount of minutes to get going, instead of playing scattered minutes off the bench. Hayes's per-minute stats happen to be terrific. He's undersized, but that doesn't seem to prevent him from making high quality performances.

Battier shouldn't start at PF, because his natural position is SF. T-Mac can comfortably slide down to SG without any major problems (if any). However, Battier could put in some time at PF if we ever choose to go with a small lineup.

Howard should be the 2nd/3rd string PF, getting sparse minutes off the bench only because the team lacks another true PF. He's nonexistent on defense, and a low-efficiency player on offense (all his FGAs are jumpshots, which don't produce points as efficiently as shots in the paint or drawing fouls). Simply put, Howard is terrible.

Hayes should be the starting PF. However, he won't be, because Juwan happens to be one of JVG's favored players. It's sad, but the team will likely end up throwing away Hayes's talent, not to mention a lot of wins.

 

On this one point I disagree. Let us not get carried away. I love what Hayes brings to the table but he has to score! His height will be a serious disadvantage when facing taller more mobile PF's in the Western Conference. At this time he is our Energy guy of the bench- or when we need a quick boost and some put backs around the basket. I think he desrves 20-25 Minutes and more if he shoots!

 

Hayes is like Battier. Neither shoots or scores much, but when they do shoot they are extremely efficient. I actually think Hayes's low-volume shooting could be a good thing for this team if we manage to sign Mike James. James, T-Mac, and Yao are all great scorers and high-usage players. There would be questions about how to spread the shots around, but a partial answer (at the least) would be to start Battier and Hayes as well. That unit would have 5 efficient scorers. Battier and Hayes would stay out of James and the stars' way, with Battier contributing with his "intangibles" and Hayes crashing the offensive boards.

Hayes had excellent defensive stats, allowing a very low eFG% of 0.412, 15.6 points per 48 minutes, and 13.3 PER. The stats from his (admittedly low) minutes last season suggest that he's a very good defender regardless of his height.

Anyway, the alternative is Juwan's defense, which we know is horrible.

 

If this reply is the limit to your intelligence, you didn't graduate from High School! Or you are so stupid that you just cant recognize what is a generally acclaimed opinion of this Forum.
Howard= not good enough
Hayes = not good enough, low scoring.
Battier = not a Power Forward and has limited athletic ability.

 

I'm hoping Hayes has improved enough by camp to deserve 20 minutes a game steady and then increase it as he learns the offensive flow of the team - and starts hitting some 8 footers.

Looking forward to watching JHo get stuffed by taller younger faster PF's more and more until even Gundy has to limit his minutes.

God please help us with a trade, PLEASE! Jho for ??? Surprise me God! Surprise me!

(With this management team the intervention of the Almighty is definitely needed to help us).

 

fact is, all 3 pf, howard, battier and hayes are not capable of being a full time starting power forward and being productive. Meaning, none can and will post at least 15/7. Howard's old and a defensive liability, battier lacks size for a true pf and some offensive liability, and hayes, well we all know his lack of size and basically he's just a bench material and cant guard anyone over 6'9.

 

As previously said, Howard has a good basketball IQ. He's a JVG type of player. He's experienced. I have the utmost confidence and support for JVG, so if he thinks Howard's the guy, then I'm down with that.

I totally agree with all of this. I think it'd be a big advantage to have all the energy guys come off the bench and pick up the tempo. That's part of what role players do; they provide sparks off the bench.

No, no, no. We really don't at all. This team is dependent on the core 2 being healthy and doing their thing. The second most important thing is that when they pass out of the double teams they're going to get that the perimeter shooters hit their shots. I'm getting really excited about the perimeter shooters now with a healthy T-Mac, Novak, Battier, and hopefully James. When the 2 dominate and the shooters hit, the Rockets wont lose. All they need from the 4 then is to be "sound, solid, and simple." They need to be efficient and do the little things. All 3 players will be great for this. They each bring their own things to the table, and I think it'll work out great.

Of course, none of them are capable of being a full-time starting PF by themselves alone. Every team can't be strong at all 5 positions; you gotta have a weakness somewhere. Okay, maybe some of the teams with great depth in the league are. But this matters not. The Houston Rockets don't need it due to the reasons I just described above. Think of all 3 of them contributing their own things together.

 

My one serious worry about Hayes is that he looks great in the regular season, but we don't know how he will do as a starter when facing the elite PFs in the playoffs.

He has proven that his height makes no difference with his rebounding most of the time, but there are always going to be those 2 or 3 rebounds he misses against Tim Duncan because Duncan can get 6" higher at the end of a game when both players are fatigued.

I have noticed that although his timing and tenacity make him an amazing overachiever in rebounding, that does not translate to his putbacks. Once he gets the ball and the defense quickly falls into place around the post, his putbacks are OFTEN blocked. He really needs to figure out how to handle that situation, or he needs to pass out to the perimeter.

It's the playoff matchups against Duncan, Nowitski, Marion, Stoudamire, Haslem, etc that are really going to determine his worth. He doesn't have to win these matchups, but he does need to maintain his worth in these games. We can't have him coming in and getting scored on in back-to-back-to-back possessions. Everyone compares him to Barkley in rebounding, which is accurate, but the flip side is that he isn't going to compensate for his other limitations with 30 points a night like Barkley could. If Hayes isn't scrapping and rebounding, he is going to be worthless.

 

Sadly the spot we are weak at - Power Ford- is the strong suit for most playoff bound Western Conference teams. About 50% of them are ALL STAR's or ALL STAR Calibre players.

Our strategy would be dominate the Center and the SF ( Whatever Tmac Plays this year!)- by a wide enough Margin so as to neutralize this perceived weakness. ( Depending on who we end up with SG weakness of last year will be convered or perhaps even be an advantage)

Here is where I think Battier will help this season, and mercifully Hayes is with us for the whole season- so we are assured of about 30 Minutes of ugraded defense at this spot. Who knows with lesser minutes Juwan may not be that fatigued and perhaps he will make up! For offense we have Juwan and Steve Novak for Defense we bring in Hayes and Battier.

I hope we sign Richie Frahm- that would mean we will have

Tracy, Steve Novak, Luther, M james ( ???), SG ( to be signed with the other exception) and Frahm all capable of draining open 3's if left alone.

 

as much as I would like to see Juwan coming off the bench (the guy could be worth upwards of 12-15 points a night as a 2nd option to McGrady when Yao is in foul trouble).. I think what is going to happen is we are going to start Battier some nights and Howard other nights depending on who we're facing. We're setting this team up to be more dynamic defensively, which is what you have to be if you're going to surge deep into the western conference playoff brackets..