With Delfino, and possibly even Garcia not coming back next season, its going to be a very important offseason and training camp for James Anderson. He showd nothing but positives this year in the limited amount of PT he recieved, but he's really gonna have to bring it. He could very well be the first player off the bench and be relied on to back up both Parsons and Harden unless they make other major moves to bring in depth after the free agent frenzy happens the first week of July.
We need a big man with post up game that demands a double team... End of story, whithout that teams can guard us tight on the 3pt line and their big men don't have to work on defense.
Better defense, stop allowing wide open looks from 3. Omer Asik cannot carry this team on defense, everyone needs to do a better job of keeping their man out of the paint. More points scored from the low post. If D-Mo and T-Jones work hard this offseason, they can become bigger threats down low. Shoot more midrange jumpers. F*$k Morey Ball ... the most elite teams in the NBA all shoot and make a high % of jumpshots inside the arc. It can spread the floor just as much as 3's. Think about it, the avg. NBA player shoots 70-80% from the FT line ... so an open midrange J is just about as accurate as a freethrow, shot in rythm in the flow of a game ... and it's worth 2 points instead of 1. I bet Omer can hit midrange J's consistently if he practices. We've seen him hit 2 this season w/ good form. Do it big guy!
The only way they can bring cisco back in is if he waits it out and signs with us after the dust settles for vets minimum. I would take it he wants to be here so he prolly waits it out. If he doesn't i would assume they spend their money else where on a solid bench player like a JJ Reddick or a Kyle Korver. Or you could always pick up carlos's option but that may be slim b/c of the bad foot injury he has.
Simple. 1. Turnovers- This should improve just by our team being more experienced but regardless we need to improve in this area. 2. Mid game adjustments- Again this should improve just by our team being more experienced but there were too many times where we played the same game when it was just not working. Harden in particular needs to adjust to the way the refs are calling the game. If they're not calling fouls then simply go in without trying to get one. Let the fouls come to you in that situation. 3. Fouling- I know this is largely just due to bad reffing but we have to find a way to stop fouling so much. I can't count how many times that came back to bite us in the but this year. 4. Free throws- Other than Harden we're far from an impressive free throw shooting team. Asik in particular needs to improve but the others need to improve to a certain degree as well.
I don't see Harden and Lin getting their TOs down to 2 tbh. Other than that I think those are very reachable goals for all of them and I think some good bonding time and the offseason will make it happen.
I'm surprised nobody has mentioned Harden's right hand. If he wants to become truly elite, he's going to have to develop a right hand and be able to finish around the bucket with it naturally. I hope he works on it along with his post moves so that he can become even more lethal around the basket. Scary that he can still grow so much!
In his exit interview. A reporter asked him about his contract and possibly waiting out free agency to come back. Cisco said "Well, I'm here now," (meaning he would like the Rockets to exercise his $6m team option) ... and then after being asked about waiting out free agency... "Well, at the end of the day its a business." (meaning he'll take the highest offer). Only way we get him is if no other team offers him more than minimum, and we may not even be able to afford that. I think he's 80% gone.
Turnovers will go down once the coaches start running actual plays, instead of telling Harden, Lin, and Parsons to improvise and pull some offense out of their @sses. We need to run some set plays.
