Jay, jay, jay, listen man, i've already gone over that. the suns offensive style is unstoppable for the most part. Of course they still have to hit their shots, but their system allows them to always get the shots they want, so they're good shots, so they 're likely not to miss much. the reason they're not a playoff team or a contender is because they dont play D consistently enough. When they play, there's 3 possible outcomes: great offesnive night, no defense (happens most of the season) great offensive night, some defense (happens a few times) Ok offensive night, no defense (happens a few times) Usually that translates to 50 wins or so every year, but that's it. This season would have been no different except that remember they changed their playing style under Porter. That was the whole first half of the season, they played D and slowed down their offense and they didnt do well. They fired porter and went back to the running style in Feb and are winning most of the time again. You can play Ok defense and the other team will still score, haven't you ever heard of that? Defenders can do all the right things, but if the offense is rollin, then they'll still score, that's what happens. It's not black and white, you're saying that good defense= other team doesnt score, bad defense = team scores. How about the other team is hot or cold??? that plays a big part as well, not just the defender. Don't get what i'm saying twisted, by no means am i saying the suns style is better or will win them a ring, it obviously wont as history has shown, but ANY team and ANY player will tell you that on any given night the suns offense can be unstoppable and they can hang 140 pts on ANYONE and beat ANYONE. This doesn't mean they can just turn it on whenever they want to, but when they're hot, they're hot, you aint stopping them...
I'm not saying good defense means the other team can't score. I'm saying good defense isn't allowing over 60% from the field or even close to 60%. That's bad defense in basketball. Also as for the Porter thing, that was around all-star break. They had their chance and blew it numerous times. The kings game before ours. Letting a team shoot 60% is bad defense. If JVG was there last night he would have said so. No matter how good the opposing team is...that's just TOO high. You can't pat the team on the back and say "Well you tried, they are a unstoppable force." Yeah their shots are falling and their rolling...if you try and outscore them and play no defense. It was just bad defense last night, you're the only person i've seen on the boards call it anything but bad defense.
Me being the only person who's said it isn't saying much considering half this board os full of knee jerkers and the other half probably aren't talking about it at all. There has to be a distinction made between bad defense and lack of effort on defense. If you say the rockets defensive strategy was a bad one as a team, then i'll agree to that. Yao wasnt coming up to cover Nash on the pick and roll and that freed nash to drive and dish or pull up for the J. So that was a bad defensive strategy. However, that doesn't automatically mean their effort wasn't there, which is what i'm reading since last night. They gave a good defensive effort, but the strategy wasn't a good one, i dont see how you can blame any one player for that. Blame the coach or blame the whole team if they agreed on that strategy, not one or two guys. checkout my video thread, i point some things out there that may clear up my view on this..
I thought the 2nd half strat and execution was much better. The Rockets looked like they were a bit rusty in the first half defensively. Rotations were a bit slow, and half of Phoenix's points were in the paint. The Rockets arent going to stop Nash on the pick n roll without giving up something to the roller. And they wont stop the roller without giving up something to Nash. (At least with Yao in the lineup) But you can stop alot of the easy baskets they were getting away from the PNR. Which I thought the Rockets did a better job of in the 2nd half.
I'll check it out for sure but right now my internet is acting screwy and I can't do much of anything but post on forums which is a shame. I never just blamed Battier and Artest. The whole team was bad, I just said you can't expect the team to play good defense when your two best defensive players are having problems playing defense. Also I am done blaming Adelman for anything, I now realize what he brings and doesn't bring to the table and just accept it.
A) were all around better B) Made less money and C) Had lower values And you say I'm the liar? And that's mostly just from one anti- shane thread you've posted in, you repeat yourself a lot, so imagine if i could find all of the other threads... You see, you keep refering to deals suchs as ray allen's and ron's as the norm, when they are the exception. you believe that just because they were acquired FOR LESS than they are worth that those deals are available all the time. I'm surprised you haven't brought up the Gasol deal, or even Kobe for Vlade. The truth is those deals arent always on the table, if they are, it's rare and because someone is forcing someone out and they're trying to get as much as they can even if it's not equal value. Sometimes you just have to be lucky, houston probably couldn't have swung the ron deal if the kings didn't like Greene, and that was mainly because he was blowing up in summer league and therefore showing some promise...there's also the jackson expiring contract, it's not as simple as "a couple of first round picks" as you write. if you look at when he was traded from chicago to Indiana: "Artest, Ron Mercer, Brad Miller and Kevin Ollie to the Indiana Pacers for Jalen Rose, Travis Best, Norman Richardson and a future second-round draft pick" Then you could say we got robbed because in that chicago trade Rons value is lower than greene, a first rounder, and bobby jax..he got traded with Brad Miller and Mercer, who at the time was a decent role guy, for Jalen, a role guy, a scrub and a second rounder. This just goes to show you that the value of players change because the NBA is a business. In a perfect league we could trade equal value back and forth and trades would never be one sided and an all-star would always be traded for an all-star and a scrub for srub, but that's not the way it works, players aren't awlays available and they surely don't always have FIXED VALUE, which you still don't get. Look at what Jersey gave up for Vince Carter....Eric Williams, Aaron Williams, and an alonzo Mouring who wasn't going to play...That was Carter's value at the time, not even one active all star, not even a semi-star....yet the Nets could probably turn around this year and trade him for another similar star...value changes depending on what you need, what is available, etc. Also, you talk about what Pietrus can do, but that's what we know he can do now consistently. It wasn't a fact back then, he could have easily faded away after having a good year and he almost did : "Problem is, Golden State has little incentive to make a deal it doesn't like, and its executives still view Pietrus as an important part of the team, if he can return to last season's level of play" That's refering to the season you're raving about. He actually declined in level of play the next year, which goes back to what i said about him not being established completely. You don't trade for someone like that when you want someone to play a big role and you think you're gonna win now. And i've actually acknowledged they overpaid for Shane, that's why i brought up that analogy about overpaying for something you need. And its not about overpaying just because you're in a hurry, sometimes yes, but it's also because you can't find what you want elsewhere. I'm sure a lot of us on here have paid extra for something we needed and couldn't find more or for something we needed right away? the rockets were up against the clock on draft day, they didn't have an unlimited amount of time, just like the roy deal broke down that day other deals get affected, if they shopped around and couldn't find the guy they wanted for a better deal and they felt shane was worth the pick since it would give them a guy they wanted next to the big two, then although they overpaid, it's worth it to them. You once again have to take into consideration that they also got rid of swift and apparently that gave them flexibility for other moves later, so again, it's a business, you're not exactly trading basketball cards with buddies..... And yes, Pietrus displeasure developed over time, THE YEAR AFTER THE SHANE TRADE. That's my point, pietrus had no intentions of leaving in 06 and Gs had no intentions of trading him so how the hell could he be avilable to houston in place of shane? It was the next year that he was upset, demanded a trade, then that summer he made up with them and wanted to stay, it's all int he quotes i provided, you know, actual proof.. Childress? One, you never mentioned him, EVER. You're jumping on it now to save your argument, like you normally do. And Leebigez never said he was avilable, he said it's a plyer he was hoping Houston would look at at that time, which is why i replied and asked him if Childress was even available then.... Seriously, just stick to the truth, argue that shane isn't aggressive enough, argue his shot was horrible most of the year, argue THAT, don't go and add other things that you're not even sure of just to make your case against shane bigger and badder, it's pointless and that's what makes you a hater and not just someone who's truly looking out for the team.
