fundamental basketball is the ugliest kind of basketball. Just look at Jazz all this years. But as long as it results in a win, i have no problem if its ugly or nice. And yes, rox is the most unathelethic team in the NBA. The only players that we can term as an athletic is brooks, landry and von vafer. Thats 3/14 of the entire team. Show me another team that have less athletics than us.
If Ginobili gets credit for being 'creative', then i think scola should too at the PF position (so not as creative as ginobili, but same relative to position average)
Disagree, I like Jazz basketball. Pure basketball. And: Kirilenko, Millsap, Boozer, Williams, Brewer... not unathelethic team. More S.A. Spurs.
Imagine if Landry wasn't resigned, this would be one athletic & height challenged team. No wonder Francis is still so much in people's scope. Landry, Wafer, Brooks, when healthy McGrady for Rockets athletes. Rafer is the only league average size-to-athleticism Rockets starter most nights when McGrady is hobbled. But if my choice is athletic Kirk Snyder, Stromile Swift, John Lucas III or Gerald Green, I'd go with Scola & Battier myself. Morey did bring in Landy, Brooks and Francis. And turned Juwan Howard into a more athletic for his position Mike James. But Morey hasnt gotten the guy thats both tall and athletic yet. Should the Rockets really have coveted Batum, Arthur, Donte Green, Rudy Gay though? Tough calls.
Had we played our cards right over the last few years, we could be showing off our freakishly athletic and exciting play with a rotation including: Donte Greene Stromile Swift Rudy Gay Gerald Green John Lucas III And instead of being disappointed that we lost on the road to the Clippers, we'd be nodding our heads because we're not supposed to win ANY road games. And our 10-14 record would mean we'd be in the running for a great lottery pick in the 2009 draft. Count your blessings. Morey's a smart GM who has built a team that's solidly among the top 25% in the league, despite the injuries, shifting lineups, and, yes, lack of athleticism.
Brooks is as much 6'0 as anyone else in the league is their listed height. He measured up at the combine pre-draft measurement and is 6'0.5 in shoes.
Morey made a stupid move in trading away Rudy Gay. Also, I just watched the Lakers game and it's ridiculous how many 2nd & 3rd chances they get becuase of their height. Clippers also killed the Rockets with this. So not only is this team unathletic, but they also lack size. Not a good combination. These guys are supposed to be professional athletes, which hints that you have to be athletic. Maybe being unathletic explains all these injuries too.
Topfive, u act like its all or nothing which is false. After yao went down and deke wasn't brought back, the 1st priority in free agency shouldve been a big backup. Ratliff,elson,anderson,malik allen were all out there for vet minimum or lle. Who did morey pursue? A guy in barry who was too slow,old and unatheletic for san antonio. I applaud morey for the artest move, but look at the 2nd rd pick. A 6'6 pf project. Now I'm not saying Deandre Jordan is going to be a star, but at least take a 7 ft project. I'm not pissed he went after a wing player, but barnes,devin brown,ricky davis and yes even gerald green are better choice than barry. With Battier and mcgrady having offseason injuries and artest coming in, a guy like barnes made more sense. Sense and sensibility. Morey has made some good moves, but we still have some of the same problems every year.
Good points. The reason behind getting Barry was that we'd have a SG who can also play the point. When we signed Barry, nobody knew if Brooks would be ready to step up as a backup PG who can handle 15-20 minutes per game. And Barnes and Green definitely can't handle the point. My guess is that Morey thought bringing Donte Greene in would solve some of that lack-of-athleticism problem, not knowing at the time he'd have to give him up to get Artest. I'm not disagreeing with the premise of the OP. I'm just saying that athleticism without intelligence (Stro and Gerald Green, for example) doesn't solve anything -- it just gets you a few more highlights on Sportscenter. I'm willing to bet Morey will address this issue at the trade deadline.
If anyone thought barry could handle pg duties, then their scouting was way off. The guy is a heady, standstill, spotup shooter. He can't defend big guards,quick guards, or any guards. If u didn't think Brooks could handle 15mins a night as a backup, why did u draft him. Even if that was the case, Stoudimire was out there and working in houston so I still don't understand Barry signing. If anyone can read my post when the signings were made, I said the same things. Stro,green and the other atheletic types have been brought up and bashed. I wasn't a big fan of swift when they signed him, but to his fairness, he played about 30 games with tracy and Yao. If u take tracy and yao out for 30 games together and throw this team out there, they will look bad and lose also. I'm not saying swift is a really good player, but on a team that wants to run, he can fit. When the rox decided to get him and rafer, I didn't see why if they weren't going to get up and down the court. After losing to dallas, they said they wanted to get more atheletic, that's why they signed swift,drafted head, and traded for rafer. Van gundy will never turn players loose. He micro manages games, calls every play from the sideline because to him and a lot of coaches, that's coaching. Rick on the other hand lets his players play and wants his player to get up the court. He would fit better with this coach and team than he did with Van Gundy. Gerald Green is a development guy much like Wafer. What u would hope is that he plays well enough and understands his role. So what would be ideal is tracy and ron playing 31 mins leaving 34. Shane would get 20 and Green would get 14 mins. If gets better then u have leverage in 2010 to go after one of the prized possession like Lebron, Artest is resigned and move shane and his salary for either a player or just cap room while Green takes over and is now getting the primary backup to Artest and James. That's why u always have to develop guys even when trying to win a title. The adelman blazer team was so deep, cliff robinson was on the bench and petrovick couldn't get run. In sacramento, wallace only played during injury ad hedo was a bench guy. No matter what's going on, there is always a chance to develop young talent.
losing rudy gay was the only down side in Morey's era. If that counts as a move under him. I think CD still had alot of influence on that trade along side with JVG style of play. However, I don't regret that trade, since it yielded Battier for us. We can easily replace Gay but we can't find another battier. like JVG said before you can win more reg season games with Gay, but Battier can get you more wins in payoffs. With that being said, I think we are still one or two trades in process before the deadline. The only thing I asked is that our owner Les be less cheap and stop handcuffing Morey with getting under the cap so much. I am sure there were trades that are available to us but due to the cap situation we were unable to go thru or has to take a cheaper route. for example like jason richardson trade to suns. Can we get him with Battier and Landry or head? sure those two pieces are important to us, but now we got artest and richardson who surely can take the offense load left by landry if not more. what about Tmac with scola for richardson and okafur?
Whew...ignoring TheGame's posts made this thread readable again....it keeps it in the right size to where it doesn't bleed off the screen. DD
