When Will starts a thread with an opening huge 150+ paragraph, all I have to say is that means he is interested with this team. come on....who amongst us would even think about not hitting the return key before making a 150 word first p.... Will is on board...despite his proclivity to pronounce himself as anti whatever. dude...you do know the only way we win the ring this year is based on Bonzi getting ready for the playoffs. Why is it such a story that jvg agrees with you about Bonzi...except for the fact jvg will not have to worry about making the correct decision at the correct time while considering what the Hill media thinks. Will you make that correct decision at the correct time... I know you know what I mean by "what the Hill thinks." It's an analogy. I love Battier as much as any fan...but, if you want a ring this year, you must be a Bonzi fan....yeah...Yao dominate this...TMac dominate that...I love them both. Let's not vote about other years we win a ring with Bonzi this year. Not with ... out... him.
#1: I truly think that in the next few years, Battier will be the better choice than Gay. Battier was the heart and soul of that backwoods town, and it shows. #2: Regardless of anything, if Battier can get the monkey of Tracy's back, and win a round, I have nothing but confidence for this team. #3: I wish we had a true veteran on this team. Right now, we look alot like the Timberpup's back in '97. Make no mistake, Shaq let the players know how to win last year. Wade is awesome, but he couldn't have won with Garnett, which, I'm fairly sure holds a lot more trade value than Shaq. Don't discount experience.
GATER, your argument about the individual +/- is flawed because that's not where Battier's impact is felt. A combination of his smart decisions, team defense and smart plays always seems to put the team at an advantage. Team +/- with Battier on the court- 2004-05 Memphis Grizzlies: + 11.1 (1st) 2005-06 Memphis Grizzlies: +8.5 (1st) 2006-07 Houston Rockets: +17.5 (2nd behind Hayes)
well put. my contention with the battier hype is that a) no way he was going to guard other powerfowards. That has already been proven. fine we have chuch hayes. b) battier's effectiveness goes down in the playoffs because everyone's intangibles go up. Everyone dives for loose balls in the playoffs, everyone takes charges, etc. its proven by the decline in his +/- statistics in the playoffs in memphis, and even more, its proven by the fact memphis has never won a playoff game. battier might get the rockets five extra regular season wins. but that doesn't matter. the rockets should make the playoffs with tracy and yao healthy. or put it this way, if tracy or yao go down this season do you think battier will step in to give the rockets enough scoring. of course not. that's why his value on this board is overrated. again no one is saying he's a bad player, but "key" player to the rockets' championship hopes, that's stretching it. bonzi has a much better chance of having a big influence on getting this team to the second round and beyond with what he can do.
Great hustle, but I have been unimpressed with his 3 pt. stroke. Doesn't seem like his has found his shot yet.
I was about to reply with the same response, but it was too obvious to even point out. A healthy Yao/McGrady-led team with a half-decent cast of role players will be good for roughly 50 wins every season. To somehow compare this season with last year's disaster -- when both stars were out of the lineup for months at a time -- is just plain ridiculous. Ditto, good post all around. As someone already said, we will know his true value to the team come playoff time. We already know that a Yao/McGrady combo is good enough to give a really good team in the West a run for their money, or most likely beat an 'average' lower-seed team in the first round. The real test will be if this supporting cast can get the team over the hump, not necessarily win a championship, but at least go deep into the playoffs (I am thinking at least the WCF or better).
Gay is only 20 years old and playing like it. there's is absolutely no guarantee that Gay will surpass Battier in overall contributions 3 years from now. and i am almost 100% sure that Gay will not be equal to T-Mac's prime or near prime ever. so 4 years from now, the Rockets would have an aging Yao and maybe a poor man's T-Mac. that doesn't bode well for a championship in the next 10 years, and that's not acceptable to me.
for the record, i think the rockets really screwed up not taking williams(pg of nets) or thabo , but i am glad we got battier instead of Gay. i wonder how many people want to wear a jersey saying "gay" on the back of it?
To all those people complaining about Battier's lack of rebounds, you need to understand what his role on the team is. On defense, his job is to chase fortifiy our perimeter defense, draw charges, and contest any shots taken in his area. Yao said recently that different players on the team have different roles as far as what to do for defensive rebounds. Battier isn't the designated defensive rebounder on the team -- his skills are applied elsewhere. In fact, our defensive rebounding% as a team has been better with him on the court then off the court. His lack of individual rebounding doesn't appear to be hurting the team.
Do anyone notice Mr. Intangible's stats go down in every categories when compare to his last season? Yeah, it's just 9 games but let's not forget JVG's miracle touch. Maybe Mr. Intangible is just busy giving the Rockets some intangibles not numbers. Some crack heads even say he will be the 3rd scorer. WTF!
i like Shane Battier fine. He does the little of everything that helps the rockets out. That being said, I also think his defense is overrated. I realy havn't seen him shut anyone dont this year. He's a role player, nothing more. He's not gonna score many points, he's not getting many rebounds so far, and his d is only okay. He really hasnt shown me enough so far to tell me that we got the better end of this trade. I still believe we gave up to much for a role player. We gave up another average nba player (stro) and a potential all-star for prettty much an average nba player with a good attitude.
******* Battier and yet another intangible loss. If you think this guy is bad now...Wait till playoffs.. Battier completely DISAPPEARS in playoffs.
I thought you guys call him Mr. intangible, not Mr. invisible. Super role player? Ultimate glue guy? Leader in the locker room? Seriously, the way you guys overrate him is laughable.
