Greetings, This is Keith, web editor for the Houston Press. We're trying out a new Rockets blogger this year. As most of you know, Jason Friedman, our guy from last year, wound up getting hired by the Rockets. Anyway, I thought I'd share the link to our new guy's first go. http://blogs.houstonpress.com/ballz/2008/10/whole_offense_hole_defense_the.php Thanks, KP
Thanks for the heads up on the article. (you may want to tell him to tone down on the "I'm smarter than you, let me show you how much by using a big word and then assuming you don't know it and insulting you" rhetoric Edit: especially at the end of an article - if the last thought a person is left with is "he just insulted me, not once but twice" it's less likely someone will get the point of the article) He raises an interesting point about Battier. It's going to be extremely difficult to get Ron Tmac and Shane on the court at the same time without giving something up.
I don't know about anyone else who read the article, but I don't like his attitude. Really, what insight has he provided that we don't already know? He points out we have issues at PG (duh), Yao's lateral movement (duh), T-mac's inconsistent D (duh), JVG's boring offense (no *****), Battier being "superfluous" (see 50+ threads on trading Battier after Artest acquisition) and yet STILL has the gall to insult readers by saying he's probably smarter than us, and we don't know vocabulary words??? The Houston Press must be really scraping the bottom of the barrel to come up with a loser like Sesha.
With pleasure. It'll probably be maybe once a week, maybe more. We're just getting going again with the Rockets.
Yeah, he certainly comes across as a pompous jackass. While I don't agree with his views, his concerns are as legitimate as any. But, as Hayesfan pointed out, the fact that he brazenly insults the average reader not once, but twice, leaves the lingering impression of "I don't think I'll be reading this jerk's articles anymore." If it's more of the same after this, expect his number of hits to go way down.
I have a feeling the "insulting" tone of his article is something he's trying to develop into a shtick. He wants to be the guy you love to hate.
Charles Barkley is someone I love to hate. Besides, Fran Blinebury is more than enough of a reader-deprecating writer for Houston. We don't need another one.
Yeah, the insults aren't as charming as he might have hoped. His supercilious attitude is quite supernumerary, and that makes his opinions superirrelevant.
Yeah he was a little full of himself in the sense of how smart he was about having Rockets knowledge. I do understand where his concern is about PG and PF but I don't agree with him one bit. Here is why: Hayes is a great defender. On any given night, his hustle plays will give you an advantage over most PF's. Hayes would be that Otis but he's giving up a lot of height. But Hayes can rebound with the best of them. Landry showed something that we didn't see last year in him against KG this preseason. Yes, I know it's preseason but I think Landry is more than capable of guarding KG and Duncan. If he can continue to work on defense, he can be a difference maker. Scola is probably one of the best at forcing turnovers. He can and will get you at least two steals a game. Our three PF's can all rebound the ball and score. Well maybe not Hayes on the scoring part. The problem is how much scoring are you expecting to receive from them. Rafer is also not a bad defender. He's had a problem against the best PG's in the league but you can still win with him. Team rebounding will be very important for the Rockets this year. I'm not worried one bit about Artest and Battier on the floor together. The only problem is we need to see them on the floor together!
Being insulting is fine if you're clever or funny about it. Just saying "I'm smarter than you" or "You probably don't know what 'superfluous' means" is simply being a smug jerk. It would be more tolerable if added real insight into the team with his "analysis". He talks a lot about the defense of the team, and somehow he doesn't mention one of our best defenders (Chuck Hayes) even once. He doesn't mention the defensive versatility we have with our forwards. And we can expect Battier and Artest to play a lot together. This is something the Rockets coaches and front office people have said they're very excited about seeing. He said the following, "Conventional wisdom says that the 2007-08 Rockets were defensively strong but offensively challenged. But I just don’t buy it." Why doesn't he buy it? I didn't see any argument that the Rockets could be considered a better offensive team than defensive team. "Conventional wisdom" isn't always right, but in this case it certainly is.
If he really knows all the Rockets players for the last 20 plus years, wouldn't he at least be able to spell Juwan Howard's name right? Some of his concerns are legit, like how to put Tmac, Battier and Artest together on the floor. But I think Artest is strong enough to guard most of the PFs in the league, with exceptions of a few elite ones like Garnett and Duncan. But then again, who in the league can guard them effectively? There might be another option of playing Tmac at the point, and let Artest or Battier chase the other team's point guard, although that might leads to its own problems. Depending on match up, it is possible to put all three on the floor together without sacrificing much.
Me too. You can't fake character for a blog and I can get twice the analysis from the GARM any time of the year.
you hired richard justice to do your basketball blogging? i'm a little arrogant and argumentative myself . . . but your new blogger is on a whole nother level. if he's going to portray himself that way, he better be the Warren Buffet of basketball writing. From the content that I found, I'm more than a little concerned that this might not be the case.
