I'm getting excited about T-Mo!

I agree with you 100%, however, I think that's just it...somebody's got to tell him.ie.it's got to be an organizational decision. A coach's job is to try and win every game, short of being told otherwise. I feel that that is a faulty strategy for this year, and I would think that the Rockets should realize this by now, but it's not ALL Rudy's fault...it's going to take an organizational acknowledgment that we're in this for the long haul...

 

Hottoddie, if you knew Terence or in the case with TMo who has played with Terence, I don't think you would let it pass when someone unnecessarilly trashes the guy.

The reason I responded:

"Tmo sucked his senior year of college. He isn't going to miraculously emerge as a good player. His senior year, he shot under 30% from the college 3 pt line. That's beyond atrocious."

PS Hottoddie, if I wanted to one up someone I would have written a book. Maybe Hottoddie has to chill. FREDTERP

 

Haven, I’ve seen that you were a Morris backer from before, but slowly grew more disinterested in his play as his Junior and Senior seasons progressed. Is that a fair assessment?

Everyone was disappointed with how he performed during his Junior year for the most part. Unfortunately they don't really see the value in what he did. After Francis, Profit, Ekezie all left, there was a large void in the Maryland offense. Everyone expected Morris to take up all the slack on his own, and talent wise I think he was capable of doing most of that. But one dimensional teams aren't as successful, especially in the ACC. So instead he didn't demand the ball like everyone expected, but rounded off his game, and allowed his teammates to develop with him. Juan Dixon and Baxter both got more touches in the offense because Morris wasn't taking all the shots.

And the terps were a better team for it. Instead of one talented player, they had 3 that could kill you on the court. So his numbers improved, and he had his best season at Maryland in my opinion. His stats improved in almost every statistical category.

His senior year was a problem though. It started similar to his junior year, until ACC play came around. He started asserting himself more and was putting up great numbers. It was something like 20 ppg and 10 reb, an estimate on my part. Unfortunately, he lost all confidence in his shot and I can show you the exact point where it happened, the first MD / Duke game in OT, he missed a wide open 3 point shot that would have given them the victory. After that his offensive game just wasn't there. So as the season went on he withdrew from the offense more and concentrated much more on his defense. Because of that, Baxter was the best player on the team during this most recent NCAA tourney, and Dixon was the team MVP overall. But you also diminish what Morris did for the team. He disappeared from the offense his senior year, but he played awesome defense and rebounded very well through out the entire season. Something critics are loathe to acknowledge.

Mentally I don't think he'll ever be a team leader, or demand the ball as the primary offensive threat. I guess that's what turned off the majority of NBA scouts. It's all about expectations. The vast majority of the media expected Morris to become the dominant leader of the Terps and demand the ball. I don't know why they assumed it would happen because Morris never showed the desire to have the offense run through his hands. He did well as the complementary player and did what was best for the good of the team.

I also think Maryland didn't do a whole lot of favors for Morris with regard to using him effectively in their offense. He was played as a 4 his entire 4 years at Maryland. Gary’s flex offense wasn't a great match with Morris' offensive skills. The flex offense doesn’t run the offense through the 4, the 2 and the 5 generally get the most touches. The system put him in a position to take a majority of 3pt shots and putbacks. He was rarely given the ball in the post, an area he was better at than he was given credit. And he was also hardly ever given the chance to use any form of dribble penetration. Now part of the blame falls on TMo because he could have done these things on his own, but Morris has always been recognized as a team player and not one to force issues. Gary should have recognized the skills and used them more effectively. He could have put Morris in a better position to utilize his talents.

I'm a big fan of Morris' and I got to Maryland and have watched the majority of their games for the last 4 years. He's not perfect and he needs to toughen up mentally. But the majority of the criticisms come from preconceived assumptions on what Morris was expected to be as a player, and not so much actual awareness of his game and his situation. Everyone looks at his low senior year numbers, and sees that he didn't give a full effort on the offensive end. But you rarely see anyone praise the extra effort he put on the defensive end because he wasn't having success with his shooting.

I don’t think any scout in the NBA draft doubted his athletic ability. The reason he dropped so far was simply due to questions about his mental toughness. And I’ll be the first to admit they’re valid questions. He’s not an extremely confident player, but that is something that is fixable.

Anyone expecting Morris to be a team leader and primary offensive threat is going to have a rude awakening. But there is no reason he can’t develop into a very useful starter that does a little bit of everything, and is willing to be the 4th option on the floor. I’m not saying he should start now as the SF, but the more minutes he gets in this season, the faster he’s going to be able to acclimate himself to the NBA game.

Frankly, I think he’d do better as a starter than a bench player. I doubt he’ll ever become the instant offense type of player off the bench. Where as KT has that explosive ability that would be useful when the rockets primary options are resting or not as effective as hoped.

 

Jag - good post.

Two responses.

1. While I don't mind, necessarily, drafting players that don't show up on the stat sheet from college, shooting % is important to me. Many players have artificially high shooting %'s (Chucky Brown when Clyde was here, etc). But I think most low %'s are a good warning sign. I mean, exceptions do exist... just look at Iverson (although a good part of his value does come from his ability to get to the line). But for the most part, if a player isn't hitting his shots at a good clip, it's either because 1. he's not a good shooter or 2. his shot selection is bad. Either one can ruin a player's career, although I generally think the second is less dangerous because it can be changed more easily.

If my team drafts a player with low %, I want him to be one of 3 things: 1. very young, 2. a great "playmaker" like Kidd, or 3. a second rounder with tons of potential. I don't think Morris really fits into any of these categories at the NBA level.

2. In response to:

I might even agree with you here, except that it just goes against my grain to bench a guy in exchange for somebody he's outplaying. If the two players have done similar jobs... I see the point. But when one is obviously playing much better... I just think it's bad for the team and doesn't give an incentive for hard play. If Morris is going to be a contributor (and who knows? he might be yet...) then I'd like to see him earn his playing time vis a vis Kenny Thomas. Just sort of a philosophical issue for me...

 

Does anyone else find this statement slightly ironical?

By the way, Hottoddie, JAG, Jaybird, haven (eventually, when you got around to making your argument about FG%), & others, good posts all around (minus a few, one of mine included).

PS--I do think KT should continue to start when he comes back (to increase trade value, if nothing else), though Tmo may very well surmount Williams as the backup (as others have suggested).

 

The Rockets will be champs again. How is that.

 

See here's where I question your logic. I don't deny that KT's numbers have been superior to Morris'. But how successful has KT been at the SF? We really don't know, I'm not advocating starting Morris at the PF. Both Griffin and Thomas have shown to be more appropriate. Thomas hasn't signifigantly outplayed Morris at the 3. So why not utilize Kenny as the first man in at the PF or SF while Walt's out? He still gets to play signifigant minutes and his effectiveness will more than likely go up.

 

New pals, Hottoddie, Haven, I just noticed the hits on this thread have reached an abnormal number of hits. A positive but really a negative? What does this mean, posters enjoy the verbal battle. Your new pal, FREDTERP

 

I think Im going to puke......

 

Ah, well that's a different issue entirely . KT at the 3 is actually a pet issue of mine. I'm a great believer in putting the best players on the court together, unless it's utterly impossible (obviously you can't start 5 guards). I really like the line-up of:

Cato (next year, Griffin plays the 5 and Taylor the 4)
Griffin
Thomas
Mobley
Francis

That gives you excellent rebounding... and Mobley and Francis give you a great perimeter threat. It also lets Cato concentrate on defense and putbacks... while Thomas is probably the best post-threat on that list. Griffin can also play on the perimeter if you need another 3-pt shooter.

The real question, I suppose, is whether Thomas (or perhaps Griffin) has the lateral quickness to deal with a 3. Obviously, it depends on the 3. If the Rockets are playing the Raptors... probably not. But against most teams in the league... particularly against the guys that rely on jump shots... I think KT works just fine.

Even better, the other team likely sticks their 4 on KT on the defensive end... giving Griffin a nice height advantage over his opponent in most situations. That should allow him to get his shots off more easily.

 

Haven't seen rockets play in three weeks...but here's two more cents.


Statitically, KT wasn't rebounding from the three position from a couple of box scores I saw. TMo has rebounded well from the three in games I've seen.

Mo Taylor will be playing huge minutes at the four shortly. Mo doesn't rebound well. Mo taylor provides scoring. MoT is a better player than KT and TMo.

Griffin will be logging minutes at the 4 and 5. cato will play minutes at the 5.

Taking the above into account, I want TMo playing when Mo is playing the 4.

TMo passing the ball to Mo is more efficient than KT trying to score.

TMo getting rebounds for Mo is more effective than KT not getting rebounds for Mo since KT can't win position battles on the perimeter, IMO.

I believe TMo will be a better weakside shotblocker than KT despite KT's improved shotblocking at the 4.

Offensively, I'd like the SF to atleast hit the three at 35%. TMo did this most of his college career and may be able to add this to his repertoire. KT I doubt could attain this.

KT hasn't shown to me the ability to get scores in the flow of the game. He needs to be used to score. With Mo returning and Griffin emerging, he'll drop to spots on the old option list.

TMo is a decent garbage man that can do a lot of things in the flow of the game. He just needs to work on denying the basket a little more on defense and improve his shot.

 

That's funny, because by doing so, you would have 'gotten the last word.' Thus it would be ironical for you to accuse somone of trying to do the same thing. Musn't it be ironical anytime someone tries to cut off an exchange by saying 'stop trying to get the last word'?

Also, if you simply wanted to get Fredterp to let an issue go, wouldn't it have been better not to call him names? Generally you have to be conciliatory to get someone to 'let go.' I suspect you had other intentions too--possibly to get some excitement out of insulting someone in front of others, or to 'get back' at Fred for insulting you. (Most posters, myself included, do these kinds of things now and then.)

Or maybe you were, as you say, just 'sick of it.' But just as you are sick of people interrupting good threads, so perhaps is Fredterp sick of your condescension.

 

Haven, I agree with you in part, but I'd much rather put the 5 players whose skills compliment each other best in those starting positions. The lineup you propose is definately a talented one, but 3 of those 5 players look to isolate themselves and score. Griffin hasn't shown that mentality yet, and Cato can't do it if he wanted to.

The lineup has the ability for a diverse scoring punch, and the ability to put up big numbers. It also has the unfortunate ability to foster a floundering offense if they don't work well together.

I'd rather see Morris at the 3, because I think he rebounds better than KT especially at the Small Forward position. The goal being to take the rebounding pressure off of our guards and allowing us to run the court better and more often. I think trying to keep 4 people happy, involved and maintain an offensive continuity is a very difficult thing, especially given the system the Rockets run. Playing Morris at the start lets Mobley, Francis and Griffin get on track earlier.

I'd much rather see a consistant flow on both O and D through out the entire game. To achieve that end, a balance needs to be achieved in the rotation. Kenny comming off the bench changes the dynamic of our offense and allows the Rockets to make sure he gets his touches on the offensive end, while not being at the expense of some of our bigger stars. Putting him in the starting lineup loads the talent of our team with the starters, while hurting us when reserves come in.

 

I could be wrong, but I don't think Robert Horry had much of a college 3 point average nor overwhelming total stats either. I think that was much the same thinking on Morris. What they saw was a tall, long, guy with some skills and who looked athletically smooth enough to move to a smaller position in the pros (C or PF to SF). Like Horry, Morris is on the passive side and played around other very quality interior people on his college teams, but you would rather take a guy with NBA skills who is passive than an aggressive college player w/o NBA skills--and that typically is your choice later in the draft.

Not saying Morris will make it to starting quality, but if he can be a Donyell Marshall/Robert Horry hybrid (say 85% as good as either player) he will be around the league for a long time and he will be a steal. I also think right now Kenny is the better player with a similar ceiling, but Kenny was a higher pick and even then plenty of teams picking ahead of him would really like a chance ot rethink their pick.

In short I am happy with the Morris pick. I would have rather come away with Haywood or (possibly) Woods with what we gave up because of position needs, but I am not disappointed in it. It was a heck of a lot better than the Langhi and Collier picks.

I will give props to me though a couple of years ago everyone was so high I Morris yet I was lukewarm. I liked the guy down on tobacco road better, they played similar positions and had similar stats at the time except Morris had a couple more RPGS. Nonetheless the other guy just seemed to play with a lot more fire and was equally athletic. And yes, today I would still take Battier over Morris.

 

TMo is not a good shooter. I don't care how "smooth" his shooting stroke is, the ball isn't going in the hoop. He shot in the low 30's from the college three and below 25% from the NBA three. If his shooting ability is so obvious, I wish he would quit missing on purpose.

 

Tmo has made 4 of his last 12 threes. Not great, but good for an SF. We'll see what happens the next couple games.

As far as having "ability" to shoot, in the little I've seen of him this season Tmo has had good mechanics and decent touch. His main problem seems to be a certain tentativeness in execution. He tries to think the ball into the basket, which just destroys the beneficial effects of muscle memory. So you could say that the "ability" to shoot is resident, and that it just hasn't yet been harnessed. Maybe Tmo will learn a thing or two from Ice Griffin.

 

I've been looking today at other second-rounders (I know Tmo was had by the Rockets through a first-round pick, but if nothing else the Rox don't pay him first-round money), and I can only see three from the second round that could legitimately be said to have outplayed Terence so far--Earl Watson, Trenton Hassell, and Jarron Collins. The Rockets wouldn't really need Watson (Norris, sans millions) or Hassell (Torres), though Collins, the third-to-last pick in the draft, is a center, so he might have been nice to have. Tmo also has been playing better than some first rounders.

Loren Woods, who many on this board were interested in , is not playing well at all--30% from the field and not rebounding better than Tmo either, and he's a CENTER.