All I know is we would have lost the last game if it wasn't for Cuttino. I would say he's pretty important to the team.
My fellow fans, the is not a bash cat fest or any attempt to belittle his inputs so far but a cry out from an adoring fan. It is for his good - long term. He is an awesome defense (I will argue he is better than Hawk); and important offensive piece. But I implorer all of you objective fans to just focus on Mobley everytime he comes down the court after our defensive rebound. If you don't a deliberate or maybe impulsive stalling of the offense by looking for his shot first then I must be crazy then. Just pay an attention - it may not be all the time but majority of the time. If it wasn't a problem why do you think Calvin and Bill keep harping of this issue every game? Coincidence? Even Calvin made a poignant observation/advice that if our guards learn to utilize spacing (moving the ball) especially going inside first to our big men (and then kick back) they will not believe how many open shots they will be enjoying. I hope he turns the corner soon because if Ming Yao continues on this steady path to greatness he will inevitably become thre Rockets #1 options so the guards (Cat in particular) better learn to think team (or Yao/MO ) first before themselves. Their shot will surely come without forcing issues. peace.
Ok, just to expose another angle of this problem, lets rank some Rockets in terms of the points they score per attempt. We'll use John Hollinger's definition of PSA which is: points scored / (field goal attempts + 0.44* free throw attempts) An average NBA PSA is 1.02 points per attempt... In order of PSA the Rocks rank: Yao Ming: 1.377 (in the last few games this is more like 1.8 or 1.9) Steve Francis: 1.149 Cuttino Mobley: 1.049 Kelvin Cato: 1.012 Eddie Griffin: 0.968 (distinct improvement on his part last few games) Mo Taylor: 0.947 J Collier: 0.930 (ditto) K Thomas: 0.894 (slipping the last few games) B Nachbar: 0.850 J Hawkins: 0.813 G Rice: 0.793 M Norris: 0.750 So, its pretty damn clear that if Yao has a shot and people can get it to him they should. However, Cat is more likely to score points on a shot than anyone on the team other than Franchise and Ming. Ming only plays 15-20 minutes a game. My guess is, as Eddie develops his shot and his shooting percentage improves, the ball will go inside more and we'll see more of an all round game. Ditto for Kenny T, whose shooting is in a slump. Dave
Dwmeyers- I noticed that Yao is already at the top of the list of PSA. Its funny that in the WC his PSA was almost 3! That is just sick! Nobody in the NBA was above 1.48 all last year. If Yao can maintain his constant improvements he WILL be a very dominant big man next year...maybe even at the end of this year, and that is just scary with the backcourt we have.
Highest I recall (who played any time to speak of) were the Barry brothers, who were in the range of 1.32 to 1.35. If Ming averages around 70%, my bet is his PSA gets to 1.4-1.5...probably higher over the short term as I think it will take NBA teams a few more weeks to figure out ways to contest Ming's shot. Getting back to the topic, has anyone noticed that Cat's assists per game is up this year?
