I took a look at the plus/minus stats for the Rockets and was shocked to find out how much of a liablity Howard and Bowen are. The iIndividual Player Floor Time statistics from 82games.com showed how much they are hurting the team. Player Min Net Off Def Net48 W L Win% McGrady 54% +65 92.6 87.6 +5.0 8 7 53.3 Ming 64% +49 91.2 88.1 +3.1 12 9 57.1 Head 52% +19 88.5 87.0 +1.5 8 12 40.0 Bowen 28% -43 83.2 89.4 -6.2 7 13 35.0 Howard 56% -110 80.8 88.8 -8.0 6 18 25.0 Jeff needs to bench them and find other options
Do we honestly have a choice? We have to play every healthy body or we won't have a rotation to begin with.
Good point, but for Howard especially. How many guys on this team can create their own shot? How many guys can consistently hit an open jumper? Yeah, he doesn't rebound well for a PF, but we need offense right now. I'd even run Mo Taylor out there if we still had him.
We have about 7-8 players that are able to play and now we start complaining about who shouldn't be playing?
Um. Juwan Howard had 21 points and 12 rebounds on Wednesday. Him and Head were probably the only bright spots in that game.
Okay yeah. We have an 8 man lineup right now. let's take 2 more out for the hell of it. So we have 5 guys starting, and 1 bench player.
Umm, Howard is averaging 43.2% from the field as a PF and has blocked a whopping 2 shots for the entire season.
right now, we don't have a choice. we are running out of players. personally though, i think bowen doesn't need to be playing a whole lot because he keeps on taking long outside jumpers early in the shot clock, and hasn't made a single one in like 2 weeks. i rather have stephen graham out there than bowen. he's just killing 4-5 possessions a game right now taking shots outside of his range, and that is just pretty much layups.
I will never understand why so many people dislike JH. It's borderline stupidity, IMO. I could understand if Stro was a decent player, but the fact is JH is better right now. Get over it please, especially when we have only 8-9 healthy bodies. If/when Stro decides to start playing hard/smart on a consistent basis, he'll bump Howard out of the way. But the sad fact is Stro is such a sorry player, he cannot. Let's hope this changes. Yeah, it's usually bad when JH leads us in scoring, but when Tracy goes 2/11 what do you expect? How many 20/10s does Stro have this year? I can count them on my elbow. And Bowen's shelf life is about over. I knew it was coming. But for now, he's going to get playing time because he's a human being with a pulse. When DA & JB come back, Bowen will go back to being player #9. Give it a rest, please. Some of these threads are so immature it's a joke.
That's the problem with Juwan. One game he would play so good, but he can't keep up his performance on a nightly basis. It would not surprise to see another 0/9 or 1/9 shooting performance with 2 rebs and no blocks from Juwan in the next couple of games. BY THE WAY PLEASE PAY STRRROOOMMMMILE
In the last 5 games Juwan is averaging 13.4 pts and 8.2 rebounds on 52.7% shooting. His only poor game in this stretch was back on the 17th when he only took 3 shots. He still grabbed 10 boards. Its hard for him to get shots when Tmac took 28, Yao took 17 and BOWEN took 11. Tmac and Yao should be taking their shots but I agree that Bowen should not be playing or shooting as much as he is.
You blast Juwan for being inconsistent, then say that Stro should get more playing time over him? You guys REALLY think Lonny Baxter will help us more?
dharocks, it's hopeless trying to use logic. The JH "haters" and Stro lovers will have none of it. Stro must start; JH must sit and that's the end of it! On Baxter: When we get our team back, maybe he should become the backup PF, ahead of Stro. I think the reason he fouls so much could be a lack of playing time and feel for the game. Hopefully he'll start learning what he can and cannot get away with. Stro, on the other hand, still hasn't learned in 377 NBA games.
