I love Shane Battier, and wish that we would have aquired him years ago. We traded a definite, reliable starter who will never be an all-star. FOR Someone who will most assuredly be as good as Battier in 3 years, but could be an all-star in the future. To be more specific than the Battier trade was "too expensive". My problem is the philosophy of the trade. I don't think we should sacrifice the future for the present to the extent that we did, especially considering our potentially serious needs in the future because of McGrady's back. BUT, philosophy really means nothing in the NBA. The draft really isn't about the philosophy of balancing present needs with future needs. The NBA draft is really about who is the most intelligent scout, or who drafts RIGHT and who drafts WRONG. Look at Phoenix. I would NEVER draft a team like the one Phoenix has assembled. BUT, Phoenix wins a lot of games, so they are RIGHT. If the Rockets win a championship with Battier, the Rockets were RIGHT. If Rudy Gay becomes an all-star, the Rockets were WRONG. If both happen, everyone was RIGHT. Hindsight is 20/20? Kinda.... More importantly, hindsight will tell us if the Rockets were RIGHT or WRONG. Harsh, but true. My advice is to wait and see who was RIGHT.
You're clutching at straws. You brought plus/minus into the discussion - then you tried to retreat with some ridiculous stuff about how the Rockets were supposed to beat those teams anyway. Fact of the matter is, I'm more than happy that we got Battier - and those who are really knowledgable about the game, like Will, DaDakota, haven and many others, are as well. You tried to object with plus/minus stats and tried to put down those who liked the trade, only to find that the plus/minus stats actually do not bolster your argument, but prove you wrong. Tough luck.
Nah, obviously you didn't read carefully of his position. "First, if you were following along closely (you obviouslyt weren't) you'd have noticed that the one game comment was a response to someone trying to tell us what a great game Battier had against the Bulls. And that the game was exemplary of "intangibles"...BS... Battiers stats were bad and so was his +/-." Also, how is expecting the Rockets to beat a bunch of .500 or below .500 teams ridiculous? The +/- stats are influenced by the level of the teammates as well as the opponents.
Nobody is saying Battier isn't a solid player, but he's not to the extent that his intangibles can be used as an excuse to deflect criticism, or as a superstitious prop to dismiss bad games and overrate his value. The Battier lovers first say Shane is the glue guy that will hold the team together, it turns out Battier is just a hustle role player that can be replaced with the likes of a young Shandon Anderson. Not bad, not critical either. Sure, Battier brings some intangible benefits to the table. How about the intangible costs Battier bring along? How do you gauge the difference between an aggressive attacker like Snyder, and a passive spot up shooter/freeloader like Battier? How do you gauge the value of an aggressive player that pumps up the team, or the value of a passive player that fades away with the team? How do you gauge the value of saving Yao and T-Mac's energy by relieving their offensive burden? The +/- method doesn't tell the whole picture, Robert Horry can suck for a whole game and nail his jumpers at the end to save the day. If the +/- method is a reliable source to build a winning team, then every 82games.com user can be a general manager, and all the scouts will lose their jobs, replaced by stats boys.
This is interesting if you use strictly +/- to choose the starters. PG Spanoulis +11.8 SG Battier +17.5 SF McGrady +7.7 PF Hayes +18.4 C Yao +12.5 6th man Head +3.3 Alston(-0.2) would come off the bench after Spanoulis and Head.
First of all you can not throw out games simply to make your point seem better. Why should we not count the Dallas game because we blew them out. Does that mean it didnt happen. Hell the Rox are undefeated if you just dont count the three games they lost. Also if you throw out all the shots Shane missed, he is shooting 100 % from the field this year. As for your points on the trade, Stro was terrible for the rockets. Do you really think we would be better off with him still on the team. As for the third scorer to help Yao and replace Tmac, you need to realize that Rudy Gay would never be a Rocket. It has been said so many times, we would have drafted Sefolosha. So change your argument to instead of battier we could have a 10 point 5 rebound player with no intangibles, and a guy getting no minutes for the Bulls.
ridiculous. what is the difference in last year's and the team two years ago. a healthy t mac and yao. to come in and suggest that battier is the difference is loony.
Well I would rather aggregate 5 guys with the best stats as starters, i.e a dream team, than a team full of Shane Battiers.
I would say, functional or not, a Dream Team is better than an Intangibles Team, of course, it's just a hypothetical response to your hypothetical statement.
Admittedly, I did not read all six pages, but there are some problems that Battier brings to the table also. He almost cost us the game against the Bulls. Anyone want to tell him NOT to be near any shooter with seconds left and a four point game. Most refs would of blown the wistle in that situation, Im still bamboozled that Battier didnt get called. And I cant understand how this is an attribute to his high basketball IQ, but taking charges is. Other then, and Ill be the first to admit that I love it, his penchant for taking charges, I dont see alot out of Battier on the court that helps this team. He plays the pick and roll well, his D is NOT superworld, his rebounding so far is a paltry 3 per game, assists on the very low end of the spectrum, and scoring is subpar especially considering he feeds off of Yao, and TMac. He doesnt block shots, He is shooting 43 percent, lighting it up at a 57 percent clip from the free throw line, and hitting an ok clip at the three point line. I really dont see what Battier has done to earn his love on this team. He is all but an offensive liability, and does exactly two things on offense. Stand in the corner at the three point line, and takes an entry pass to the post just to never score from there. I really believe alot of the Rox problems with Battier, and Hayes in the starting lineup is that those are two players the D can all but ignore and sagg off of and focus on TMAC and Yao. Right now the Rox look like an ok team (yes I know they are 6-3) but not a deep playoff team. Anyone who thinks otherwise is really fooling yourselves. The big problem I have always had with this trade has been the value in return. We should of got a pick back, or kept Stro for another year. Heck If Stro put up Battier numbers, this board would claim what a waste. Heres to Battier. The sigle most overrated Rocket on the roster. Thats not meant to insult him by any stretch, but he just isnt that important.
But my hypothetical statement is one based on an individual sacrificing stats for the team, not a team consisting of 5 of these individauls. Stars have their roles, and so do role players. Battier is a role player, not a do it all.
There is obviously no middle ground on the issue. But the season is still way too young for any opinion to be completely valid. So let's just sit back and see. But I do agree, the Rockets aren't very deep and are not contenders, at least not until JVG allows his rookies to develop into quality rotation players.
Blew out the Mavs and the Heat...and had a 19 point lead against the Spurs deep into the 3rd. We may be having problems finishing out games, but we can definitely hang with any team in the league.
When a star player is asked to defer, that's called sacrifce. a role player playing his role is not sacrificing his stats. When his status that exceeds his role is overrated, it's not getting caught up in numbers. I think you are assuming that a great team needs role players sacrificing their game for the benefit of the whole. On the contrary, basketball is a team game and it's often the star players who need to defer to a better player or sacrifice their numbers to involve role players. A role player needs to play to his full capacity, which inevitably manifests in his tangibles, like Chuck Hayes, whose tangibles will be a double double extropolated to 37 minutes a game, and also have the intangibles to go along with the tangibles.
What about destroying Dallas? The season is young - we're in the midst of a good test, and we beat Miami convincingly; we also should've done the same to San Antonio and Chicago and somehow came away with only a harrowing win. I can not really recall us ever flat out pulling away like we did vs. Dallas and Miami (and till about 4 minutes in the 3rd, SA and CHI) from any teams like that last year or even the year before - that to me signals improvement in the caliber, even if we have obvious closing issues that hopefully are being sorted. Our 3 losses have been to good teams. You mentioned the records of the teams we beat; the record of the teams we lost to are 7-1 (Utah), 7-2 (Spurs), 6-3 (NOK). Two of which were on the road. That's a combined 20-6. Or 17-6 if you take out their victories against us. A 20-6 record translates to a 63 win pace; 17-6 translates to a 60 win pace. The fact that we should've won one or two of those games gives us an idea of how good we can be. I guess we see different things out of Battier, and I respect your on opinion; I think it's difficult to argue either way at this point in the season. I think we have differing opinions on the alternative. Swift doesn't matter to me at this point. He never "got it". If it's about Gay, I was never fully sold on him coming out of college, and his pro production so far hasn't convinced me any further. I think arguing about other alternatives is futile because we don't know what they are. Are you really that opposed to the deal because we didn't get Kyle Lowry (or whoever we would've picked)?
