Our pf spot is the weakest spot on this team. It's very simple, we are over in the playoffs if JH goes down. On the other side, we would still have a nice three guard rotation if either Wesley or Sura goes down, possibly four if Spanoulis plays OK, and possibly five if a guard like Raja Bell is added. Sura when healthy is a capable starter, Wesley has been a starter for years, James is a marginal starter and Barry is a terrific bench player. At the pf spot Spoon and Padgett are backups who have little actual value on a playoff team, JH is coming off a major injury and heart disease. And you guys think we can leave the pf spot without an overall upgrade? after a series we played sfs at the pf spot because we didn't have a pf who can play like one?
The reason why it is easier to get a good guard now is because the league is loaded with great guards. Practically every team in the league has a great guard or a soon-to-be great guard. Pretty much every team in the playoffs this year had at least 2 great/very good perimeter players...except for the Rockets. The NBA is now a guard's league. This is precisely why the Rockets need to upgrade their backcourt now in order to remain competitive next year.
Using the same logic nearly every elite contending team has a great or stud power forward. The Suns have Shawn Marion. The Mavs have Dirk. The Spurs have Tim Duncan. The Pistons have R.Wallace. That's two great/stud pfs in the NBA finals. Besides, the Rockets' weakest position and achellis heels is at the pf spot. Combine the two factors the No.1 priority is to upgrade the overall pf spot by signing SAR and moving JH to backup. SAR isn't just an overall upgrade at pf spot but also reduces our need of a scoring sg or playmaking pg, and his versatility to play backup sf fills partly our hole at the sf spot. If the Rockets can get SAR on board, solidifying the backcourt is the 2nd priority that can be done by adding a relatively cheap player who can play some defense and shoot some threes. Our perimeter play was fine until we had to play T-Mac at pf because we had no real pf to play it, which reduced our perimeter defense as our height, speed and athleticism is severely reduced when T-Mac is guarding Dirk, and our perimeter offense was reduced with T-Mac spending energy guarding the opposing pf. Also, the Mavs left Ryan Bowen open, who's on court because we have no real pf to clamp down on whoever has the ball on our side. Our lack of pfs created a serious and negative chain effect on our perimeter play as well as post play that drowned our season. Therefore, throwing major resources to guards in this offseason is curing the syptom instead of curing the syndrome. IMHO upgrading the overall pf spot by getting SAR or other quality pfs is the No.1 priority this off season, it's a matter of execution, not a matter of direction.
What a good point. If it were Dirk going off got 40 against us instead of Terry and Finley killing us late in games, everyone would be screaming for a new PF.
Every elite team has a great big man, which they surround with great perimeter players. We have our big man in Yao already. Now we need to get our great perimeter players. You can't just plug a scoring big man next to a scoring big man and expect his offensive numbers to stay the same. How many times in NBA history has a championship team had a 4/5 tandem that both averaged more than 15 points a game. The Mavs played Dirk at center with 4 guards the entire series. Let's assume we did have a power forward. There's no way the Rockets would have been able to get away with Yao AND another big man on the floor. That lineup would be far too slow. The only way the Rockets could have kept up with the lineup the Mavs played was playing Yao with 4 guards. In which case, having a couple of guards that are more than mediocre would have helped. The Suns forced the Spurs to do the same thing in their series. There was no way the Spurs could keep up with the Suns with Duncan and Mohammed on the floor at the same time. So what did they do? They slid Duncan over to the 5 and put 4 perimeter players on the floor with Duncan. Having great perimeter players is a must! I don't care if we do get SAR, the Dallas series will not be the last time we see Mcgrady playing the 4 in the playoffs. Count on it.
Our perimeter play wasn't fine with about 15 games left in the regular season when none of our guards could hit the side of barn with a beachball. We were all wondering if they had run out of gas. Nobody is saying stand pat at PF. At a minimum, we need real a backup for JH so the drop off in play won't be so drastic if he misses some games. I'm not against getting SAR; he would be an upgrade over JH. But we can't do it to the detriment of improving our creaky backcourt, ages 32, 35 (in Nov), 30 & 36 (in Jul).
In the last 17 years, unless you have a scary tandem like MJ/Pippen, Dream/Drexler and Kobe/Shaq, it's a must to have a stud frontcourt such as Rodman/Mahorn/ Laimbeer, Dream/Thorpe, Duncan/D Rob, and R.Wallace/B.Wallace. We need to have a stud frontcourt because Yao/T-Mac is not yet in the class of Kobe/Shaq. Nobody expects SAR averages his career number of 20 ppgs as the third option on the Rockets. It's his ability to create his own shots and step up for stretches that the Rockets desparately needs. 32 minutes at pf and 14/8 will do it for me. On nights Yao and TMac or others are on fire I have no problem with him scoring 10 points, on other nights he can go for 20. Then he can play 6 minutes at the sf spot, which might up his stats to 16/9 in a total of 38 minutes, as a combo pf/sf. When someone is playing alongside T-Mac and Yao, it's perfectly reasonable for his points to go down somewhat. The same can be said regarding a guard. Thank you for proving my point of SAR's worth on the Rockets. SAR is exactly the type of player the Rockets need to deal with the Mavs and the Suns. You are suggesting to counter the Suns and the Mav's small lineup by adding a guard instead of SAR,which isn't the best choice for the Rockets. Yao will play the center no matter what. T-Mac simply isn't a pf even against small lineups and shouldn't be playing it for anytime long. In fact, we'd be playing right into the trap of the opponents if T-Mac plays the pf spot consistently. The opponents want T-mac to waste his energy by forcing him to do all the pf hard work, or even get injured. T-Mac's energy is hell lot more precious than whoever small player they put at pf. There was a sequence in the Mavs series in which T-Mac fought for one rebound against two defenders for three times. So if we really add a guard against the small lineups instead of SAR, we would still have just JH at the pf spot. If JH goes down we're over, if he doesn't he wouldn't be as great as SAR with less youth, speed, athleticism, scoring, rebounding and shot blocking. With SAR(who can play sf) at pf and T-Mac at sf we'd be much better to stay with the small lineups, and most importantly, to capitalize on the opponents small lineup by getting the rebounds and score inside with consistent post up and around the basket play, as well as the formidable SAR/T-Mac/Yao picks and rolls all game long(these things can't be done as well with an additional guard). Make the opponents adjust to us beats us becoming the Mavs or Suns copycat, which we aren't good at. Who's this mysterious GREAT perimeter player within our range you keep talking about? Bonze Wells? Bill Simmons? Sorry, they are good but not great in my book. [QOUTE]I don't care if we do get SAR, the Dallas series will not be the last time we see Mcgrady playing the 4 in the playoffs. Count on it. [/QUOTE] We were forced to play McGrady at the 4 because we had no real pf, if we don't address the pf void on our team, I would certainly count on your words.
They adjusted and finished the season strong. We need to upgrade the pf spot overall and it's much easier to get relatively young guard who can play some D and shoot from outside than a good pf.
I agree with Panda. SAR versatility (best as a 4, but has some 3 like qualities) is extremely usefull against a team like Dallas or the Suns, and it is where his value over JH would really shine. SAR would tremendously reduces the burden on Tmac defensively when opponents go small. Offensively, if an opponent goes small (Amare, Marion, Q or Dirk, Howard, Finley), a front line of Yao, SAR and Tmac would be devastating. Against a team like the Spurs or Wolves who like to pound it to their big 4s, SAR would be a more marginal upgrade over JH as a starter, but at least we have two guys to make them work on both ends for 48MPG.
Notice how well those tandems complement each other. The blending of offense and defense, power and finesse. They all consist of a superstar big man that primarily focuses on offense (Dream, Duncan, R. Wallace) and great role players that do all the dirty work (Thorpe, Robinson, Ben Wallace). Same thing could be said about Shaq/Haslem, Dampier/Dirk, Amare/Marion, Mohammad/Duncan. Otis Thorpe was an enforcer that played defense and got rebounds. David Robinson used to be a prolific scorer, but once Duncan came, he was forced to become a defensive stopper. Ben Wallace is a monster on defense. Unless you think Shareef can suddenly become a stud on the boards and on defense, those examples are exactly why the Rockets should avoid a soft offensive minded power forward like SAR. With Yao being as slow as he is, the only possible way to keep up with some of these teams is the play him with 4 guards. The NBA is all about matchups. If a team puts 4 guards on the floor, you don't put 4 big men on the floor the counter. Speed beats size almost every time. The Spurs realized this when they faced the Suns. Those rebounds that killed the Rockets were not rebounds SAR would have helped us out with. They were long rebounds. The kind that you expect your guards to get. Blame our lack of athleticism on the perimeter for our rebounding problems. They were a step too slow all series long. It's not like Mcgrady was battling Dirk for rebounds. He was battling Josh Howard for rebounds. Dirk played center. So Yao should be the one battling Dirk for rebounds. You make it seem as if Dirk was banging down low and punishing Mcgrady in the paint. He wasn't. All Dirk did was stand out on the perimeter and take jumpers all series. Mcgrady did not have to do anything special on defense just because he was guarding Dirk. He defended Dirk the same way he would defend any small forward or shooting guard. Just like if the Rockets were to face the Suns, Mcgrady would have absolutely no problem guarding Marion. Because even though Marion is listed as a pf, his game is like a guard. And Mcgrady would defend him like he would defend any guard. It's not like the Rockets would ever be forced to put Mcgrady on a true power forward like Duncan or Brand.
If Howard goes down, the Rockets will simply put in their new backup power forward. The Rockets will have a better backup 4 than Weatherspoon next season. That's a given. The question is whether or not that should be the first priority or whether it can be held off until after we upgrade the backcourt. I don't know why everybody is all worried about Howard's health. If the Rockets deem that he's recovered from the knee injury, then I have absolutely no concern for his health next season. Until last seasons injury, the guy has been an iron man his entire career. Check out his game totals the previous 5 years: 82, 81, 81, 77, 81. And in in all 5 years, he's played around 35 minutes a game for the season. The way Howard plays the game, there is very little risk of injury. Last season was just a freak accident. Based on their history, Tracy Mcgrady and Bob Sura are much bigger injury risks. There's another reason why we should get a guard. If Tracy Mcgrady goes down for +10 games next season, it would be nice to have another playmaking perimeter player to pick up the slack. Outside of Mcgrady, there is absolutely nobody on this team that can consistently penetrate and create plays for others.
JH will be 32 and coming off a major injury and major health threats, we should be concerned about his ability to give you 26-28MPG all season. Sura's age and health is a concern too, but at least we have a 1st rate back-up PG/servicable starter behind him. Remember Robert Horry has a least 3 rings playing power forward--one with Hakeem, and maybe a 4th playing PF with Duncan. Good defender, but certainly not a one on one stopper, nor a physical banger, nor a great rebounder. While in principal I'd rather have PJ Brown mold PF (I guess Chandler is the closest), the more realistic options are SAR, Swift, DM and Reggie Evans. You want defense and rebounding in a player with a lot of years left, that guy is Evans. There is a major offensive down side there unfortunately, but it still might work. You want the best all-around players with a few years left, they are SAR or Swift. SAR also gets you your back-up SF in addition to your starting PF and makes the roster very flexible. Either way you you want to reserve your MLE to pursue any of these guys, and I am not sure of which PF who might be left on the market after these 4 guys are gone who would really be much better than Padget/Bowen/Spoon. It is hard to find a cheap PF late in FA who is anything more than a speciality bit player (Bowen/Padget type), not the kind who can step in if JH goes down. BTW I would well take my chances with say Yao, SAR, Tmac, X-SG (Raja Bell/Kittles/Spree/Daniels?) and Sura (or James if you want to go quicker) versus whatever line up Phx and Dallas puts up. If opponents throw quickness at you, the line up I put out their is fairly rangy and quick (SAR is not slow for a PF, and TM and Bell would be excellent on the wings), and punishes the opponents on the other end. You don't just have to react to opponents teams, but with multiple position players like Tmac, SAR and Sura around Yao we can construct line-ups to dictate how opponents have to play us.
Horry did the dirty work. He could end up with only 4 points in a game and still make a huge impact on the outcome with a block, or a key rebound, or drawing a charge, or making a steal. Without Horry's defense on Barkley and Malone, we don't win that second championship. He has the intangibles that Shareef doesn't have. SAR is the complete opposite of Horry. If SAR is not getting his touches or not putting points on the board, there's very little else he offers. That's a huge negative on this team, because the power forward on this team is not going to get a lot of plays run for them. That's why the best attribute of whoever we get to play the 4 must be in an area other than scoring.
Point taken. But if SAR would take less money (MLE) to sign here I assume he would understand he would be the 3rd wheel. He never has got a chance to be a role player because he never played on a championship caliber team with two far superior teammates in which the offense ran through. I'd let JVG feel out this one (whether this is a role SAR would thrive). It would not be the 1st time guys went from stars to role players to help their team win rings (DR, OT, McAdoo, Aguire, Rice, etc). DM, Reggie Evans and maybe Swift do fit more of your other criteria of making their presence known with fewer touches. But there are certainly other major questions with each.
SAR is capable of rebounding at one rebound for every 4 minutes, about the same of Stromile Swift. He has the tools to be an upgrade defensively over JH, especially under JVG. At a career average of 20/8, SAR is the closet thing possibly within our range to form the near championship stud frontcourt with Yao Ming. Chemistry will also be a factor and SAR's offense compliments Yao's very well. Most important of all, the notion of the blend between offense/defense at 4 and 5 doesn't really apply to the Rockets as that happened to teams without another great player who plays great O and D in the name of Tracy McGrady. Tracy + Yao = the right direction to the scary tandem of Dream/Drexler, Kobe/Shaq Yao + SAR = the right direction towards the stud frontcourt of Dream/Thorpe, Duncan/D-Rob Although Tracy/Yao combo doesn't come up to Dream/Drexler and Kobe/Shaq, and the same for Yao + SAR in comparison to Duncan/D-Rob etc, the synergic effect of adding Tracy/Yao plus Yao/SAR on the same team is going to be huge. Why do you always want to make the Rockets other team's copycat? The Rockets aren't the Suns, the Spurs or the Mavs. Yao can move when challenged, that's what JVG said. It's also why Yao match up well with Stoudamire and we played well against the Suns with our regular lineup. The need for extreme small lineup because of Yao is overblown. Who says SAR can't grab long rebounds? He'd be playing between inside and outside. Who says that small lineup produced just long rebounds? Small lineups drive more at the basket producing a fair amount of short rebounds. Plus, long rebounds mean long distance shots, which should be encouraged to take away small lineups speed advantage. Like I said, playing T-Mac at pf takes away too much away from our perimeter O and D, which won't be the case with SAR. McGrady played against both Dirk and Howard. Playing pf and do all the required work simply drains on McGrady. The way you look at things is myopic to me. How can you say T-Mac defended Dirk the same way he would defend any small forward or shooting guard? When do you see 7 footer with the agility of Dirk? Poor Mac had to do the mandatory boxing out and rebounding against pfs or even centers playing pf. The other teams can do it without attention to energy spent but we cannot! T-Mac at times didn't have enough energy in the fourth quarter.It's pretty clear to us the Rockets fans playing T-mac at pf is a bad idea. The Rockets simply don't need to play T-Mac at pf to beat the Suns. Instead, it would drain T-Mac's precious energy with all the mandatory pf hard works, not only bad for our perimeter play on O and D but also increasing risk for injury with him being tired. Power forward is about power or energy. T-Mac has no former in the level of a true pf, and he needs to conserve the latter to score for us.
This is said without concerning to our resources. If we spend the MLE on a nice guard we won't get a quality backup pf with the vet minimum. If we spend part of the MLE on a backup pf we can't get a great guard you keep raving about. Plus, if JH goes down that back up pf may do worse at defending the small lineups, and our offense at pf drops a lot compared to having SAR. The best way to defend the small lineups which tries to add speed advantage to the pf spot is to counter with a legit pf who has the speed to play some sf, in the name of Shareef Abdul Rahim.
Dirk's offensive game is almost identical to Tracy Mcgrady's game. Top of the key pick-n-roll, Dirk takes a jumper from the perimeter. The plays run for Mcgrady are almost exactly the same. Dirk has the offensive game of a small forward. Even though he is listed as a power forward, there is no power in his game. When Dirk goes into the paint to rebound the ball it's Yao job to box him out, not Mcgrady. It was Mcgrady's job to get the long rebounds. And what's wrong with asking Mcgrady to rebound the ball? This is someone that once averaged nearly 8 rebounds a game for a season. He's been a great rebounder his whole career and suddenly asking him to rebound is too much to ask of him. All season long, people have been saying Mcgrady needs to move into the front court so he doesn't have to use up all of his energy chasing around guards on the perimeter. Now Mcgrady shouldn't have to worry about rebounding because that would take away his energy. What exactly is Mcgrady allowed to do on defense that will not drain all of his energy? What took up all of Mcgrady's energy was being asked to do far too much on offense. Without a competent guard on his team, he was forced to take on all of the ballhandling duties, orchestrate the offense, create plays for everyone, and score 30 a game. He was forced to do far too much on offense. Get Mcgrady some competent guards that are capable of handling the ball, creating plays for themselves and creating plays for each other and Mcgrady's life will be much easier. Superstars have been asked to play out of position before (ex. Dirk was asked to play center in the playoffs and guard Yao/Amare). But I don't know if any superstar has ever been asked to do as much on offense as Mcgrady was. Check out these playoff numbers from our guards. Sura and Mike James both averaging a putrid 2 assists per game. Jon Barry with only 1.3 assists a game. David Wesley played 40 minutes game and was only able to produce 8 points. Not even Michael Jordan could win a playoff series with that type of production from his guards. Our point guards were incapable of handling the ball and creating plays for anybody and our shooting guard was incapable of scoring any points. I'm not so sure a gimpy Juwan Howard couldn't have played and put up better numbers than that.
We'll see who wins the Finals, but if its SA, that's an average of 32.6 mpg per starter, meaning starters are playing 68% of the game, reserves 32%. By comparison, Rockets starters average 32.7 mpg. I'm just going to guess that this isn't really that high a number for starters league-wide. Your point still stands...the Rockets need better starters who can play more minutes, if possible, but a deep bench goes a long way, too. As with many things, you can win without it, but having it makes you that much tougher.
New Jack, if you want to improve our playoff guard plays, or at least our wing (SG/SF) play, easiest and the best way is to not have Tmac have to put in any minutes at PF. I agree with Panda here, having SAR/JH on the roster and healthy assures you of never having to play Tmac at PF. This also helps our rebounding and wing defense, as then you have Tmac (or SAR in a secondary role) instead of Barry or Wesley matching up with an SF. Also, I think our guards, with the exception of Wesley (1.06), did an adequate job on shooting in the playoffs--their #1 offensive job when they play with Tmac and Yao is to shoot when left open. Sura (1.2), Barry (1.25) and James (1.31) all had good points per shot--the best marker of shooting efficiency (Tmacs was 1.26BTW). I suspect Barry and Wesley's would have been higher had their minutes be kept down, and their responsibilities less. I do agree counting on Wesley for production over 40MPG would be a disaster next year. I still want another new guard in the mix (Bell/Spree/Kittles for cheap?), but Sura/James/Wesley/Barry would have held up a lot better if they didn't have to do half the SF responsibilities on top of all the guard responsibilities. You get a guy like SAR to cover the back-up SF minutes, and maybe even allow Tmac to play some occassional 2 guard (I'd rather have him have a secondary role as a 2 guard than a 4), it also helps those 4 guys immensly. IMO no single move helps the flexibility of the roster and covers as many areas as a PF or PF with some SF skills like SAR or DM. 2nd area is another more athletically formidable SG. Add SAR/Raja Bell, perfect offseason in my book. But I'd even settle for take SAR and bringing all the FAs save Bowen (Deke/Barry) back as well to start the season, and make a move for another guard before the trade deadline if needed.
The problem with players like SAR, Marshall, and Bell are they still leave us with only one true playmaker on the team. Mcgrady would still be the only player on this team that come playoff time can be counted on to run the offense and create plays for his teammates. SAR is similar to Mike James. He can create shots for himself, but he's not a playmaker. The ideal offense for Tracy Mcgrady is one similar to the one Seattle runs for Ray Allen. Ray Allen is not depended on to do everything on offense. He has other playmakers on his team (Ridnour, Lewis, Daniels) that make life so much easier for him. He can create shots for his teammates AND his teammates can create shots for him. We don't have that here. Mcgrady is counted on to do everything. Create his own shots and create his teammates shots. During the regular season, the Rockets and Mcgrady were at their absolute best when Bob Sura was playing his best. Sura was that second playmaker that the Rockets sorely needed. Someone that could penetrate and create for others. He made life for Mcgrady so much easier. The problem with Sura is that he's so very undependable. He's inconsistent and his health is always a major concern. That's why I think the Rockets would be much better off with an upgraded version of Sura (Daniels, Stoudamire), rather than a slightly ungraded version of Juwan Howard (SAR). Move Sura to the bench and put a couple of dependable playmaking guards next to Mcgrady and the Rockets will take off next season.
