well, you're looking at swift as an add on to make the trade work, as if he was a small contract or pick they throw in to make the deal possible, but couldn't it have been the original deal offered? I think that was part of the plan, to get a player they wanted and get rid of that bad contract.
Well like i said to you before, chuck was benched, rafer was traded, and Shane is still starting and playing big minutes, they are similar in that they are limited offensively, but not the same. Chuck literally can't shoot, not even freebies. Rafer didn't know when NOT to shoot. Those things alone dramatically drop their effectiveness and team efficiency. Chuck has been here for years, never developed a shot, rafer had been here 4 yrs, never stopped shooting and never shot over 40% FG. his FT % wasnt even consistent either, shot as high as 78, but also as low as 69. Shane can shoot, i just dont think he was able to adapt to the injuries quickly enough and get into that frame of mind, seems easy, but again, i think for someone like him it takes extended practice and time. During most of the season he had to rest his ankle and couldn't get the normal lift on his J, so he couldn't really get his offense back by practicing like he knew he needed. He mentioned how he still worked on his Fts since they didn't require jumping and that was evident by his 95% FT shooting in the playoffs and tying his career high of 82% during the season. I know it doesn't seem like much, but i think it shows improvement in a needed area and i expect the same in other areas of his offensive game now that he has an offseason and health to work with. You talk about the rockets' d prior to shane...but like i've said many times there's been a major defensive presence every year since. There was JVG and Deke, chuck....then it was shane, deke, chuck....now deke is gone, chuck isn't getting PT. Who's going to take over is shane gets traded for an offensive guy or his minutes are siginificantly decreased? Ron? He didn't even pay attention a lot of the time when opponents' plays were called out by shane or lowry/chuck because he was too focused on his man, which is good for his individual d, but bad for team d. He's a defensive player, not defensive leader, not consistently anyway. Number 6 on def and #8 on off is good, but we're not going to be #6 with JVG, deke, and shane all gone. On top of that, we may not even have a legit back up center, which creates more defensive problems for us. So then: less defense + more defensive problems = a ranking a lot lower than 6. You've also mentioned scoring while the clock isn't running and how easy/free those points are (free throws) as a reason why you like Maggette. Well shane is on the other end of this. He rarely fouls. He doesn't give up those free points. That's another thing you'd be losing. the rockets were second to last in fouls, spurs were last. That's a big reason for their great D...Ron isn't going to have the same effect if you put him on the best perimeter player for 82 games. Ron's fouls were the lowest this year since his rookie year, mainly because he's not guarding those guys all the time anymore.
RV6, the true defensive guy is Yao. For his faults, he makes the rox a good defensive team, not so much shane. Like I said earlier in the season with shane gone, the opp fg% and ppg were lower than when shane was in there. Yao in the middle even with his pick and roll problems is what anchor the defense. Again, defending without fouling is good, but if guys are still scoring over the top, does it matter? Deke can be replaced just as chuck was replaced. Its the team concept defensively is whag makes a good defense. Who are the defensive stalwarts on orlando? Howard, that's it. Pietrus is a good defender, he comes off the bench. There are a lot of guys that can be more offensive than shane and play good defense. I know some people don't like him, but nocioni is a good defender. Is he on shanes level? Probably not, but he's a hard playing, gritty guy. Not to mention he's a much better offensive player who will run, cut, rub, and put the ball on the floor. Plus in the playoffs, he has shown he will show up at home and on the road.
LMAO at Yao being the person who makes the Rockets a good defensive team. Yao is a below average defender.
Why do you think so many NBA teams, even playoff teams, struggle with defense when its simply a matter of team concept, not so much the players?
Some teams are good defensive team because they have players that are good defenders and some teams are good defensive teams because they trust their concepts. When Detroit was a top defensive team, they shouldve been because their personel gave them the ability to execute it. All of their top defnders were long for their position. I mean there wasn't a guy who wasn't a good defender in their starting 5. On the other hand, look at a team like orlando this yr. They have 1 top shelf defender and the other guys other than pietrus are avg or below avg. They have a good philosophy that everyone buys into. I can even look at boston that jumped from the bottom to the top by adding TT and kg, but while in minny, the wolves were never a good defensive team even with kg. Denver,Portland, and La should be top defensive teams because of their size and lateral length, but they don't always buy into the concept all the time and their defense suffers a lot. The rox in the yao era have been good defensive teams. The first yr of van gundy and yao, the defense jumped from the bottom to top 5 in defense with the non defense of francis and mo taylor.That was no accident. Even when the rox had 6 ft david wesley playing 2 guard and howard on defense, the team was no lower than 6th. Again, that's the players buying into the concept. The last 2 yrs with a sieve at the 4 spot, they're still top 5. The only common denominator is Yao.
Believe it or not Artest's defensive rating was pretty good this season, 20th in the league. That shows our team was much better on defense when he plays. Whether it's his intimidation or ability to wear someone out with his physical play, he has a big impact on how the team plays defense. I could see him, Chuck, Lowry and Yao (who has also become a good defender) being enough to keep us a very good defensive team. That actually seems like a better defensive team than the one before Shane got here.
And how do you get players to trust the concepts? Don't you think its easier to get some players to trust the concepts more than others? It takes a special level of commitment and attention to detail. Some players have it, some don't. Shane Battier has it. Chuck Hayes has it. Even Rafer had it. Guys like Ricky Davis, Tim Thomas, and Brian Cook (all players you like, if I'm not mistaken) don't. What I'm saying is that if it was such a simple thing you can get most players to do with just a little motivation, and that's mainly what the Rockets have going for them, then they wouldn't have separated themselves from most other teams. Your story just doesn't come together right, imo. You don't win 50+ games and get to the second round of the playoffs in the West with all the injuries they've had to deal with unless the role players are really good. You don't win 22 straight -- I don't care what the competition is -- with Yao Ming gone for half of it last year unless the role players are really good. The credit has to fall somewhere. Maybe Rick Adelman is just a genius.
Not to derail you two's debate, but I just wanted to make sure I read something correctly. There is actually someone who is a fan of both Ricky Davis and Tim Thomas?
I guess the OP knows more about Battier's contributions than Morey, who constantly praises what Shane brings to the table.
What's wrong with Ricky Davis? He's pretty much a longer, more athletic, better defending (not great just much better than Wafer) version of Von Wafer...and everyone seemed to love him.
dude, can we stop with the I guess Morey knows more than original poster who's just an idiot on the Interwebs. Jeesh, its a fan web site, its purpose is to discuss the team. not parrot everything the organization says not to mention it wasn't original two weeks ago
Yao's defensive rating is the best among Rockets' starters in the regular season (2008-09) and in the playoffs, his defensive win share is the highest among all Rockets players in the regular season and tied for the highest among all Rockets players in the playoffs. (Source: http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/HOU/2009.html) What stats do you base on to come to the conclusion that Yao is a below average defender?
While I tend to agree with you, the whole Battier argument is tired. Everyone has picked a side and isn't going to budge. It's like politics. I have a hard time joining in Battier arguments because they're so repetitive.. everyday someone makes a post just like one the day before. If you notice, many of the posts in here aren't even focused on Battier, they're just focused on how to prove the other poster wrong.
Wait a minute, didn't you throw out that earlier as another "useless" stat? Like i responded then, the team was on a high to start the season. The expectations were high, especially on d, and they all wanted to prove it wasn't just hype. Ron came out with a rocket attached to his behind and set the tone defensively for the first dozen games or so and the team followed. However, that's why i wrote i don't believe Ron can be that guy consistently over 82 games. Once injuries to tmac and ron began about 15 -17 games in, that defensive high fizzled.. the team eventually got back on it later int he season, but Ron never played d that well consistently again. He didn't display the same leadership on defense as well. He displayed some, here and there, but that's not enough to be a leader on that end. As for Yao being the true def leader, that's laughable. if that was true the rockets' d would have probably crumbled after he went down against LA. All he does is clog the middle and not even on purpose and gets 2 blocks a game. Who do you see calling out the opponents' plays, directing the defensive alignment or matchups? Either shane, chuck, and sometimes Lowry. Who routinely makes big defensive plays in big moments? Shane, chuck. That's who leads this team and only one of them can be an influence consistently on the court and that's battier because he's getting the minutes. And you're saying shane may not foul, but his opponents score over the top?? As far as i know they don't shoot a very high percentage most of the time, and when they do he's still not giving them easy points. Why does it matter? Didn't the Laker series pretty much answer that? It was the difference between Kobe being just a top scorer on his team and Kobe being Kobe the playoff closer.. Yao gets scored on over the top AND fouls a lot. That's the defensive leader? chuck can be replaced? We're talking defense here. You're going to replace his defense?? when was this? Last time checked we had scola and landry playing defense for us at PF.....i'm not even going to get into "replacing " deke's defense, like it's that easy.. As for Orlando...the defense is lead by Howard, a defensive player of the year! He sets the tone, leads, etc. Like shane does here. You don't need a team full of defenders to be a good defensive team BUT you do need a big defensive presence (not literally big, but someone who's serious about it at a team level) at least, along with other players willing to follow and put the effort in. you take away the leader and the players may put in effort, but that's all it will be, it won't be as structured as when you have that def leader on the court. If it was that easy any team could be good defensive team as long as they tried. Denver is a perfect example, they tried like crazy, but there was not structure or lead there so it wasn't effective. Nocioni is a solid defender, but he's got a very specific style that's only going to work against similar 3s built like himself, possibly some smaller 4s, but he's not going to guard any ones or twos. Shane is a lot more versatile on D AND better individually AND better as a defensive leader. It's not as simple as shane's good on d and nocioni is pretty good himself. you have to look at the specifics of their defensive styles, their versatility, how it will affect this team, etc.
I agree, to a point. But when posters insist that opinions other than their own comes from total basketball ignorance and not watching the game, then it's definitely legitimate to point out what the organization (front office, coaches, scouts, etc.) believes.
what does the defensive rating take into consideration? (not trying to make a point i just am not that familiar with it) Like i mentioned earlier, ron's individual D is still very good, perhaps that's why he still can affect the team, but he's not consistently very good as a help defender or defensive leader. chuck's not going to get a lot of PT on the court, so his leadership almost ends at the bench. Lowry's PT is also spotty, and Yao's not very effective orally as a leader. I can't see any of them being effective in a wide variety of ways defensively like Shane. He contributes with his play, behind the scenes, vocally, on the bench, etc.
"True def leader" or not, Yao's absence led to two lopsided losses against LA in game 5 and 7. In other words, Rockets' D did crumble. If clogging the middle is an effective way of denying LA's big front men the opportunity of playing volleyball, then I say keep clogging the middle. Yao does that too.
