What move is there to make to improve our defense? I mean, the only thing I can think of is Jared Jeffries... but his natural position isn't at SF even though he can play it. Starting Budinger and having some scoring off the bench with Taylor wouldn't be a bad move... I'm saying, trade offense for defense because no move we make personnel wise on the perimeter is going to help our defense (unless we trade).
Brooks for Lowry. Scola or Yao for Hill. Those are two options that have been thrown out around there. I wouldn't bench Martin, he's easily our best scorer. Starting Bud would take us from the worst defensive team in the league to one of the worst in history. Yes, our defense CAN get worse. That is the flaw in your thinking.
Battier is a red herring. If you think JT should play, even if Battier should not, you'll need to justify these minutes should't simply be split among Martin, Lee and Budinger. It's hilarious a certain Von Wafer fan spent all year trashing JT (because he's not Von Wafer) and is now yelling about how the Rockets are treating this young stud unfairly.
Rockets management has a history of trying to win. Their job isn't to babysit players who can't crack the rotation. I feel for JT, and think that he could be a solid player with a little more time to develop, but not at the expense of winning games. I'm confident that Morey can get a deal done. He knows what he's doing.
No it can't get worse... because like I said Battier's perimeter defense and Budinger's average perimeter defense is the SAME.
Battier makes pretty much all of the entry passes to yao and has done a decent job of passing to others, he's had some Miller-esque bounce passes for layups as well...He's helping offensively, just not doing it by putting up shots or points. Our offense is fine, except for 2-3 minutes in the 4th. He's already been benched in that situation and bud didnt' deliver. It's just one game, but that's how they need to handle it for now, rather than just giving most of the minutes to Bud. Battier had to guard Monta Ellis one game. Carmelo anthony, in another. Then Kobe some as well. He did fine against Ariza. The sample size is too small and almost limited to extremely talented offensive players to assume battier won't do a solid job in upcoming games. Meanwhile bud has shot 1 of 11 from three with a lot of open looks. He's not exactly helping his case for more PT. Maybe it'll change later, if battier keeps struggling defensively and Bud gets his shot back, but right now it's not warranted.
I just see Battier as a better fit off the bench. Yes, he's had to guard some tough opponents, but that doesn't give him an excuse to suck on defense completely. He's been bad since preseason, so I think that's a big enough sample size to show you he's lost a step even after being fully healthy. I'm not proposing we change now, I was just merely arguing how JT could replace a player in this rotation. Anyways, I'm done debating at this point.
The organization has to do what is right for the team. It's clear Taylor's time is up here,because of the Dampier situation. He can be picked up by any team, even if he is waived.
Until someone clearly steals his starting position away, like Scola and Landry did with Hayes, I vote for Battier as a starter, because I want to second unit to be uptempo fastbreaking with Lowry, Bud and Lee. Battier is better for us playing with Yao than the 2nd unit, imso.
Les is not cheap. The guy gave a huge payday to both McGrady and Yao. Morey's job was to succeed where Dawson failed; putting competent role players around our 2 stars. Now were down to essentially ZERO star power and a cast of 2nd and 3rd fiddles. The expiration and subsequent handling of Yao's contract will really tell us more about Morey's direction with his team. The team is hamstrung at the moment after our stars fell apart. It's unfortunate, but the Yao situation has become a sort of albatross around around the neck of this team.
Like I've been saying man. Morey is a cut throat exec and people tend to give him too much credit. One of his first moves was the resigning of Steve Francis for pete sakes.
I know. I still want Chas playing with Lowry for the time being, though. I don't want to change it up until I start seeing Bud create his own shots, like Ariza was supposed to do. Until then, I like the chemistry of the 2nd unit and don't want to mess with it just, yet. make sense?
There are some guys that deserve it, 100%, yes...but each situation is completely different. Players could see how TMac screwed the organization over so a good butt kicking back would have been fine. Right now the Rox problem is they treat everyone like that....and that causes a perception that they are cheap and don't care. Of course he is, but he is really really slow at it....I was calling for Scola to start in November of his rookie year, when he finally started....the team took off and they had a 22 game winning streak baby !!! DD
