Battier is the best I've seen in some time at tipping a loose rebound out to a perimeter player. He goes up in a crowd and tips it to a guard who can either restart the offense or start a break. He doesn't have the rebounding knack of Hayes and he's not strong enough to bully his way to the glass, but he's effective down there nonetheless.
well if you count the 3.2 rbs a game that Juwan steals from his team mates... he's right where we want him to be.
that's bec juwan stole em.... give half of juwon's to battier and you'll see that he's actually improved ... heheheh just kidding
You know, the Rockets could of had Hakeen AND Jordan on the same team if they worked it right. Hmmm. I am sure my hind sight is 20/20 but. That's life. As for R Gay, he is playing for another team that is losing big and he's getting major minutes. Do you serious think he would get the minutes here? Who is our coach again? You are going to have to break TMac's legs to have R Gay have major minutes here. So is that the game plan???? You know, if Swift was here, would Hayes have all those minutes to proof himeself the Gem that he is? Not a scorer but man can he defend and board. Would you like Swift to get the minutes? Don't forget that the deal was to get ride of that bo-zo too.
OK, I'm done arguing with durvasa on the Battier for Swift/Gay trade, but it's just annoying as hell when people repeat false information. Swift got a grand total 20.4 MPG last year, even less than this year. Towards the end of the year he wasn't even playing. Furthermore, Juwan Howard's minutes were below his career average and only increased by 5 minutes compared to the year before despite Yao and TMac collectively missing 50+ games. The vast majority of the minutes at the 4 went to Keith Bogans, who played 26.6 MPG and even started in 31 games. Which really brings up the real reason why Hayes didn't play much last year: because he was so damn foul prone (although JVG did sit him a bit towards the end). In fact, one thing Hayes did improve marginally this year is to foul less, even though he still fouls a ton. He's at least staying on the court. So with Bogans being cut from the roster this year, Hayes' minutes would have increased (and it should. He played well), Swift or no Swift. Trading away or keeping Swift simply isn't a factor towards Hayes' minutes.
not to hijack the thread... but it was stated by Rockets personel that part of the reason that Swift was traded was to give more time to Chuck. Dennis Lindsey talks about Battier trade I had seen several times where people had said that Chuck's increasing minutes had nothing to do with Swift leaving, when in fact, according to at least one person, it did.
Wait, I am confused. Why are we comparing Gay with Warrick again? Don't you have to compare Gay with Battier if you have to bring up the trade again in this thread. Also both Gay and Warrick have negative on court +/- numbers, I am not impressed with either of them.
Usually in life it works like this, big risks earn big rewards, no risk earns very little reward. Gay was a big risk, would we wait for a season or two for him to complete maturing and adapting to the game? He might be a superstar, he might be a superdud. We don't know yet, he definitely has the potential. Shane Battier was a guaranteed reward with little risk. We knew that he could play solid D, shoot the 3, and fit in with the team. It turns out however that the Shane Battier trade was little risk HIGH reward. He's been just amazing! I love Shane Battier, he's an amazing addition to this team. Shane Battier is proven to help now, Gay is not. For the people that didn't like the trade, T-Mac and Yao don't have the time to see whether Gay will be a solid defender, a great offensive scoring option, etc. They needed a player who could play D, hit the open shot, and fit in with the team perfectly. They got Shane Battier. Good trade IMO. Shane Battier does it all, man. He hits open 3's, he hit's open J's, he can create his own shot in the post, he's a pretty good passer, he hustles his ass off, he takes charges, he locks up the other teams best player, and he always makes smart plays. I can't 'till the Lakers game. I want to see how Shane guards Kobe and how Yao and T-Mac play to get us the W. The only thing I just noticed about Battier is that I have a man crush on him
Appears you weren't following along closely enough. Probably the reason for your confusion. So let me help you by providing the posts before mine ... Now if you have issues with the factual evidence which I "credit" to Rudy Gay...take a swing. If you're not following the Warrick connection, you obviously don't know how highly rated he is on the board. Too late to prove it now, but I'd have wagered that the vast majority of this board would have said Warrick had the higher +/- of the two. And that would have been based on perception. And perception is what I think the +/- stat is. IOW...the Warrick-Gay +/- comment was put in to show how bogus the +/- stat is. A bad choice perhaps on my part. I probably should have pointed out the Alston has the 3rd highest +/- on the Rockets and Deke is 1.8 behind McGrady.
I don't have the stats to back this up (because I'm too lazy to look for them), but since JVG's system limits the number of possessions each team gets, Battier's rebounding stats SHOULD go down. Much the same way T-Mac's scoring went down after he came over form Orlando.
You may continue to argue that Gay and Swift would be the better choice over the long term than Battier and Hayes getting increased minutes. But it is looking more and more like Battier, Hayes were the right choices for this team for this year at the very least. I suppose the discussion over Gay, Swift, and Mike James, as opposed to Battier, Hayes, and VSpan and Novak locked up for 3 years along with essentially a $2 million expiring contract in Bonzi will continue for quite some time. I still think CD did the right thing overall. Mike James didn't really give him the opportunity to discuss the trade kicker with the rest of the front office. He put CD in a situation of take it or leave it. CD could have possibly taken James with the trade kicker if he would have given him 15 minutes to make a couple phone calls. But that's not the way it went down. So, we've got to give CD the benefit of the doubt on that one. I'm still okay with everything that went down this summer and I think there is the possibility that it gets even better at the trade deadline if we turn Bonzi into a decent trade.
Frankly, there are many games the Rocket would have lost if they had Gay and Swift intead of Battier (and Hayes playing much of Swift's minutes). Battier and Hayes have been difference makers, Gay and Swift, overall, have not. I'll have to say Rudy Gay looks like a decent rookie, but future star? No one can be close to certain about that.
... Oh sorry maybe I should have said big risks CAN earn big rewards but I thought that was a given...
So, Battier has not rewarded the Rockets with anything so far this season? How's the big risk we took on that Griffin kid working out? They really would have screwed up had they stayed conservative and kept the unexciting combo of Jefferson and Collins back then. The numbers say that over the years, only about 20% of lotto picks turn into stars. So far, Rudy Gay has not shown anything that indicates he's doesn't have the 20% chance, and he's shown nothing to indicate he's got a higher chance than other talented lotto pick kids, either.
Watching T-Mac and Yao play, it would have been ridiculously stupid to have made them wait another couple of years till Gay developed. They will be capable of winning a championship this year and the following two. Grand total of 3. With Gay, we would only have a real shot in the 3rd year. That's 1 year. MAYBE One and a half. I really could care less. I'm pretty sure that if you look at Battier's and Gay's AVERAGE performances for their first 3 years with their new teams, they will look the same. The total 3-year production is the same, but we needed a lower standard deviation per year more than we needed a risky improvement each season. What I don't like is that we threw in Swift. A guy who shoots 50%, rebounds decently, can block shots, and would have the best mid-range J among all our big guys this season... That's valuable. Ridiculous that we didn't trade Juwan instead, making us even younger, more athletic, and giving us more insurance at backup 5. Not to mention Swift would have been someone who would fetch us something in another trade. Right about now, I have to wonder if a Swift and Head/Lucas package could land us Marcus Williams and garbage. Despite all that, I'm happy with the team. Don't want to be greedy. I know this team will get better as Spanoulis, Sura, Snyder, Howard and Novak are all rotation guys who haven't offered their best yet. At least a few of them will. Plus, there's Bonzi who will either be a non-factor, or help us out. The team won't allow him to be a negative factor. Good to see such good rebounding differential numbers. I'm going to watch the last few games and see if Battier does anything to get rebounds for his teammates.
I totally agree with you on you're assessment on Battier. When you are supposed to guard the other team's best offensive weapon, you're job after a shot goes up is to find ur man and D up. If Battier hangs around, trying to steal offensive rebounds, then he is not focused on his job as a defender. When I played high school ball, i had a coach that was very similar to JVG. He was short tempered, easily aggravated, and defensive minded. He taught us that as soon as a shot is up, we should get back on defense and find our man. We knew what we were getting in Battier when we traded for him. He is a guy that doesn't fret over stats. Instead, he does all the little things that make teams win. He hustles, plays stout D, and does whatever he is told. On a side note, its nice to see JVG use battier in the post. He's got a nice jump hook.
Ummm... Bogans played the 4? Did u really watch any games last year? He was a guard and never played the 4. He's about 6'4" at most.
C'mon...the first two comments are an opinion. You're smart enough to know you can't factually back that up. It's like me saying the Rockets would have beaten the Jazz, Hornets, and TWolves had they not been cheap and given Mike James a trade kicker. While I strongly suspect this, I (and neither can you) prove an opinion. Why you expect Rudy Gay and Swift to carry the Grizzlies is beyond me. News flash...Gasol is injured. How well do you think Battier would look on MEM this year with Pau out? The better Rudy Gay gets over time, the worse the trade looks. It was all about win now as in the Championship. And that is still a WIP. Or, perhaps it is your opinion the Rockets were not a playoff team with Swift and Rudy Gay. Something I don't buy into.
