My Beef With Brooks

in my book, special means... well, just special. it means being different from most of the players play the same position.

let's not confuse special with superior, such as one of the all time greats.

for example, chuck hayes is special. stockton is superior.

 

Special as in short bus special? I kid I kid!

 

your posts have been the voice of reason in this thread. special, for sure.

 

Well...reason is often drowned by passion. For better or worse, we are all very passionate about our Rockets, especially since all the TOF have started slowly migrating away.

 

He didn't have to when he had these men playing with him....

 

this is not entirely true. the defense yao faced in the portland series was actually a sandwich-like defense, which in the past would've been illegal. i don't think yao is "easy" to be neutralized. he attracts the most defensive attention and is almost certain the #1 item in the other team's game plan.

in my book, yao is certainly special.

 

Well I can't wait for the YOF to follow behind them...

 

That is fine. But a starting PG on a championship team is what we are looking for here. If Lowry plays like Cheeks, it means starting him base on what type of the team we have could very well be better for the team.

 

Ok... you took everything out of perspective... Basically, Lowry grew up in Philly and he has patterned his style of play after Cheeks....

But when you look at Brooks, his style of play is very similar to Parker...

Now does that mean Brooks or Lowry will lead this team to the Championship... Who knows.....

Like I keep saying.... Give Brooks a chance before you start judging what he can or can't do.

 

agree

 

When Rodman was playing for the Bulls he used to guard Shaq, in his prime, one on one, and he regularly gave Shaq fits. So, since Shaq could be handled by a single 6'8" forward like Okur guarded Yao then the logic says that Shaq is not a great player or someone special?

Teams in the NBA have been known to "twist" (term used by Mr. Feigan) their defensive schemes to stop Yao. The officials have also contributed to stopping him, plus, the new rules that the other "special players" played with were conducive to big centers like Yao. The rules now are so "twisted" to favor the perimeter player and so crippling for big centers.

One other thing that may be irrelevant but also relevant. During the rare times that McGrady decided to consciously pass to Yao consistently, Yao could not be guarded. McGrady was the one player who knew how to pass to Yao on time and on target anywhere around the paint. Unfortunately, those moments were few and far between during the Yao-Tmac era.

By any standards, Yao is a very special player. His skills for his height alone has never been achieved by any player yet until his arrival in the NBA. The attention that opposing defenses give him is reserved for only the great ones, and so on. Let us not sell our own player short, no pun intended. With no McGrady to defer to now, and with better shooters around him next season, I expect the Rockets to be among the contenders in league. Remember, with Yao, LBJ and the Cavs were routinely blasted by the Rockets, they gave the Lakers everything they could handle, and DH in Orlando routinely gets his behind kicked when he plays Yao. The biggest hurdle for the Rockets to overcome with Yao is the officiating. Otherwise, Yao has the chance this year to go as far as his health takes him.

 

I have no problem giving him more time. Certainly I would not expect them to just go into training camp and hand Lowry the job without seeing how things play out with Brooks in the starting role first. I do think it will be interesting to see how effective he will be when he is no longer one of the top 2 scoring options. Either he will be even more effective because defenses can't que in on him as much, or he may not get enough shot attempts to over come his other weaknesses.

As the 4th option for example behind Yao, Martin and Bosh, would you really prefer a score first PG with questionable decision making and slightly below average defense? If he isn't having a good scoring game he usually isn't giving you much, and with 3 other players ahead of him in scoring priority it could very well be better to have him come in as the first scoring option off the bench. I can imagine the posibility of him filling a Jason Terry role in the future, and that hardly means he wouldn't still be a very good player. But I agree that he deserves a chance to find out before we presume either way.


I still think it's silly to argue Brooks will improve without considering that Lowry can also improve, and at his age probably has more room to do so. Especially since shooting is generally easier to improve than court vision and play making. DD used Lowry's playoff stats from last year as justification for why he isn't better than Brooks, which is silly because if we did the same thing the year before that against Utah then Brooks should have never taken over from Rafer.

I also read DD argue that you don't need a John Stockton type PG, pointing out that Stockton never won a championship... Which ignores the fact that neither did Iverson, Marbury, Francis, Baron Davis or Tim Hardaway all of whom were better scoring PG's than Brooks currently is. I'm pretty sure if you switched John Stockton in Tony Parker's spot at the same age he won have won at least one ring. So it's true you don't NEED a Stockton type player to win, but Derek Fisher isn't exactly a scoring PG so you don't need a scoring PG either. And Rondo won with the Celtics and he was shooting .263 from 3 point range which is worse than what Lowry is currently shooting and wasn't exactly a scoring PG against LA averaging 9.3 a game in the finals. So there isn't a set PG type you need to win.

 

Brooks doesn't play like Parker. Parker's scoring is more focused on rim/midrange and Parker is bigger and stronger. Brooks plays a lot at long range, he's a poor finisher around rim so far and he's way smaller. Not to mention decisiom making skills.

The only similarity between those two is speed.

Granted, AB has room to improve, so does Lowry. A lot will depend on the make up of the team after summer, how Yao plays after he comes back, how much AB and Lowry improved over the summer etc.

But fans here using Lowry can't hit 3s as the reason to think Lowry can't start as PG in the future is flawed. Fisher shot 3s like crap last playoffs, Rondeo couldn't hit 3s, Parker couldn't hit 3s, yet they all won the ring. All around game can more than enough to make up for lack of shooting as a PG.

 

/ thread. :grin:

 

I will never argue about Brooks improving without Lowry improving or vice versa... My only ponit is to give him time, this is only his year and we are already making him out to be a scrub....

Now DD, does have a point about the teams that have won the Championship and the pg's that started for them... those are not traritional pg's.. As a matter of fact when Billups was in Denver he was consideded more of a shooting guard, the same can be said about Williams in Sac Town..

Lakers - Fisher
Celtics - Rondo
Spurs - Parker
Heat - Williams
Pistons - Billups

Basically, as LeeBig said a while back these post have not been about Brooks, but more about Yao and getting him the ball...

Frankly, Yao is a mute point until he can show that he can even run neverless play basketball again....

 

Late coming analagy, the casual observer's perspective...

Lets use the Lakers as an example. Using our imaginations, lets say next year -
Kobe Bryant is gone
Pau Gasol is gone
Derek Fisher is gone

Aaron Brooks goes to the Lakers. He's the upgrade over Fisher they've been needing.
In Kobe's place is is scrappy role player Sasha Vujacic.
Replacing Pau is the hard working good character guy DJ Mbenga.

After a 20-15 start, Brooks is now chastised for not getting Andrew Bynum the ball in a key moment late in the game.

Arent we forgetting about the lineup losses and the UPGRADE Brooks already is?

 

Parker, Rondo, and Fisher all had swingmen who could get to the rack and create plays. Is Martin that guy potentially for a Lowry?? Oh yeah, remember Mo Cheeks? That Erving guy wearing number 6 was pretty darned good as well.

All that being said, this thread was about a poor decision that Brooks made. I did not see the play, but without an impartial observation(not from someone who admittedly has a beef with Brooks) on what took place I can not say how much if at all a poor decision was made. Edit: All I have is he missed a 3.

After that, it degenerated into the ad nauseum issue of Brooks being a terrible distributor and giving the team nothing if his shot is off. It also tried to marginalize the improvements that the majority of this board and Rocket fans see this year from last. This flies in the face of everything anyone in the Rockets organization and teams around the league say about him. Oh yeah, and the token talk about Brooks not being able to get Yao the ball because folks remember a bounce pass or two last year that Yao could not handle. They don't remember the countless times that Brooks (when asked) successfully got the ball to Yao in the post.

I mean, does anyone remember Must.Take.Ball.Out.Of.Brooks'.Hands.??


People act like what Brooks was like LAST YEAR before Yao went down is what Aaron will be like when he gets back. Why? Because in their opinion he has made no improvements? They can't see the plays that he is making this year that he wasn't last year. DaDa has already noted several aspects of his penetration that are improved over last year. His shot is getting better. I remember folks whining last year that he wasn't that great a shooter because at the time he was shooting 40% and 34% from 3 or whatever. Folks worried about how Brooks and Yao will mesh next year need to stop living in the past. Yao only got to work with a very raw starting point guard version of Brooks. Yao hasn't had any court time with this more experienced version. No practices, no nothing.

I also think too much is being made out of the big games by Ford and Collison. It's still fresh in our minds. Anyone think the new additions to the team had anything to do with that?? Unfamiliarity with new players and rotations tend to cause things like that. Aaron has actually been solid on defense. Not spectacular, but I hear Bull and Bill say good defense by Aaron far more often than the usual "can someone guard this guy" referencing his man. Yes, one of those instances was the TJ Ford game from Saturday. That being said, ow often do you hear Bill and Bull talk about the initial worry for Brooks was that he would get abused by tougher point guards only to find that not really the case. In fact, when teams try to exploit that, it screws up their offense even more.


I'm sorry that some folks can not(or choose not to) see the strides he has made in the distributor, facilitator, tempo control, and even some defensive aspects of his game. Not to mention his consistency. I am not sure why folks don't want to see it, since it means better things for the Rockets. Actually, I'm not sorry folks choose not to see it. I really hope his continued improvement goes unnoticed by them and they aren't able to enjoy watching the Rockets as he and they continue to improve.

The Rockets have flaws, but the point guard spot is not one of them.

 

Repped

 

All rising Western Conference Team have better PG.

Westbrook in OKC is one of a good example why PG is so important for team's success.

 

Somebody actually broke down all of Ford's points in the 4th quarter and I think only one basket was really on Brooks' shoulders. The majority of them were on Ariza and other help defenders. And to my knowledge, that poster isn't even pro-Brooks. I believe I posted his synopsis somewhere in this thread or in trugoy's.

Collison has also been killing it against almost every team he faces. He had another big game tonight against Cleveland despite the loss: LINK. It may be hard for some to believe but Collison looks to be a pretty solid player. Crazy, huh?

And it's not like every PG Brooks faces has huge games. There have been plenty of games where they didn't do much but nobody gives him credit for that (and I'm not even factoring in the minutes when Lowry is in the game).

I think both the props and the criticism that Brooks gets are often overstated while the truth about his abilities/improvement is somewhere in the middle.

Lowry may turn out to be our long-term guy but we haven't yet seen the guy as a starter on a consistent basis. Maybe he'll be even better than he was as a reserve. Maybe not. One thing is for sure: If he ever does become a starter for this team, he'll have better options around him than Brooks has most of this season, i.e., not the Battriza + Hayes combination.