J. Howard, Alston, and Ariza. Do they really deserve the bashing?

Rick has put Ariza in a bad position. He hasn't worked on his ball handling and going to the bucket enough to be a go to player like Lebron, Wade, etc...

He's a catch and shot and when he only has to take 2 dribbles to get to the rim. However, his D is 1,000 percent better than Shane.

 

None of the deserved the amount of bashing they got.

The problem is if fans stopped blaming these guys they will start realizing the deficiencies of the Rockets' roster, and go on ragefests.

Much easier to blame these guys.

 

Howard - No; he shouldn't have been starting in the first place

Alston- Yes; You are in the NBA for that long and stil can't hit a open jumper

Ariza - No.....................HE SHOULD BE CRUCIFIED AND KICKED OUT THE LEAGUE! I personally know people with better handles than Ariza......and THEY ARE 16 Years old.You are A Grown man in the NBA and can't dribble, in addition to that. He's not like Luther who cant dribble for **** and can still knock don a jumper, Trevor can't even do that. It's annoying. And he constantly Keeps SHOOTING!

 

Forgetting Kelvin Cato? Moochie Norris? Shandon Anderson? Matt Maloney? Robert Horry? Kenny Smith? Buck Johnson? Rockets have had a steady stream of whipping boys.

Part of it is when CF started, the Rockets teams actually werent that good. At most everyone had to have guarded optimism with the young Steve Francis era team.

Once the Rockets became actually good for the first time in CF history, it allowed the board to go into "contender mode" for the first time. Heightened expectations all around, no exceptions. Powers no one got to ever exert before and finally got to do . Thats my theory at least.

-Howard from what I remember was mostly a couple guys being ring leaders over zealously bashing him.
-Rafer had this site's owner against him, only downhill from there. And partly deserved.
-Ariza, I think he deserves a bit of the blame he's getting out of anyone the Rockets had in a while. With Rafer and Howard you at least knew what you were getting. With Ariza he's been decent with everyone else besides the Rockets. Yeah thats gonna piss people off.

 

A big diff. IMO (Besides the age b/t Howard, Alston vs. Ariza) was that neither Howard nor Alston were asked to play out of position the way Ariza has been asked to do...

Ariza has been asked to play the 2 guard position which requires the ability to create you're own shot and Score ala Tracy McGrady, which he can not do, I actually think moving him to the three would do wonders to his game slashing and setting him up for three's, I mean there's a reason Battier doesn't play the two its b/c if he would, he'd would be even worser than Ariza...

I think in order to let Ariza grow, we have to move Shane Old man Rivers Battier to the bench or trade him, and move Ariza to his natural position at the three and give the two spot to someone more fit for it, maybe Chase B. or Iggy (if we were to trade for him)....

--RB

 

j.howard - no

rafer - i really dont know anymore. he played great in the playoffs last year for the magic.

ariza - too early to judge

 

wow who are the 13 people that think ariza doesnt suck?

 

I don't see the similarities and I think lumping them all together is unfair and simplistic.

Juwan Howard was a decent player with a bad salary. I don't think many educated fans would have had a problem with him if his contract was a more reasonable one.

Rafer definitely had his share of critics but he did everything but shoot two point shots well. He played defense (every night), protected the ball and generally made good decisions. Everyone here would have loved the guy if he had shot 42% instead of 38% from the field.

Both Juwan and Rafer seemed to be solid locker room guys and were definitely the two "strongest personalities" on the court when the team was getting pushed around. Simply put, both guys did the best they could and gave 100% every night.

I don't need to bring up everything that is wrong with Trevor Ariza but it's worse than being an overpaid veteran PF or a PG who can't hit a floater.

 

I was RIGHT there with you until that last sentence... now I'm not sure I even know what basketball is. If I do I've clearly been watching a different team with two guys named Ariza and Battier.

 

is there really a difference b/t ariza playing the 2 or the 3 on this team? he's jacking up horrible shots either way.

 

haha funny

 

J Howard and Alston played a specific way, each with a style that they can't change. No they weren't good for our team, but it's not really their fault. Howard and Alston were on the downside of their careers with us, while Ariza is still young. There's still hope for him.

Ariza's been absolutely terrible, but it's still early. The majority of his shots early in the game have been good shots, but when it comes down to the forth quarter he seems to crumble. Ariza's ball handling skills are not good, but I do think his passing is actually pretty decent. Nonetheless, I don't think anyone deserves the bashing that Ariza gets.

 

No, but fans will be fans. They care about the team too much to not pick out the points where players are not good at, and I don't blame them.

 

No, of course not. None of those guys are known for shooting or scoring either way. Alston was more of a playmaker, facilitator type player and also a solid defender. Ariza is more of a role player and everybody knows that, he's forcing up shots because let's face it, he wouldn't have came to Houston if he wasn't able to do something like that or similar to that. You can't really blame Howard since he was on the decline when he got here.

There's always a role player that needs to be a whippin boy, there's one in every team.

 

No, we depend more on other players.

They aren't playing well, but they aren't ultimately the reason we win or lose.

 

Howard got too many minutes in the 05/06 season. He was rightly benched the following year, and I didn't have a big problem with him thereafter. There were stretches where he stepped up and helped when Yao went down.

 

Ariza and Alston most certainly

Howard was who he was.

 

He definately carried us in the game vs Denver that cost us Roy.

HE IS A CURSE!