The two biggest issues are Dwight's decline and our inability to bring in better shooters. With Dwight's decline, we're back to only having one superstar and that doesn't win you much nowadays. Our lack of shooters adds even more pressure on James, which had already increased, when Dwight was no longer able to produce offense at 20+ppg.
The stopped listening this year. And anyway I was joking... kind of. At this point this year looks lost. I put that on the players moreso than McHale/JB/Morey. We all KNOW the players aren't this bad. They're just tanking because they DGAF. So yeah, it really does look like the difference is we're no longer playing hard. Maybe that's why McHale and crew would repeat it, because they knew they had to keep reminding these guys. I don't know.
doesnt look good but its far from over. thx to morey's flexibility we can make some good trades, one of them beign a competent wide open three point shooter. if jones can keep up his 3pt shot, we should be able to get a 3d guy for him alone. if we really wanna go at it we can package brewer, jones, kj, etc for an elite 3d wing. after that we need a 2nd option if dwight really is on a fast decline. dunno how to get that w/o blowing the team up
i really don't know the truth, even after long periods of wondering and trying to figure it out. at times i'm of the same opinion you've just stated. but at other times i'm also convinced that these guys are initially trying and want to win these games, but just get completely frustrated/dejected when the 3's aren't falling (at all) and our offense is just a clusterf*** of disjointment where they can't even convert simple passes b/c of the poor spacing and defenses having closed off all our very predictable habits/options. i hope morey knows the truth and already has a handle on exactly what all ails us, and is working to fix it all asap. otherwise like you said, this year is really lost.
It's funny because we've played so bad these first 18 games but at 7-11 were only 1.5 games out of the playoffs and 3 back from the 4th seed. If there ever was a year were a slow start was acceptable in the west it's this year. I'm hoping dmo comes back soon and we really take off. I thought we looked pretty good in the 4 game win streak we had earlier this year. Mainly because we had spacing on offense for James to get in the paint and get shooters open looks. Once again dmo should be able to provide that while also being 7ft and able to guard bigs unlike Ariza. We gotta start now though we don't have time to screw around if we want to try and grab that 4 seed. My gut tells me we will be in the 4/5 matchup come playoffs time and have to face the clippers. With the Warriors being our 2nd round matchup.
yes, it's entirely possible this rockets roster just aint THAT good. in the last couple of games, we started to look like an nba team (not a very good one) again. about 80% resemblance, i'd say. b4 that, we were looking like a d-league team, literally. (btw, if one wants to call this a "turnaround", i've got nothing to say about it.)
I don't think this can be overstated at all. The lack of a legitimate post presence is a glaring hole on this team. Having somebody to dump it down to for a bucket at any time is something that has a calming effect on the team and can help settle a team when things start going bad. A healthy DMo definitely solves that problem. Hopefully by the time he comes back he's in shape and in mid-season form.
pretty obvious at this point... well except for those that want to believe roleplayers are the reason for this total meltdown...
pretty obvious at this point... well except to those that want to believe roleplayers are the reason for this total meltdown...
I have mentioned several times that last season's record and WCF appearance made us look way better than we are as a team. In a way it was fool's gold. Credit to the Rockets for reaching that far but that was not indicative of a championship team Let's start with the regular season. If you look at the point differential which even Morey agrees is a good statistic to separate the good teams from the great teams, Rockets point differential was pretty bad for a 2nd seed. It took super mode Harden to bail us out in several games with clutch performances down the stretch and it took a SA collapse for us to get 2nd. Again not taking credit away but the point differential would indicate we were not a #2 seed For the playoffs As a result of #2 seed, we got the worst WC playoff team in the Mavs. They also had some deep chemistry issues with the combustible Rondo. That was a cake walk. We then got the Clippers who came off a tedious 7 game series with a hobbled CP3. They were mentally and physically drained and it took a once ina lifetime performance by Josh SMith to take us through. The real test was the finals and we came short plenty. it wasn't even close despite the first 2 games. GSW were on cruise mode So yes the Rockets were good but not as good as what the record last year indicated.
was dwight ever a 20pt+ player? i dont remember. and better shooters? those are basically the same shooters from last season.
From game to game? Yes. Over a season, he was around 18-20 ppg. Right now he's giving us about 7 points less. That's significant, especially because he's no longer someone you need to double. Again, more pressure on James. And i didn't mean to imply we had different shooters this year. They kept it respectable last year, but these guys have never been true shooters over their careers, except for maybe Terry. Morey seems to think they can just practice their way to a higher shooting average, and they may sometimes, but we were hoping for that from one too many players. We need more guys who have done it consistently over more than a season.
I'm not gonna say the role players are completely responsible, because that would obviously be completely simplifying things. As much as people want to try to box this up all nice and neat and say X or Y is the reason for failure, it is a combination of many things far more complicated than what you seem to be suggesting. All that being said, when your bench is getting outscored every single gosh darn game, the "roleplayers" certainly aren't helping this team win games.
