Is Princeton's Goodrich Going to be a Camp Darling?

I want to see this guy Sonny Watson play, maybe they'll be some good competition for the last few roster spots. ( injured reserve)

 

How about Kenny Thomas? Didn't we see some plays with him in the high post this last season? The guy can pass.

 

I watched Goodrich play for most of his college career. He is not going to impress anyone physically, but he will absolutely wow you with his passing ability, court awareness, and a ridiculous sweeping left-handed hook off the glass.

Steve made the game-winning pass from the high post to a v-cutting Gabe Lewullis in the closing seconds against UCLA in the first round of the tournament in 1996, Carrill's last season at Princeton.

Incidentally, as much as I am excited about seeing one of the smartest, most complete basketball players I've ever watched join the Rockets, I fear that it is just a tease, for the same reason AT is concerned. I got a chance to speak with Coach Carrill for a few minutes on the floor after one of the Kings games in Houston last year, and he called the so-called "system" of the Rockets "awful" and "horrible" basketball. And he was being kind.

I blame Rudy and Steve and Cuttino. There's nothing more I would like to see than Rudy build a high-post centered attack around Ming, and maybe even use Goodrich some. Watching that would be a little slice of basketball heaven. But this is the same guy who talked about how much emphasis he was going to place on "running" the last 2 years. And we all know how that turned out.

 

I didn't post it last year because I'm tired of being accused of "not understanding" what Rudy is trying to do. I got a chance to talk to Coach Carrill after the game because I used to be the radio play-by-play guy at Princeton and was at the game with a friend of mine who played for Carrill at Princeton using tickets that Coach left for us. I'm just passing along what he said about the Rockets. I happen to agree with him.

so if you want to keep on "wondering," about what I don't know, go ahead. I guess Carrill is a great guy until he says the obvious about the Rockets, which is that recently they have been a pitiful excuse for a basketball team and the antithesis of what makes basketball great -- that it is a team effort.

 

Since we're talking about camp invitees, any word on either Sonny Watson, the center discovered in China by Kermit Washington or Pete Mickeal. The Chron reported earlier that both were close to signing. Anyone know anything about these guy's game?

 

Add anyone that resembles a dominant center, dominant PF, and a dominant SF to any lower echelon NBA team and you will ahve a much more team-oriented offense. and we will have hat this year.

i pretty much disregard any of the " Rockets play selfish, non-team-like" offense from the last two years because we couldn't dominate a majority of the teams in the NBA since we couldn't produce a consistent low-post game. The only consistent part of our game was the frontcourt and Rudy let them have control.

There is no doubt in my mind that we will put a well-rounded attack together this year.

 

Well HeyPee. Where are you? Or are you just using this to cower behind the extremely flawed mantra of "oh we had too many injuries last year to win more games" which is total horse****.

The only ones standing on soapboxes around here are the post-counting CC.net "regulars" who are more interested in:

1. Correcting people's grammar
2. Advising on the "correct" forum for a post to be in
3. Their post counts
4. Standing on soapboxes to feel like they belong to something

AT

 

You left out #5. People who think they could coach better than Rudy.

Do you really think we should have won more games last year with all the injuries we had? If so your BB knowledge = horse****.

 

just throwing a 0.02 rave in here, but:


i'm personally a huge fan of the triangle offense. i won't go into extreme details and intricasies of the offense, but let's just say it allows for every player to have an equal chance to succeed on the court. for years, i wanted the rockets to implement this offense. then i realized why the rockets never could utilize an offense like this: it is predicated on all 5 players being able to a) be a threat on the court and b) be able to pass the ball. kelvin cato debatably violate rule a and definitely violates rule b.

that said, i do wonder what type of offensive system rudy envisioned when he recommended the rockets "lock up" the slobbering, foaming rabid dog cato... was it the 4/1 flex he envisioned? if so, i want to slap rudy upside his peasy ass head. you don't build an offense around cato skills in a 4/1 flex. his skill set is waaaaay too limited to do that and no backcourt will carry you very far under these circumstances. really, what was the thought process, as far as offensive systems go, when they decided to have cato around longterm?

other thoughts...

now that they have ming, i as a fan absolute DEMAND to see much more motion in our offensive sets. you're right, heypee, they will have to have a transition on offense now. running a 4/1 flex with ming would be reason to fire rudy, imo. ming's skills demand that he go either high or low post - but more importantly - have cutters around him (v, backdoor, etc.) our team - as is - is built around that.

my personal opinion is that rudy is the luckiest muthafu(shut yo mouf') in the nba. if that lotto doesn't come up with ming, we're left with the same system as last year...just with healthy players. imo, that system sucked because it was/is based around the guards handlign the bulk of the offensive responsibility and forwards being release valves. sorry, but that's the most backwards of systems possible, rudy. i don't know what chinese restaurant he ate at, but when he opened that fortune cookie and saw the words "tank for ming" it was the beginning of the dynasty. i just hope he doesn't confuse ming for olajuwon or cato now that the big guy is ours.

other concerns...

are whether rudy is the right guy to coach ming. i'm convinced rudy is a direct decendant of adam smith. he never, imo, clearly instructs and demands certain things of his players. IOW, he's a p***y coach. i don't mean that in a bad way...i just think he let's the players do what they do best (in their minds). sometimes, though, you have to SHOW your players what's best and DEMAND it of them. especially with rookies. especially with a guy like ming that appears to be more willing (if not pleading) to be coached than any nba player i can recall for the past 10 years. i hope rudy can establish that there is a difference between being a COACH and being a FRIEND.

yao, and the rest of these guys, need a COACH...not a FRIEND.

 

Great post, verse. I think Rudy will step up. As long as he doesn't attempt the complex and dreaded hexagon offense, the dynasty is ready for take-off. This season, who knows? Next season, look out League... your going to be smelling Rocket fumes.

(He was supposed to have a new offense last season that we didn't get to see... for reasons still painful to remember.)

 

bout to go to lunch, heypee, but b4 i go...


what are your thoughts about rudy the COACH v rudy the FRIEND?

 

The flex SUCKS when Moochie is running the point. Dribble, dribble, dribble is the result when people aren't moving, when players are supposed to move before the ball moves.

I think we could run the high-post offense fine, once Steve is back and when Yao is in. When Cato is in though, I'm not quite sure.

 

tozai,


my guess (and heypee can back me up or contradict me on this one) is that we were actually running a variation of the 4/1 flex. since, by design, the 4/1F should center around a low post player - and we didn't have one (and haven't since hakeem) capable of doing the job - we ran it going with options 2,3,4 & 5. option #1 was the post. option #2 was steve/cat. option #3...

so it's hard to say it sucked when player x ran the point...since it was never ran "correctly" in the first place.

 

I agree with HP that you can't compare college coaches with NBA coaches for the simple reason that you don't get players in the NBA the same way you do in college. It's a lot harder to shape a team in the NBA than in college.

In college, you get and attract players who fit well into your system. In the NBA, you have very limited control over what players you can get.

Getting his players to play "system ball" rather than individual ball is the challenge for every coach in the NBA. Phil Jackson is supposed to be one of the best in this regard. I believe Rudy is capable of doing well. Many people didn't recognize that it was Rudy who transformed Hakeem into a team player. I have high hope that he can do the same with Francis and Mobley.

As to whether Rudy is good enough an "X and O" coach to implement the high post offense, I have nothing to say. He never had the players to do that. All I know is that Rudy relishes on the "X&O" aspect of coaching. Let's just see how he does with this team in the next few years.

 

hp, trust me, i understand that trying to put Cato in the center role of a Princeton-type offense would be a disaster. Carrill's offense was successful for Princeton for many reasons, partly because of its novelty, partly because its use of the shot clock exploited impatient defenders, and partly because it was a true offense that used all five members of the team who were constantly moving and cutting around players positioned so that they had multiple passing options, and the option to shoot. It was extremely difficult to pick up, even for smart, motivated lifelong basketball players. However, when it worked, it was a thing of beauty and allowed Princeton to hang in with and occassionally (see UCLA, a game I was lucky enough to call on the radio) upset a much superior team in terms of size and athleticism.

However, Carrill's offense was ultimately limited and actually stifled the abilities of some of his more talented players. When Bill Carmody, a longtime Carrill assistant, took over the team, he kept many of the components of the traditional Carrill offense but allowed for some freelancing within the system (e.g. dribble drive vs. a good matchup) and also encouraged "smart" fast breaking. He had some real talent and those Carmody teams were the best Princeton has ever had. Unfortunately, Princeton has a rule against contracts over 1 year for coaches and as a result Carmody left for Northwestern. But I digress.

Back to the Rockets and Carrill and his comments. The Kings do not run Princeton's offense. They certainly use some components of it, particularly the heavy use of the high post (webber and divac), and their general style of play is Princetonian in the sense that the ball isn't on the floor too much and they get plenty of layups as direct results of good, aware passing.

HP is right: the Rockets don't have the personnel that the Kings have. Cato is a far different animal from Vlade. Steve is not Mike Bibby. I'm not asking for the Rockets to run Princeton's offense. What I'm asking for is some idea, some plan, some progress. I honestly fail to see much of a "system" in Rudy's creation. But the biggest fault, in my opinion, has been his complete and utter failure to develop any sort of a running game. And don't tell me the Rockets don't have the personnel to run!

On a separate matter, and again, this does not mean that I want the Rockets to run a Princeton offense, I think the amount of time devoted to practice in the NBA is a joke. It's easier to teach kids a system in college? They are limited to x hours a week of practice. NBA players get PAID to play, and to practice. That is their job. There is plenty of time in the schedule to get practices in.

 

heypee:


you're probably right about knight, karl, and (throw this one in, too) carlisimo. i suppose it takes a libra to be a great coach! you have to be able to balance the "coaching" v "friendship". with players like barkley, drexler & dream, rudy could lean more on the friendship role and trust that his veteran led club knew what to do on the court. however, i maintain that he doesn't do enough disciplinary "coaching" with this current squad. but, now that you mention bird & magic (which i never thought about), it kind of makes sense why rudy is like that.

sad reality of the day: the nba is a player's league.


as for maryland, to be honest i was never a maryland fan, so i never followed them. i knew of their players and watched a few games, but never really studied them. so, i'm probably the wrong person to ask about that one.

one thing i do remember is the inordinate amount of passing lane steals francis would get for highlight reel dunks. what happened to that guy? is he coming back this year?


re: cato


yeah, i can see how the staff may have been thinking, "hey, we can teach this young, athletic stud a jump hook and a little baseline dropstep. but his defense and rebounding are amazing! we can build around this guys natural athletic ability!!!"

little did they know he was



i don't thin the 4/1F is a flawed system. i think it's a flawed system given the components rudy assembled. even with a healthy cato. unfortunately, i cannot think of a proper system to run WITH cato on the floor.

cato is terrible.