seriously, someone need to send this article to morey or LES. Hello!!! anyone still working in the rockets front office? we need a PG who is a playmaker. Kidd is what we needed. get kidd without given up tmac, Yao, and scola.
This has got to be the best post that I have read in GARM in the last 6 months. Best thread of the season thus far. I'll just like to add that we lack 3 point shooting. That is one of our top weaknesses. my 1002 post
ZBoy, you are absolutely right. We have set the bar so low. A present day Rockets superstar can do 1.5 things well. Yao - Scores well with the ball in the low post. Serviceable at altering shots int he paint. Horrible at defending athletic players. Horrible at keeping possession of the ball. TMac - World class player at the elbow when driving. Serviceable at shooting medium range. Terrible effort in general. Horrible at decision making outside of his effect range (TChuck). A present day Rockets starter can only do at most one thing well. He's terrible at everything else. Hayes - Good rebounder. Terrible with the ball. Many teenage girls basketball players shoot better than him. Fouls way too much on defense. Alston - Good dribbler. Can't finish. Can't shoot (embarasses himself when he tries). Fouls way too much on defense. Sometimes is prone to chuck. Battier - Good at help defense. Mediocre at one-on-one defense. Fouls way too much. Has no offense. Can't create. Can only shoot if wide wide open. The rest ... well ... Head - Good shooter. Can't dribble. Horrible decision maker with the ball. Can't defend because of size. Scola - Low post player (rebounder and score). Can't defend. Draws fouls like they are going out of style. Has a barely passable set shot. Bonzi - Small post player. Can't finish. Lazy on defense. Can't shoot. Landry - Offesnive rebounder. Can't seem to finish. Draws fouls by the boatload. Gets no respect from refs even when hammered. Mutumbo - Rebounds. Can't catch *anything* (my blind grandmother is better at catching passes). Useless on offense. Old as Moses. Snyder - Slasher. Can't shoot. Fouls too much on defense. Not very intelligent. Francis - Slasher. Can't shoot. Can't defend any PG in the west. James - Not sure what he is good at. Everything else, he is terrible at. ========================== Rockets - What do we have against talent?? What do we have against athleticism?? What do we have against size?? Why are all our players unidimensional? Most can't shoot (except for Head but Head can't do anything else). Most have no athleticism (except Snyder who has no brain). Most are too short to play his position (except for Yao who may in fact be too tall for his position). We have no use for multidimensional players like Rudy Gay and Richard Jefferson. Instead this is the team that has started: Rafer Alston, Chuck Hayes, and Ryan Bowen. Which contender would even accept one of these guys?
ZBOY I say congrats to you!! You are the only one who sees the picture as clearly as myself, except for the slightly over graphic pictures.
The more things change in Rocketland, the more they remain the same. We aren't the Chicago Cubs yet but it is starting to feel like it. The fact that Houston has had so many sad sack teams over the years makes it even worse. Just the Oiler experience would have been enough to sustain a good depression for several decades. Luv Ya Blue (which ended badly), the glory years at UH, the Astro playoff runs, and the two Rockets championship teams: that's about it for the last fifty years. During the last twelve years, the Rockets have been consistently disappointing. It is clearly a management problem: scouting, coaching, trades, contracts, etc. The wrong moves at the wrong times equals the lack of progress. While the Rockets stumble around, some teams teams have completely rebuilt and are contending i.e. Utah. Most of us were pumped about the offseason acquisitions, but they don't seem to have worked out. James is a huge disappointment, Francis not coming to camp in shape is inexcusable, Brooks couldn't hit a basket in training camp after tearing up the Summer League, Novak should have never been drafted, Snyder seems lost, Bonzi is partying too much, Mutombo was through last year. Only Scola has looked decent, but gets little time. I still say our three supporting starters don't start for any other team in the West. It is still about talent, and most of the teams the Rockets play have more of it. They run shooters off the bench in waves, and the Rockets miss point blank shots. The lack of shooting has been a persistent problem for years, and never seems to get fixed. Amazing.
Heart and balls. How long have we been lamenting our lack of both? Seems like forever now. Thanks, Zboy. You've made the GARM readable, if only for today.
Not only do our three starters not start for any team in the West, two of them do not make the squad of any team in the West.
I would say that the ball sticks too much on our 2 stars. They take 35~40 shots per game in average, that is almost half of shots that the whole the team do. In such case, it is almost impossible to have the third scorer for this team. Right now, there is no other players takes more than 10 shots. I believe the team having 3 players with 15 points each will have better chances to win the game than the one having 2 players with 20 points each and the third player with 5 points. it is simply because the player will play harder besides on score only and this will improve the efficiency. Share the ball please. The reason that we played poorly without T-Mac is mainly because we run almost every procession through him when he was on the court. I believe the key for the success is the get every players involved to have a better efficiency as a team.
Very entertaining. But you can probably say the same thing about 28 of the 30 teams in the NBA. The only exceptions I can think of is San Antonio and Detroit. This year, you may add Boston to that few exceptional teams (but let's wait till after the playoffs and make sure the Celtics don't collapse there).
I wonder if the fans of all the other middle of the road teams make a change or two and then expect great success or are we just bigger suckers than most. This time the Rockets seemed to have fooled some of the national writers. I have to admit I still am amazed at how poorly Steve and Mike James have played.
Entertaining stuff as always, Zboy... But in all seriousness, you touch on something that I've been talking about for years now, ever since the good ol' days with Mo Taylor running the 4. The biggest problem with the Rockets, IMO, is that their two biggest weaknesses at the 1 and the 4 happen to be the strongest positions in the Western Conf. Now what I've been saying is that unless the Rockets fix at least one of those problems (preferably the 1), they simply won't have much playoff success.
