I agree completely. Tate as a starter is not a good option anymore because he's simply not good enough. But give him 15-20 minutes a game off the bench and he'll give you valuable hustle and effort. The biggest problem is that you'd like to have him on the floor with a couple of good shooters, and we forgot to pick up any of those this off-season.
Agree last season's shooting is not sufficient, but as mentioned in the post I think there's a bit of a fog on our team's 3pt shooting stats. We have better shooters than we think and it seems like the front office agrees with this given their moves. Most importantly, I believe Green/Jabari/Brooks/FVV are all better shooters than they showed last season. That's 4 of our 5 starters. Decent chance Sengun improves too. Eason shot decently last season. KPJ and Londale will be dramatic improvements in shooting at backup SG and backup C. This mix of players will surprise us I think.
Pros: hustles. Plays very hard defensively. Has a decent handle. Has a decent left hand in terms of finishing around the basket. Decent passer. Average basketball IQ. Good locker room guy. Cons: 6'4 PF. Below average 3 point shooter. Foul prone. Can get tunnel vision and out of control when he has the ball. If Tate could shoot, his pros might outweigh his cons. But with his physical limitations and lack of a decent shot, I would rather those minutes go to Tari and Cam. Grant Williams made so much sense.
I don't know why people still see him as a PF. We just needed him at that position when we brought him in. Clearly a SF with less than adequate shooting imo.
I see Tate now as that end of the game stopper to pair with Brooks, Smith and Eason. Man, that is one disruptive lineup. I guess we could throw Thompson in there too.
He is a 6'4" combo forward/tweener who plays good but not great defense and shoots 28% from three. I think this guy only has so many fans around here because after Ego left he was literally the only player over age 22 on the roster, and Rockets fans are just starved for polished professional basketball players. To be clear, I think he is an NBA talent, but he is in the bottom 10% of players in the league and should not get any non-garbage time minutes on any team trying to make the playoffs unless there are DNPs in the everyday rotation. He should be like the 5th or 6th guy off the bench for us this season IMO and we should be running a 9 man rotation.
actually I don't really know why we have Tate and Brooks at the same time. seem like the same type of stocky defender to me that can't really shoot
Tate seems to be the more obedient guy, the hard worker but not as vocal. Brooks is just the crazy, eccentric, conceited guy. Brooks is a tad more established. No idea why the Rockets want another guy who starts trash talking.
Think Udoka's gonna love Tate. He's smart, hustles all out and is switchable. Only thing he's lacking is a consistent corner 3.
Tate is going to get minutes this year. Udoka and management want to win games. Tate has the experience and poise that the young guys need to develop. When they are actually winning games, fans will be happy no matter who is on the court. A winning team earns fans.
