Novak's been giving a chance and it showed that he couldn't take the spot for good. Simple as that. Van Gundy would be crazy to play him instead of Chuck at this moment.
Do you have those numbers broken down to when he is on the court in combination with 111 and no 111? And then is there enough data to be meaningful yet?
Nobody showed they were ready for the NBA in that game. I guess the whole team needs to be benched without anymore 2nd chances. Padgett played the worse I've ever seen Padgett play in the Utah game, he was constantly losing his man and having to have Yao come off his man to pick it up whether it was Boozer or Okur. He was constantly burned by his man to the basket, and then even when he was set to get burned Okur would just pop one ove rhis head without him even raising his hands up in defense. He can't rebound, he is hesitant and has no faith in his shot and he is slow.. doesn't box out, doesn't rotate, he loves to just stand.. and stand. Padgett = Awful, especially in the Utah game though he was equally awful in his 5 minutes against Memphis aswell. Bullard never played defense throughout his career and he got playing time. Novak is willing to try to play defense, he is loaded with potential and you MUST play NBA games to get accustomed to them, like Luther Head last year.. Practice won't teach you like a game will and when our team needs 3's desperatly he should be in there.
Padgett is not the reason why Novak isn't playing. Hayes is. Hayes is playing fine and that's why he's out there on the floor. But I agree that when nobody is hitting a shot (as was in the Memphis game), Novak should be out there shooting. That's his role. The funny thing is, in the offseason, JVG kept saying how much we needed a outside shooting PF. Well, we have 3 of those in Novak, Padgett, and Battier. Novak and Padgett are glued to the pine. And Battier is no longer starting at the 4.
No. Battier was in fact very good in the second half. Go back and read durvasa's +/- breakdown fo the thread. Some where worse than others, and Novak was at the very bottom Padgett was not great, but he managed to grab 6 boards (on only a few chances) and post a decent rebound rating. Novak was even worse, and either grabbed 1 or 0 rebounds despite having a few chances. Again, go back and look at duravasa's stats. Novak, IIRC, also had a 100% scoring agaisnt rate. Every time his man shot, he gave up a basket. Not to mention that he did zero on offense excpet miss 3's after the first minute. The stats show that Novak was an abortion that game, in ways that a coach would notice but a casual observer woudl probably not. Hayes can play defense, so right now Hayes plays . Novak has MILES to go, and the Rockets job right now is to win games ( in the words of Herman Edwards "You P-LAY TO WIN THE GAME, HELLO? YOU PLAY TO WIN THE GAME"), not be on-the-job training for Novak. Hence you get Hayes, not Novak.
Ahhh yes. And that explains what happened to Stro. He admits he didn't know the terminology either. You gotta learn a whole new language to play for JVG. Probably goes something like this: Everything is code and you have to ignore every 3rd word. Like this sample taken from one of the timeout huddles. Hey you sh..head, what the fu.. are you fu...ing doing!?!?! Holy horse sh..! You cannot fu..... turn the fu..... ball over. Sh..! Novak you da.. slow mother fu.., why the he... are you fu..ing leaving your da.. man? You're too da.. slow to fu..ing double the da.. ball. Play your fu..ing man and fu...ing pray that fu..er does not fu..ing get the da.. ball! Play the fu... passing lanes. Sh..! Billy, holy sh..! You've got fu... 8 turnovers in fu..... 6 minutes son. Sh..! That fu.. sh.. ain't gonna fu.. fly here. Sh..! This is the fu... Association son. Go fu... sit your fu.... sorry turnover a.. on the fu.... bench and fu... stay there. You see it could be difficult. It took me 30 minutes to type that up and eliminate the third words, so it will probably take them half the season to get up to speed on evrything. Just kiddin. I know Van Gundy doesn't say but about a quarter of those. Except probably last year.
Novak will eventually get more playing time. Only reason why he hasn't gotten PT, because Van Gundy likes to use him as a PF. Look at the last 3 games we played, and look at their PFs, derz no way Novak can hold them. He'll get more PT dependin on who we play and where van gundy wants him to play.
First, I sit in section 116, row 17 seat 4. Next, I've watched Vspan play and if there is one thing he can do is throw some in your face D at a Chris Paul and possibly rattle his cage a bit. Something neither Rafer nor Head can or will do. The alternative is Sura and he ain't ready. No-one said anything about Vspan (or Novak) playing 43 minutes. But zero is the other extreme and it seems like a good way to wear Rafer (and others) down to nothing real fast. Is it too much to ask for 4 to 8 high energy minutes and use these guys to "blitz" the opponents while the starters catch their breath? JVG led us into the playoffs 2 yrs ago with a team of starters that was worn out. He shows no signs of having learned anything new since then. I am waiting for another display of 4Q dead legs tonight. Clutch put this up as another Golden Moment if it does not happen.
There isn't enough data yet to make a conclusion based on JUST the stats. You are right, the sample size is too small. But do you really want to leave him in there and risk losing more games just to get a bigger sample size? Probably not. He'll have to earn his minutes by demonstrating readiness in the practice and (if they are available) through garbage minutes or minutes given to him due to matchup or injuries to other players. Just like everyone else who isn't in the rotation now, he has to earn his minutes. The stats confirm what an objective observer can see-- that the team seems to struggle when Novak is on the court-- whether it's because of missed rotations or whatever. This is not to say he won't get better later on, but he isn't ready right now. Few 2nd round rookies are. So, as of right now, the team is better off going with other options (whether it's Hayes, Battier, Padgett, or even Howard) for the minutes that Novak could earn later in the season. BTW, I got my info from 82games.com.
yes of course, just to add, using padgett has eaten into whatever time novak may have gotten, and for those who argue, let the rookie play, these would have been valuable minutes.
what you would like to see is somewhat unreasonable, novak was signed to do one th8ing and that is to shoot. why didn't they choose pittsnogle? he could shoot the ball. whether or not vg is coach, players still need to play D, some people have already stated why he isn't in there. you and others just say let the man shoot. when he was in there, how many wide open looks did he get? do you just assume that tmac and yao are getting covered like crazy, he is wide open every single trip down the floor. coaches know what he is there for, if they had a choice to leave one person open, it sure hasn't been novak. watch the games and make your assumptions.
Well, I don't think anybody besides Yao has really played worth a flip anyways, except for Snyder really, and even his shooting and FT shooting is questionable. My point is, if you took the numbers off their jerseys or say switched Padgett and Novak, you could make the same argument about Padge that he is not ready yet. I don't think Novak not being ready has as much to do with him being a rookie as it does with him and the rest of the crew not having played together enough to be able to feel out each other's games. We are integrating 2 new starters into the lineup, not to mention the bench. And obviously, even without the benefit of statistical analysis, we can see Novak is lost on D for the most part. But so is Padge. The only thing Padge has on Novak is NBA game experience. He knows the league a little better and the players a little better and the schemes a little better. That's why I am not willing to say that "Novak is a rookie that needs to learn." Obviously, he is and obviously he has to learn. But Padge isn't any better at this point. Padge is a nonathletic SHOOTER that cannot defend. Same description is Novak except he is years younger and a better pure stroker of the bball. He is better than Padge and if given the minutes that are going to Padge, he will develop a lot quicker to be a greater contributor than Padge. You can probably tell, I'm a little worried about slipping back into this "JVG doesn't play rookies because they haven't learned yet" mode. We don't want that to last the season. We all saw what Novak could do in preseason. Yeah, I know it was preseason, but still, Novak makes the whole defense scramble. He needs to be out there, I am convinced of that.
Padgett got ZERO minutes in game 2 and 3, and 6 minutes in game 4. You're making too big of a deal about Padgett taking Novak's minutes. In fact, I believe you are making ZERO point at all...especially in game 2 and 3. He will. It looks to me like JVG toned down his initial "4 must be a 3pt shooter" strategy after game 1. He then subtracted Padgett from playing time and added Hayes for the "rebounding/defense 4" approach. I think he prefers the shooters, but they couldn't cut it in Game 1. JVG will like work on this to get the shooters back out there, but he hasn't had a full practice to fix things from Game 1, yet. We've been 4 games out ing 5 days. I have confidence he will let Novak work with the starting group in practice, but I also have confidence that he won't give Novak much PT until he stops looking lost, starting with practice. As for Padgett, it looks like he's just not getting any PT, after that first game.
It wouldnt be that much to ask to play him 10-15 mins. He could easily grab a few mins from Battier at the 3 and a few mins from Hayes at the 4. Padget should NOT have played so much against Utah, it should've been Novak. Also, against the Hornets, w/ 45 secs to go and the Rocks down by 6, after a time out, he should've automatically been inserted in the game....I know Battier was feelin it but imagine Novak shooting that 3 w/ 36 secs to go rather than Battier........ JVG astonishes me sometimes. I know Head is playing well and deserves playing time. But as inconsistenat as Alston is, also y not at leasta put in Billy for a few mins also?? Its like we're deep as hell, but if we dont play them all whats the point? He keeps throwing Battier and TMAC out there for 40 mins while we're so deep, just amazing. He has NO trust in anyone except Yao, TMAC, and Battier at this time, NONE whatsoever..........and that is really disturbing cause our offense should NOT be as bad as the display we put up against Memphis, no way, not even with TMAC struggling.........its just sad
i don't really blame vg for not putting billy in. after having to coach franchise for a year, I would be gun shy too. TO's that year was the norm, and it was UGLY
probably in the next few games people will see more of jho. novak will get in the rotation when there is no yao because of the defensive liabilities. but then, it is going to be hard to see him get up a shot
If Novak gets no minutes tonight, JVG goes on my "Jackass" list. O.K., he moves up on the "Jackass" list. Good grief, the kid played at Marquette, give his family and friends something to see, maybe a shot or two, at least. That's four to six points.
