I don't think the Rockets would have beaten the Knicks without Herrera. He was a key player in that series. People shouldn't forget we were down 3-2 and could have lost the series if Dream hadn't blocked Starks at the end of game 6. The margin of victory was razor thin and we were fortunate to come out on top. Without Sam or Herrera we would have lost. As I remember it, Mario wasn't such a key player in 94 Finals and chafed at the lack of important playing time.
What part of efficiency don't you understand? Juwan Howard's TS% is ranked 150th out of 181, that's horrible. It has nothing to do with him being the 3rd or 4th option. Why don't other players who aren't the first options on their teams have such poor TS%? That must explain why the team routinely loses when Howard and Yao are on the floor together. Why Yao's FG% and per-minute scoring increase negligibly with Howard, but his FTAs go down. Why the team's offense goes down by a whopping 7.3 points per 100 possessions when Howard plays. Even then, why did he only get 13.4 mpg? And Tyson Chandler had EXACTLY the same fouls per minute as Hayes did, and not only got 26.8 mpg, but started. Can you tell me how that's supposed to explain Juwan's negative impact? Can you tell me why Juwan had a negative effect in 2004-2005, when both stars were healthy? Juwan sucks, that's a fact.
What are you talking about? Having another good scorer is not a bad thing. It would be good if a PF could rebound and defend, but it would also be good if he was a credible scoring threat. Juwan's jumpshot was actually rated to be good by 82games.com and mysynergysports.com. However, his overall scoring is crap because he never takes it into the paint, or draws fouls. Like you said, Juwan can't do anything well right now.
Didn't Juwan play with Dallas and STEVE NASH? Didn't Juwan play with Washington and BEN WALLACE? maybe Juwan doesnt play with MVP candidates cause he takes away from their MVP shots? I said that once Juwan gets on this team, soon or later he will cast his juwan magic and sink the titanic. this version has 7foot chinese dude on that ship. he's bad luck. im still waiting for that Rockets playoff appearance from Juwan. At least Carl Herrera could show up to the playoffs. "HOUSTON OILERS"
Because those other players were not meant to be the first option and they didn't have their stars go down for extended periods of time. JHo is in no way supposed to be the #1 scorer on our team, but was forced into that role when Yao and TMac went down together. Because of this, the opponent's defense could gear up to stop JHo as our primary scorer and as such, his efficiency went down. Dude, the Rox "routinely" lost no matter WHO was on the floor last year and a BIG part of it was the fact that Yao and TMac missed extended periods. Even during the time when JHo and Yao were on the floor together, TMac was out, negating your "analysis." This one is easy to explain. When JHo is on the floor, he is able to keep the opponent's PF out on the floor guarding him, allowing Yao spacing that helps Yao rais his FG% and PPM. His FTAs go down a bit because at some point in the game the opposing defense is going to sag off of JHo to see if he can hit the 18' jumper, which he does consistently. IOW, when JHo is on the floor, Yao is more efficient and scores more and consequently it can be inferred that JHo is making the game easier for Yao. Again, you are using the 05-06 stats which sucked all around for the entire Rox team. In the previous year, that number was -1.4, a statistically insignificant amount. The biggest reason is that Hayes is not as good playing next to Yao because he can't hit the 18' jumper, which allows his defender to sit in Yao's lap. Look at those stats again, dude. They were not outrageously bad in '04-'05. I will never go touting JHo as a star, but he is a far better PF than many teams in the league have. He missed two games last year, averaged in double figures in points, nearly seven rebounds, and turned the ball over marginally over 1.5 times a night for close to a 1:1 A/TO ratio. JHo is a perfectly serviceable, smart, veteran PF who shows up every night and is a consistent performer. He takes pressure off of Yao and will continue to do so this year. THOSE are facts.
I misread the double negative in your first sentence. We all agree a scorer is needed at PF on this roster. But sorry, but I don't care what 82games.com says, JH's jumper is NOT that good. It's borderline adequate and getting worse.
Steve Nash wasn't an MVP candidate at the time ...that came later. Wallace has never been, to this day, an MVP candidate ...particularly in Washington. Are you comparing the likes of Steve Nash and Ben Wallace to the likes of Hakeem The Dream. I like Nash but he isn't 1/10th the player that Dream was in '94. If you are gonna hate on Juwan Howard, fine. But at least come up with an one itsy bitsy shred of an idea that has one millionth of a shred of legitimacy to it. I'm not huge fan of Juwan Howard but everybody's blind hatred of him around here turns you guys into jelly filled babble heads incapable of one intelligent thing to say. The best thing you got is at Juwan Howard hasn't been on a winning team. Woo-hoo. Very compelling. See what I mean? What kind of logic is that? I have no idea what that means.
1. Name me 2 power forwards that started over 40 games last year that Juwan is better than. 2. Juwan's eFg was 43% last year. He is NOT that great of a shooter and when he is off it is simply awful because the rebounds comes out long and just IGNITE the fast break for the opponent because Yao is on the low block and Juwan can't move to get back. 3. You cannot explain Yao's +/- pairs numbers with all his other teammates being on the plus side and him and Juwan's pairs numbers on the negative side but to say him and Juwan are not a good fit together. In fact, they are TERRIBLE together. Because Juwan can't guard a fire hydrant and the combination of his slow footedness and Yao's slow footedness kills us when we aren't hitting our shots. 4. Juwan does not create space for Yao but rather clogs up the middle of the court so we can't effectively run pick and roll with TMac at the top. TMac has to run that pnr play from the side with more limited spacing. Not to mention, Juwan does not have enough range on his shot. His limit is right at 17 feet. That's not far away. His man can very easily sag off him and front Yao and force Juwan to shoot that line drive low percentage shot. We are much better off playing a PF that can spot up in the corner and hit the 3 ball at a 40% clip and take his man clear away from being able to double Yao or helping defend on the pnr. 5. Every team in the league knows they are at the advantage when Juwan is on the court with Yao. They simply double Yao and give Juwan that top of the key jumper. They know even if he is hot and gets 20, that Yao is getting less opportunities to beat them and they are not piling up foul trouble. And all they have to do offensively is run the ball up and they are playing with either a 1 man or 2 man advantage on the break. 6. The reason Hayes' +/- numbers with Yao are so much higher than Juwan's is because Hayes can board AND defend power forwards. Hayes is our BEST post defender. Howard is the worst post defender we have right now. That may surprise you but Hayes is deceptively strong and his arms and feet are as quick as lightning. Hayes blocks ten times more shots by slapping the ball away from the shooter before they can even turn and face than Howard blocks at all. There's no comparison between them on the boards or defensively. And offensively, Hayes doesn't take shot attempts away from Yao and McGrady. He is not an option but he does know how to get to the glass and rip down boards and get putbacks. Howard CANNOT do this. Hayes is simply on the glass cleaning up the mess. What that means is when Yao gets doubled from Hayes man, Hayes goes to the rim and Yao can either take the shot with Hayes standing under to put it back in or if Hayes is wide open Yao can dump it to him for the easy layup. That's a MUCH HIGHER PERCENTAGE SHOT than Juwan's linedrive missle jumper from 17 feet. Juwan's game is just too limited and his offensive skills are too in between. We're better off having either Hayes or Battier at the 4. Juwan should only be getting minutes when Yao is not on the floor. We cannot expect to win a championship against the speed and quickness of NBA teams and run Juwan out there for 30 mpg alongside Yao. It is a TERRIBLE combination.
Which explains why he had a higher (not by much) TS% in 2005-2006 than he did in 2004-2005. Howard had negative player past stats with Yao in 2004-2005 as well. Easier for Yao? I just calculated Yao's TS% overall and with Howard (from those points, FGAs, and FTAs). Overall: 0.5915 With Howard: 0.5898 In addition, Yao had 0.1 more turnovers per 48 minutes when playing with Howard. All really tiny differences, but this shows that Juwan isn't helping Yao. Statistically insignificant? Here are the team rankings by points per 100 possessions. 1.4 is worth several ranks. And of course, the defense was worse by 3.7 points per 100 possession when Juwan played, which is huge. Quite the opposite. Yao overall (per 48 minutes): 1...stats. If I did, I'm sure I would find more.
I did this research last week. The only place where Howard woudl arguably have a shot at starting lasty year is over Raef LaFrentz in Boston (though as I said last week, Al Jefferson is a much better player and should take over for him eventually once he limits fouls; likewise LaFrentz has 3 point range which Howard lacks). That's it.
And what teams have both a better SF and a better C than the Rockets? Arguing that we are weak at PF is like...duh. We don't need to matchup man-to-man at every position. We need to play like a better team. As such, JHow is sufficient at PF as long as Yao and TMac play up to their potential. If they do, hell, you and I could play PF. Don't waste so much energy with JHow.
This argument doesn't work. I couldn't think of a better PF-PG combo in 2005 than Stoudemire & Nash - does that mean the Suns would have been better off with a mediocre player like Ryan Bowen instead of Sean Marion at SF that year (or next)? Of course not. So why are people willing to accept what is an objectively lousy contribution from Howard whcih can't be explained away by injury? Just because we can win some games - seemingly in SPITE of him - and got to the first round of the playoffs - it's ok that he's dead weight? I just don't understand that thinking at all. Another consideration is having a PF who is at least halfway respectable on either defense or offense which Juwan really isn't, may give some pause to the Dirk's & Duncans of the world so that Yao doesn't have to be a one man show all the time. I wonder how good Yao would be with a real PF and not a one dimensional, average jumpshooter who is below average at every other single category.
It is remarkable how JH has been able to fool people all this time. How many botched up plays and terrible performances in a Rockets uniform is it going to take for people to realize that this guy is one of the MAIN reasons Rockets lose games. He is a Liability! If JH was the PF playing with Hakeem instead of OT or Harrera, Houston would never had those 2 rings. Yes JH is such a liabilty that even Hakeem's greatness could not have overcome it.
If your team doesn't have any superstars on it, 99x100 you won't win crap. This team will live and die by the success of Yao and TMac ...not Juwan Howard. the '94 Rockets were a dominant team because of Dream. If you put Juwan on that '94 team, they'd still have been contenders.
What does this have to do with what I said? andymoon claimed that Juwan is "a far better PF than many teams in the league have." I showed that this was clearly not true. Two stars alone don't win championships. Teams win championships. The top teams can field almost an entire starting lineup (if not an entire starting lineup) of above average to star level players. Juwan's performances hurt this team, and that is not what people should want to settle for.
That doesn't address the point that Howard is inadequate, in fact it expressly avoids it. The 1986-93 Rockets had Dream as well. How dominant were they? If you put today's Juwan on the 1994 Rockets, he'd be Chris Jent's backup. Why do you people defend his mediocrity? "Yeah, I know he sucks but I can predict we can win moderately in spite of him, so let's just go with it" That's just silly to say.
Howard is not inadequate. The two most important peice, BY FAR, is Yao and TMac. If they play the way they are capable, Howard will be a decent enough role player. Would I like to upgrade him? Yes. Would I give him away for nothing as the title suggests. No. It isn't about having a dominant player ...it is about having the most dominant player in the game at the time. In '86, Hakeem was FAR FAR FAR from his peek in '94-'96 when he played his best ball. Again, hard to have a rational conversation when you say a career 17/7 guy would be Chris Jent's backup. I defend the Rockets. I beleive we can win a championship with our current team. Can our team be better. Yes. But I BELEIVE.
Look at the last 10 championship teams. What was the most important factor of their success? It was the stars. Only the recent Pistons evade that simple fact. Every other team was dominant because they had one of the top 5 most dominant players in the game. Role players are nice and make life easier. But make no mistake that in the NBA teams succeed because they had an MVP quality player. Could they have won without role players ...of course not. But the role players succeed BECAUSE of their stud. Most of the time, you put those same role players on the Golden State Warriors and you wouldn't even know there names. Perfect example: Derek Fisher Wrong. Lakers team around Shaq/Kobe was worthless. Nobody ever confused the Rockets team of being full of all-stars. Miami has White Chocolate as the starting PG. PLEASE. The Spurs had Mohammed starting at center. All teams have weaknesses. It comes down to which star players plays bigger in crunch time ...not which team's scrubbiest player plays worst.
