Hardens efficiency has gone down since Jones went into the starting lineup. This is not about Omer or Dwight or Harden individually. It's about putting the team in a position to win a championship. People that look at the first 8 games in a vacuum and do not consider the possibilities of further development not do they consider the current state of this team when we play teams with 2 skilled bigs playing together are not looking at the whole picture but rather just a tiny blip on the landscape of their basketball map.
How can something be determined 'trash' when it was only given 8 games? Jumping to conclusions without enough data is trash.
exactly what i want. when howard struggles on offense it gets to him mentally, then effects his defense and rebounding. stick asik in there so howard will learn
You show your bias when you say they are worse jump shooters than both Dwight and Asik. Dwight/Asik don't take any jump shots, while DMO/Jones take many jump shots. So you cant really say they are worse. I can guarantee you that if Asik or Dwight took as many jump shots as DMO and Jones they would be considerably worse. Do you remember how bad Parsons was at jump shooting his rookie year? This is the first year of real playing time for both DMO and Jones. I'm not saying that they will turn into solid jump shooters but you need to at least give them a couple years to develop into it.
He did have more rebounds than anyone else last season and had more rebounds per min than the two guys that beat him in rebounds per game.
I'm all for this if Asik develops muscle and athleticism and can catch and finish better than dwight.
Well Morey had a high asking Price for Asik (2 first round picks) and his contract gets ugly next Season, but we could trade him easily in the off-Season since we can include some cash
I think Asik has done a good job showing why he was worth the asking price. Too bad the opportunity for him came after the deadline was long since gone.
If he's not traded for a starter it's no point of doing a deal, he should stay until his contract os over. Too valuable for this team
That is Funny. One or Two sentences- Asik and Dwight Howard on the floor together did not work, and probably wont work again because of SPACING.
Jones has been in the starting lineup all but the first 8 games of the year. A more appropriate way of saying this would to say that Harden was more efficient that normal in the first 8 games of the year (and you are implying that somehow Harden WASN'T efficient 90% of the season). But was he efficient with the TT is a whole other story you aren't telling- 10/30 - Vs Charlotte - 13 of Hardens 21 pts in the 4th quarter 11/1- Vs Dallas - Asik gets 2 quick fouls - 0 Pts for Harden, and then almost immediately scores 12 pts when Asik leaves and Casspi enters game 11/2 Vs Utah- Harden scores a grand total of 2 pts with TT 11/4 Vs Clippers - Harden scored 0 points with TT, and 15 total in loss 11/5 Vs Blazers - Good 1st quarter for Harden (13 pts). Might be best match-up for TT we've seen. However Harden had 4 turnovers in 1st quarter. 11/7- Harden goes 0 for 4 with TT 11/9 Vs Clippers - Harden had a grand total of 12 pts in loss. 2 pts with TT 11/11 Vs Raptors - Harden goes 1 for 1 with 1 turnover with TT in Q1. So tell me this.... Was James Harden really THAT good with the TT's? The team is going to win a championship because of Harden and Howard 1st and foremost. That's who is going to make or break their playoff run as long as the role players do their jobs, and occasionally something magical happens and they get a little bit of luck. McHale would be stupid to go experimental again in the playoffs. That would be like a Wedding DJ throwing Kid A on during the dance party of the Wedding Reception. Maybe there are some indie kids in the crowd that would love it, but more than likely you going to have a weirded out grandmother who just wants to hear YMCA. Oh, and I love Kid A, and I love Omer Asik & the IDEA of the TT.
The point I was making is Harden was no worse with the Twin Towers than he was in all the other lineups he's been in. He was the same player. You are promoting the idea that it's all about Harden and Howard and what makes them tick the best. I'm with you on that. But if we're going to go there.....then we're going to have to talk about small-ball lineups. Because offensively the very best thing to make our offense sing is to have 3 other 3-ball shooters around Harden and Howard. And DMo and Jones are the absolute WORST 3-point shooters on this team. So...if it's really about Harden and Howard....and I believe it is....then McHale is going to have to figure out how to minimize Jones' usage, maximize small ball usage, and maximize Asik's minutes because Asik is one of the 5 best players on the team. See? Now back to Asik with Howard/Harden...once again...my point was Harden was not worse with Asik in there playing major minutes. You are promoting the idea that Asik in there somehow cramps Harden/Howard. It doesn't. The reason is because to get Asik 30 minutes only requires that Howard and Asik overlap on the court for about 12 minutes a game. Some of those minutes could even come with Harden taking a break....and running Bev/Lin and another shooter out there. You're making this huge deal about how bad running Asik out there for 30 minutes a game is for Harden. I'm countering you and making the point that it makes no difference. Asik is definitely one of the 5 best players on this team and arguably the 3rd best player on this team. You can't have your 3rd to 5th best player on the team playing 14 minutes a game. Something has to give here. And the only logical way it has to give is for Asik and Howard's minutes to overlap a little bit. Which essentially means Twin Towers in spurts. But just like the Spurs with Duncan and Splitter...it doesn't have to be Twin Towers on the court for 30 minutes a night. Howard plays 32 minutes in the middle. That leaves 16 minutes for Asik to cover on his own. Then McHale strategically develops a rotation that overlaps Asik and Howard for 12-14 minutes a game. (This should have already been done. It was a mistake to end the experiement. However I think it's going to be rectified down here at the end of the season and extending into the playoffs.) There is no question that we are going to need Howard and Asik in tandem against certain lineups. We got Portland in the first round. LaMarcus and Lopez. Neither Dwight nor Jones can defend LaMarcus. If he gets hot firing that jumper...he'll kill us. You gotta stop it. How???? Well...Jones can't play Lopez either. You stick Dwight on Lamarcus up high...you give up massive offensive rebounds and Lamarcus either hits the jumper, or misses and Lopez gobbles it up, or LaMarcus fakes and drives because Dwight has to come out too far to recover. The only matchups that we have that will neutralize LaMarcus is Asik on him and Dwight nailing down Lopez and controlling the glass behind Asik. We've already seen all the other stuff. And we've already seen how effective Asik is on LaMarcus. It's a no-brainer. And we'll likely need that defensive tandem to get past Portland in the first round. Then second round we get San Antonio....or possibly the Grizz. But most likely San Antonio. Spurs come out with Duncan/Splitter. How do you counter that? It's already a proven fact that Jones can't handle Duncan. What does Duncan do these days? Most of his play starts 15-18 feet from the basket. Catching the ball high, taking the 10-15 footer, or driving on his defender. Or he rolls down into a post-up. It's a proven fact that Jones can't check him. Duncan is simply too big, too experienced, too good for Jones. So we gonna stick Jones on Splitter and put Dwight out high on Duncan? That's stupid. You take Dwight away from the basket where he is best and you put him in a position where he is mediocre at best. He doesn't have the length to bother Duncan unless he gets up on him and if he does that he can't recover without fouling Duncan when Duncan drives. Once again...this matchup is a no-brainer for the Twin Towers. You can't just look at the offensive end when you think about the Twin Towers. Here's the problem with that. Jones is not a good shooter and he's a poor free throw shooter. So our offensive efficiency is somewhat hindered with him in there. He's not really a spread option. He does not force the opponent to have to come out and pick him up. Teams like Portland and the Spurs KNOW THIS! And they are going to use it against us. Then we go to the defensive end and get chewed up there down low. Now ... when the Spurs and Blazers rotate out of their 2 big lineups ... Then we can talk about better matching up with them possibly using Jones. For instance on Diaw defensively..Jones may work. I wouldn't commit to that just yet but Jones does have a lot better chance of defending Diaw and Thomas Robinson than he does of defending either Duncan or Splitter or LaMarcus or Robin Lopez. You see....Portland and the Spurs and the Grizz and the Mavs and the Clips all run Twin Towers lineups themselves for significant portions of their games. Not to mention when OKC goes with Adams or Perk in the middle and Ibaka at the 4. That's another TT configuration there. And those are the teams we have to get by to get to the Finals.
^ Lets just leave it at this. Yes, with the matchups the Blazers, Spurs, and the Grizz can throw at the Rockets, it would be nice(in a perfect world) to have the ability to run the TT.... I agree. However, at this point in time with only 90 or so minutes of the TT experimented with at the beginning of the season, my point is it would be like throwing a song from Kid A on the turntables at a Wedding Reception. The TT did not give the Rockets an advantage at the beginning of the season, it hasn't been used & most likely practiced since then, and the Rockets have had a top 10 offense, and defense since the new year. Whats more likely... McHale goes experimental in the post season with something that didn't work 5 months ago, or he goes with what has been working the past 73 games, and is something they are familiar & have chemistry with? Going small is probably much, much more likely in order to not just match up with bigger teams, but forcing them into playing your style of basketball. As far as strategy goes, that's probably the much more likely & successful experiment to go with if the Rockets are having trouble against those bigger lineups. In basketball, its usually the team that forces the other team into playing their style that has the upper hand, not the team that is reactionary to try and match up to other teams strengths when that style of play is obviously not your strength.
