u never answered my questions even w healthey TMac and Yao toge we should check out our NBA history book, and that says Idleman has a choking effect on his teams. Blazer and Sacto keep on rationalizing. yet, how do u explain that the Lakers missed the playoff only once in the last 40+ yrs.
I know where you are coming from, and I don't agree. I believe we can contend with fully healthy Yao and T-Mac. Not that we would be a favorite to win it all. But we would be among the handful of teams who could. That doesn't mean we shouldn't continue to upgrade. But this core is very good when healthy. Health problems aside, it is risky to break up a good core. You may get a slight upgrade here and there. But if you tear up the core, even if you are more talented overall (unless the talent is clearly far superior), you never know if the talents will fit together. Beside, we have a new coach who has patiently establish his system over the season. Breaking it up means starting all over again.
If you give me a healthy Yao and a health Landry for that game, all other things being the same, I would gladly give them a healthy Bynum and a healthy Gasol and I would LOVE my chances vs the Lakers. All you people who wanna trade away Battier beware. Kobe will drop 50 on us. Consistently. HE doesn't own him but he makes Kobe work. and he makes him work hard. Every shot is contested, and he has nothing left in the 4th quarter. Plus we don't have to double and triple team Kobe the way other teams do. As hard as it is for some of you to swallow, Battier is the second key to us beating the Lakers. Health is obviously the first. Doesn't matter if we get a "scorer" to score 18 points versus Shane's 10, if Kobe scores 49 and 20 in the 4th versus Kobe scoring 29 and 5 in the 4th.
I like the way you bring it!! All of your points are valid, I've been saying the same thing as well. The Rockets are sorely lacking in the hieght and lenght department and until they recognize that, we will forever be left behind. Remember Morey said it himself, the Rockets are one of the few organizations that does not put an emphasis on a players height, i.e, Hayes, Brooks, Harris, Head, and to a certain point scola and/or Landry. This puzzled the heck out of me!!
i agree, i think we match up well with the lakers. i think we are capable of beating any team in the wc, i used to exclude phx, but with the addition of shaq yao would be able to be more effective
I agree. Shane Battier can match up with Kobe, on the other side we have McGrady. Yao can easily outplay Bynum. Andrew is good but there is no way he can stop Ming from scoring. Gasol is good, he is probably right now better than Scola but they know each other very well and I belive Scola can stop him. I can pretty much say that Rafer=Fisher. Probably Derek is more constatant shooter but every time Rafer goes 8/11 we will WIN
Anyone who thinks we have a shot to beat the Lakers in a playoff series with our current team is a fool.
nice to see all the support for the home team but get real. The lakers are in the finals and dominated with a 12-3 record to get there. The rox can not beat the lakers. If the rox could beat the lakers we would be in the finals. Getting jermaine o'neal would be a good counter to the lakers getting gasol, the pacers may move him but we would have to give up Yao to get him.
Let's be realistic, the Lakers have a better starting line up than the Rockets and a better bench. They also have Phil Jackson and an owner that doesn't mind paying money for good players. Can we win a game against the Lakers? The answer is Yes but it would be smart not to play them first round. Let's face it, they have a great roster.
The people who think that the Rockests current roster stands a chance against elite competition in the playoffs are really delusional. If you've been watching the playoffs you can see that the Rockets are definitely not on the same level of the final four in the west and final two in the east. Too many role players and not enough multi dimensional/athletic basketball players play for the Rockets. This is why Rudy Gay would've been a tremendous addition. How can we beat the Lakers? Start by getting Ron Artest.
seriously this is why I don't read or post in GARM much...too many fans here are sunshine pumpers and drink too much kool-aid. whatever happened to the coldly logical and unbiased analytical fans?
I'm not buying the scola v gasol: vs. Houston 3 38.7 7.3-15.0 48.889 0.0-1.0 .000 9.3-11.3 82.353 0.67 1.00 2.0 1.7 2.3 6.3 8.7 2.7 24.0
KG, Pierce, Allen. Kobe, Gasol, Odom. Billups, Hamilton, Wallace. Duncan, Manu, Parker. Three All Star calibre players looks like the winning formula. Alston or Battier just aren't up to it as the third wheel. The Rockets need to either trade either one or sign a rookie that can fill that position.
I was all set to rip this apart, simply because my intuition tells me that Tim Thomas is everything the Rockets aren't; he's extremely talented and athletically gifted, but devoid of any heart or defensive intensity. The stats seem to say otherwise, however; amazingly, he's around the league median in scoring and rebound rates for players over 350 minutes, while actually being near the top third in assist rate. He even improved the Clippers on defense substantially, around 3 points per 100 posessions, despite being atrocious in terms of limiting his man. So I do see where you're coming from. But philosophically, I'm opposed to any sort of PF next to Yao who isn't a good rebounder and active on defense. I'm a big believer in getting pieces that fit together; Tim Thomas doesn't seem to fit well next to Yao; he's a mediocre rebounder at best, and we need an outstanding one because of Yao's mobility limitations. Offensively, it's even worse, considering he hoists 3s at a rate greater than Battier, he's rarely around the basket to get any easy ones; if you've been watching the playoffs, you know the increased emphasis on rebounding, particularly second chance points, where the Lakers and Celtics dominated. This team for years has been too dependent on the three; it's one of the reasons why scoring droughts are a frequent occurence in the Toyota Center. As for the Lakers themselves, I'm interested to see if the "Big lineup" they can throw out of Bynum/Gasol/Odom/Bryant/Farmar will be able to work well. To me, it seems like they don't have enough shooters for the Triangle, and you must bring away one of bigs from the basket, limiting their effectiveness. Lamar Odom also loses his quickness advantage and unique ability to play PF-Point, a unique combination that few teams are able to match. He can't necessarily make use of his size in the post as well, because of the two 7 footers clogging the paint. If Bynum can't play properly with Gasol, then the Lakers aren't a tremendously better team when he returns. If the combination works, the rebounding and size advantage they will hold over the Rockets will be difficult to overcome.
What puzzles the heck out of me is why people have so much trouble with Morey trying to take the best talent available. I'd much rather have a guy who's going to produce and is undersized, than have a guy who's got the prototype body and can't play. I don't really see why everyone blames Morey for Luther, considering he was in Boston when Head was drafted, and as I've said multiple times before, Hayes is the perfect 10th man/specialist for this team, and he's on reasonable money. Harris is an inactive list guy; I could just as easily say that Morey signed Loren Woods for next year, so he's emphasizing height now. Aaron Brooks, the jury is still out, but you have to be extremely encouraged that Adelman was willing to play him over Luther, even as a rookie, and even as he was making mistakes. And if Rajon Rondo can learn to shoot between his rookie and sophmore campaigns, a former 3pt champion should at the very least, be able to regain his stroke and confidence. In case people haven't been paying attention, the undersized, all-out hustle power forward is as in vogue today as the combo guard and point forward were a few years ago. It's one of the main places where you can find value significantly above draft position, whether it's Paul Millsap, Carl Landry, Glen Davis, Craig Smith, Ronny Turiaf, David Lee, Jason Maxiell, Reggie Evans and the greatest of them all in the NBA right now, Carlos Boozer. They're like possession receivers, or third down backs; not blessed with enough talent or physical gifts to be stars, but they will do one thing extremely well very early in their careers, and will be effective at it. I have no problems with what Morey is doing with his strategy right now, which appears to be talent accumulation and roster flexibility, two things that were sorely lacking in the Franchise/Cat era, where the team was loaded with rangy athletes, drafted for potential, and bottomed out. The real trick for Morey is to maximize the value of his picks; one strategy is to bunt and scrape out an insurance run, sacrificing the pick for guaranteed incremental value to put you over the top; one is to swing for the fences, knowing you'll strike out half of the time, and one is to drive it to the opposite field, pick up 3 singles and trade them in for a run. Size concerns were what got Chris Paul dropped below Deron Williams; as great as Deron is, I would think there's little debate as to who's going to be better, barring injury. (Insert Hockey Analogy to complete the theme).
Gospel. Im not sure people realize just how long, athletic & skilled LA is as a team. Role players cant be relied upon for consistant production during the playoffs. I wish i could make a thread stressing the important of a 3rd scorer. Houston has needed one since losing to Dallas 4 years ago. I guess people think "hustle" is a skill. Otherwise there's no way people can look at what the Lakers are doing and think houston is in their league. The Rockets are a tier below the elites...just like last year & 2 years before that.
Sorry as much as I love the rockets we will be outmatched by the Lakers by far. 7 game series are always different and the playoff atmosphere will change the game. Look at some of the players that do so well in the regular season do horrendous in the post season. They have role players that step up and plus they got gasol, kobe (best player in the nba and mr. mvp), Odom, AND bynum. matchups: rafer alston - derek fisher - derek fisher is a better defender and shooter in knowing the inconsistencies of rafer tracy mcgrady - kobe bryant - As good as Tmac is, he has passed his prime while kobe is still tipping the edge therefore besides passing, kobe owns tmac shane battier - lamar odom - defensive specialist/3 point shooter, that is all battier is, lamar odom with his size and ball handling abilities will be a huge factor for the game and dont forget that he can pass just as well luis scola - pau gasol - gasol is considered a franchise player, he was the key player in memphis where his team was built around, there is no comparison between these two, gasol is just better overall, some would say scola is a poor man's gasol yao ming - bynum - Here is where it gets good for us, yao has dominated bynum before mainly because yao is so much more talented but also because bynum's lack of experience, if yao was to hold his own in the playoffs which he still has not proven and can pass out of double teams and if we were to play amazing defense on all of these starters then maybe we could have a chance but until then we are outmatched by every player except one and dont forget the bench who does absolutely nothing. bobby jackson, please, luther head, nope, chuck hayes, no, carl landry was a very big surprise but will he be able to go through gasol and bynum or even turiaf? what we need is consistent players and not washed out ones that we always get, please makes some good trades, mike miller would be perfect for us - PC
