So everyone is panicking and is lacking confidence in the rockets. People are calling for trading Yao or trading Tmac. Soon there will be fire Adelman threads and so forth, But let's be realistic for a change as this board seriously lacks realism. Lets look at a keyword: Inconsistent Meaning: Not regular or predictable; erratic. This word describes the team in a nutshell, The Rockets have to be the most inconsistent team in the NBA right now. The Rockets have the ability to beat any team in the league on any given night, but for some reason they just lose to teams we expect them to win against. But why? If you look at the starting lineup from last season it is still pretty much the same, but let's look more closely at changes that have been made since last season. Player Additions: Mike James, Luis Scola, Steve Francis, Aaron Brooks, Carl Landry and Bonzi Wells(I count bonzi because he didn't play much last season) These players are all role players or bench warmers. For James, Scola, Francis and Bonzi. The coaches are still trying to work out where to fit these guys in, when to play them, how to play them and which rotations will work best with our current starting lineup. But so far rotations seem to look all over the place, Adelman so far really can't work out who to play. Because all of these players so far probably barring Francis have been very inconsistent. James shot is all over the place, Scola can't get the ball enough to show what he can do like in the spurs game, Bonzi misses layups and has concentration lapses. So decisions have been difficult regarding these guys. The last game the Rockets played which was against Sacremento, Yao and Tmac scored 69 of the 99 points, that is 2 thirds of the total. Anyone knows to win a championship you need to have good role players. But so far our role players are not living up to there potential. Let's look at the starting lineup. PG. Rafer SG. Tmac SF. Battier PF. Hayes C. Yao Rafer, Battier and Hayes are having poor seasons so far, most of their stats are down on last year, and they seem to be struggling under Adelmans system. All 3 of these players are being offensive liabilites. Rafer Alston: Teams will leave Rafer open at the 3 point line because they know he will only hit 25% of them, they know he can't shoot full stop and they know he does not have very good driving to the hoop skills. My 1 big question about Rafer why does he does he shoot so many 3's, 75% of the time he shoots a 3 this season it's just a waste of posession. Chuck Hayes: Lets be honest no matter how much you argue this guy is not a starter, This guy would not start on any other team in the NBA. This guy is a 6'6 power forward with little to no offensive skills, and the only times he scores is on offensive rebound garbage buckets or from a pass from Tmac because the guy guarding Chuck is off fronting and doubling Yao. I like Chuck he's a great energy and hustle player, but offensively he is Ryan Bowen. In Adelmans system Chuck aint gonna cut it and there for needs to be off the bench. Shane Battier: Good ol Shane the glue guy of the team, but he is underperforming this year, he is disappearing a lot, he is shooting pretty badly this season to, this could change I know this. But for now it is just not going down. Defensively so far he isn't quite as good as last year and this could just be due to system changes from the Coaches. But all in all Shane's offensive game is not that good, but much better than Chuck Hayes, which I feel you can not have chuck and and shane on the floor at the same time. But what do all of these 3 players have in common other than offensive liabilities? Well they were better players under JVG. JVG ball was nitty gritty slow it down grind it out with tough defense ball. Unfortunately I don't think Adelman's way is like this at all. So far the rockets are trying to find an identity in how they play, An offensive team? A defensive team? This team can't decide yet. IF we are to be an defensive team, Rafer, Battier and Hayes can work in the starting 5. But IF we are going to be an offensive team these 3 player's wont work in the starting lineup together. Let's look at Tmac and Yao I beleive Tmac is playing just as good as last year if not better. Yao is not to far off and needs to make adjustments to his game. Tmac and Yao though are still shouldering the load, and so far you can tell, they score 50 of the rockets points and don't get to much help. Though when you look at game stats for both players they are alittle all over the place, Tmac will either score you over 30 or he will score you less than 20. Yao though seems easiest to stop due to all the fronting but Yao will either give you mid 20's or 10-15 points a game. For me they are inconsistent and you can't guarentee Tmac will give you 27 and if yao will give you 23 every night because you just don't know. I look at a player like Tim Duncan in his prime and he could give you pretty much 20-24 points every night, you could pretty much put it on the scoreboard before the game begun cause you know thats what he was going to give you. And well thats 1 reason they win championships. So until our stars can be consistent this team will be inconsistent I think. Coaching Changes: Rockets this year have pretty much a new coaching lineup, they swept away JVG hopeing Adelman will give them a fresher easier and more exciting game to watch. I don't think this is the case so far. I am sometimes confused at what the rockets are doing out there. I sometimes get confused cause I believe i am watching JVG ball out there sometimes. Players are still standing around watching Yao and Tmac, there is not as nearly as much movement as I thought there would be, and with the starting lineup still the same as last year, I am not surprised by what I see. I don't think Adelman has made his stamp on this team yet, I believe in time it will come but for now until Adelman makes some gutsy changes to his starting lineup offense is still going to look horrible. Rockets maybe playing JVG style offense out there sometimes, but as you might of noticed the JVG style defense is not there so much anymore, I think this is a big key to why we are losing the close games at the moment, we just don't have that shut down ability like years past with JVG. But being realistic it will take awhile for us to get into this new system of Adelmans and we will make the playoffs this year and we will cause teams some issues, but thinking realistically it won't be till next season till we see the Rockets being the contender force we want them to be. A lot of you expect miracles and blow out games every games. But get back to reality and realise its a growing process and the rockets will have there time. Anyways i love the rockets win or lose but when I read this board I get the feeling most people only like the rockets when they win and I think thats pretty pathetic.
