If there's one thing the playoffs made clear to me, it's that Battier is the closest thing to a single leader the team has, not McGrady and not Yao. They put up the numbers and cause match-up issues, but Battier does the talking, directs people on the floor, and his work ethic sets the tone for everyone.
Yeah, for all the talk about Artest, Battier was the one having the best defensive nights against Kobe, when he was on him and Scola would always be one of the ones to trying to calm Ronald or anyone else down. With Shane's smarts and Scola's grit, I think we have some fine leaders going into next season.
Except, supposedly, McGrady is expected to play most of this season, while Yao is expected to miss the season.
I think the way Morey sees it, offensive players are overvalued unless they are elite offensive players. So he prefers to stockpile defensive-minded guys and/or efficient offensive players that don't need to dominate the ball to help on that end. That allows us to be competitive with committing a lot of money. Then, eventually with the money we can free up, go after a really good offensive player. We probably won't be able to get one of those by just trading Battier or Ariza, though.
why would you want maggette on this team? seems like a poor man's mcgrady on a bad night that would add nothing to this team.
true, but you know Morey, he's not going to put himself in a situation where he has to speculate on tmac's return. It took him long enough just to admit tmac was ahead of schedule. Had he mentioned tmac, then the reporters would have jumped on it, asking him if that meant he expected tmac would be back early and wouldnt be traded. This way he can just shrug it off and say he's talking about the active roster only.
yeah and those defensive guys are more likely to keep their value since defense isn't always dependent on what team you're on or the minutes your're playing. Offensive players' production can be affected by their role, team, and PT, therefore changing their value significantly at times...unless of course they are elite offensive players
don't know if this is posted, no longer a member so i can't post it, but this was on foxsports.net fun read for class haha...check out the site there is alot more, but those were the only rockets mentioned besides ex-rocket rafer Los Angeles Laker Kobe Bryant may be the choice if you want to pick one guy to make one stop at the end of the game. Other strong candidates are Houston's Shane Battier and former San Antonio Spurs stopper Bruce Bowen. But much of the work done by Battier and Bowen is done defending off the ball and I'm looking for one guy who makes it extremely risky every time his man puts the ball on the floor. Best Passing-Lane Defender: Fresh off his disruption of the Denver Nuggets' sideline out-of-bounds plays, I'm going with brand-new Houston Rocket Trevor Ariza. http://msn.foxsports.com/nba/story/10006702/The-best-in-the-NBA----at-everything
I've been down on the Ariza deal from the start but I trust Morey's judgment. I just want to see the team get out there and play so we can see what we have in Ariza, Andersen and our younger guys (who should improve).
I get so sick of Kobe as the best "one possession" defender legend he has become. When he is focused he is a great defender but he isn't strong enough to handle a lot of the SF in the league and he is no longer quick enough to guard the younger SG. I'll stick with Battier against big SF like Lebron or Carmelo. Against younger, quicker wing players I'll go with D. Wade.
Obviously Adelman is putting a lot of stock in defensive stoppers on the team....that, and leadership. Battier, praised for defense and leadership. Ariza, praised for defense. Budinger, mentioned for offense but questioned for his defense. McGrady "obviously wants to prove people wrong" but nothing about his defense, offense, or leadership. And why not, I guess. You don't know when he's gonna return and when he does, for us or another team, it won't be as a leader, except to yell at younger players when they make mistakes that don't cover for his own faults. Certainly McGrady is 100% Grade A Trade Bait, but I wouldn't be stunned if we also dealt Budinger at some point (the earliest would be next month, if the right deal were out there). Of course, Morey's just telling the truth, the guy can score but will have problems defensively, which doesn't mean he's a goner. But it's the defense that Morey keeps stressing. Hell, I suppose you could trade for a Gerald Wallace type in that regard, but he's neither a facilitator or a scorer, two things this team needs. McGrady could provide those skills (if not the defense) but I don't have a strong feeling he's long for the Rockets.
It's funny. I actually think Ron Artest matches up better than Shane does against "bulky" wing players like Lebron and Carmelo (and it might just be those two guys, now that I think of it) who can do it all on offense, including backing their man down in the post. But I'll take Shane over Ron against pretty much any other wing player in the league.
I haven't seen anything from Ron that leads me to believe he can defend Lebron or Melo better. In fact, Shane guarded Lebron for the majority of the game where Lebron was held to zero assists and shot poorly. The only person I have ever seen Ron guard better than Shane is Odom due to Ron's strength, long arms and Odom's fear of contact. What bothers me most about Ron's defense is that he makes no effort to stay in front of his man on defense. Ron's technique all of last season was to shade a guy to his strong hand in order to force them to drive with their off hand. That works some of the time but against elite offensive players you might as well not even be guarding them. The other problem is Ron doesn't bother to learn what hand his guy likes to dribble with so on some nights you see lefties going by him over and over because he never realized they were left-handed.
power and strength is why i prefer ron to guard lebron, if lebron wanted to he could take battier to the hoop every time and succeed a fair amount of the time, shane however does tend to mentally get into a player and make them feel they can not accomplish anything, still ron is much stronger and lebron especially plays strong so it just makes sense for them to matchup
Shane used to have a lot of problems guarding Brandon Roy in past years. I thought Ron did a pretty decent job on him, at least in the regular season and definitely when he was in Sacramento.
I think Les Alexander and the other passengers on the last team bus to Staples Center for Game 7 would beg to differ with you. At least Battier could have locked Artest in his hotel room until he agreed to put on some pants!
