Its not so much as missing PPAT...its the fact you kill all team chemistry when you decide to trade both your PFs...
I miss PatPat. There, I wrote it. If the goal was playoffs this year, that trade went against that vision. I don't understand the role DMo fits. He's not aggressive enough to be a PF...he can shoot, but not consistently. He doesn't like to post up often. Is he supposed to be a Channing Frye? I don't know. PatPat, while lacking on defense at times, could hit the jumper at will, rebound and post up. He had variety and you could depend on him to hit the open shot. I can't count on DMo to know a given play.
I don't miss PPat at all. He is however way better than TRob so if TRob was the main reason that trade got made, the trade sucked hard basketball-wise. I like Dmo more than PPat. I just don't like the way he is being used almost exclusively as a spot up 3 point shooter. That's ok every so often but he needs to get more touches near the rim for him to get going.
This team has moved up to the 7th spot and are only a game back from the 6th spot without Patterson. They are still the same inconsistent live and die by the three team they were before. They still would have been dominated on the boards with Pat. McHale would still go small in the 4th with Pat. All Patterson bought was another shooter, which the Rockets have too many of... If only the Rockets actually posted up D-Mo people would have forgot about Patterson already...but the coach has them in this mode where a 3 point shot is better than a shot at the rim.
They beat some good teams without Patterson and lost to some bad teams without him. They are still the same inconsistent live and die by the three team. Patterson being gone is not the problem, the problem is they live and die by the 3 point shot. Which would be fine...but they have a guy who shoots 67% around the rim and instead of putting him down there they have him shoot threes.
That's just D-mo's style though. He played this way in the D-League too but he was playing against scrubs. He's not strong enough to regularly bang in the post. His defense is still bad. PPat was actually a solid pick n roll defender.
Yeah but we've had a much easier schedule and the two teams above us, Jazz and GSW, went through a complete collapse.
Patrick Patterson, Toney Douglas = useful rotation players. Thomas Robinson, Francisco Garcia = useless players who don't belong in the rotation.
The point is this team is not collapsing without Patterson up to this point as some would have you think. They are the same team, missing a solid rotational player but Patterson did not bring another dimension to this team.
PPatts a very rare combination of a stretch 4 and a good defender. There are very few players in the league that can shoot like him at the power forward spot and still be a plus defender. Rebounding is his weakness but werent we like #1 in defensive rebounding or something? Our team as a whole rebounds very well.
I think he did. This team becomes mightily easy to guard and predictable with no consistent midrange threat. It's just all 3s and pts in the paint The Rockets are shooting a historical NBA low % of shots from mid range. Patterson was good at spacing the floor and knew where to be. A plus was that he was in the top 3 players for us in 3 pt% as well. He is actually a good pick n roll defender. Last of all he had good chemistry with the starters, something D-Mo is missing.
Remember that the Rockets send guys down to the DLeague to learn whatever position they are going to be expected to play in the NBA (as much as that is possible). MMorris for example went down to the DLeague to learn to play small forward. It wouldn't surprise me if the DLeague coaches were asking him to play like a stretch 4 in much the same way.
