Buy low sell high. Since the rocket bought high, they need to get some players and or get salary space.
Some surprising stats: Rockets had an edge in turnovers (15 to 26), fast break points (16 to 8), and points in the paint (36 to 22). But where the Rockets have traditionally been strong -- 3-point shooting, defensive rebounding -- they got killed.
Pau played in 59 games that season. They went 22-60. In 2006-07, the Grizzlies were ranked 30th out of 30 in defense after making the playoffs. The year before they were ranked second in defense. A coincidence? I think not.
What was the grizz record the first 2 yrs of the battier-gasol era and what were their defensive rankings? Coaching,injuries,transition, and a young team can do that.
Fixed. Anyways, Shane did play like garbage tonight. We need him to step up his game sooner rather than later.
If i'm not the only one doing it and you choose to single me out, then yes, i'll take it personally.... and this is a game thread, the replies stack up too quickly to really be able to "gather my thoughts" all into one reply. It's different than other threads. Technically, you too have been double and triple posting, haven't you? and not until Outlaw has shown he can be more mentally tough. As much as shane has failed to score in bunches, if there's a big shot to hit, he's hit it a lot more than not. I'm not sure having a 20 point game from outlaw and then 5 the next game is any better than just getting 10 from shane along with his D, ability to draw charges (which may not seem like much because it's not something players get in bunches, but shane, along with chuck, probably lead the league), and vet leadership. Outlaw needs to bring his 20 every game if he's not going tobe a vocal leader or be consistently above average defensively
Stating the obvious: we need height. Coming into tonight I was more worried about where the offense would come from but as displayed tonight (shooting poorly yet still notching 87 points), it's possible to scrap and claw your way onto the scoreboard. It won't be pretty but it appears that we can get by in that regard (here's me hoping that one game isn't too small of a sample size and that T-Mac's return will boost us). But our lack of height is unsettling no matter how you slice it. Height/athleticism favors successful rebounding, shot blocking/altering, weak side defense, release points on shots (12 blocked shots for Portland), low-post defense and other critical areas essential for quality low-post play on both ends of the court. That's not a knock against Scola, Hayes, Andersen or whoever since they're all solid players, but to get by we're going to need to inject some height and/or athleticism into the frontcourt. Whether by trade or whatever -- Morey needs to use his formulas to find us a quality yet undervalued shot blocker that can bolster our seemingly weak front line. Yeah, I realize that's essentially what Pops is supposed to be, but i'm talking about adding a relatively established player -- not some fringe player that's fortunate to be on an NBA roster. Again, not a knock against Pops or anybody that we currently have but this is a serious problem that's going to plague us all season unless we address it. Pops is unlikely to be the answer. Some other notes: *I love Lowry's defense and overall play. Andre Miller likes to post up and punish smaller PG's but Lowry was having NONE of that. I also liked his court vision and how Adelman is still willing to roll the dice with a Lowry/Brooks backcourt. For whatever reason, we seem to be most successful when we pair those two together (as frightening as that seems on paper). *Given that offensive droughts are likely to be a common occurrence this year, I really like the idea of using Andersen in a Brooks or Lowry PnR. His ability to hit the 15-20 footer makes this possible and with the blazing speed of either PG diverting attention away from the screener, this could be a great way to spread the court and utilize the Andersen's mid-range game in seemingly wide open looks. *I absolutely love the aggressive nature of this team. For a team with only 2-3 players capable of creating their own offense, the fact that we were able to get nearly 30 FT's out of tonight's effort is really quite telling of the great coaching and balls-to-the-wall attitude this team will have this year. The catch? Yeah.....some, if not most, of our drives the players were completely out of control and received bail-out calls. There were 3-4 drives from Brooks, 1-2 from Ariza and a couple others where our guys did the LeBron "Just drive into traffic, see what happens, dare the officials to make the call" thing. Hey, evidently it works. Keep it up! *Turnovers? We forced 26 TO's tonight. 26! Unfortunately for us, not every team has a Greg Oden. When you take out the 'Oden Factor' and consider that it's opening night, that number is more likely indicative of Portland's opening night woes than it is of anything to come from our end. All the same, we played hard and did all the right things -- forcing TO's is going to be key to the whole "scrap and claw your way to victory" unofficial motto thing that we have going on. *I already mentioned something about this earlier but you can tell Scola's ankle is still bothering him. He had no lift on his shot, little lateral movement and was just having a bad game in general. He'll be fine once he gets healthy. Hey, for what he gets paid and what he means to this team -- I think it's safe to say he's earned a mulligan or two around these parts. *Finally, the last point that I want to make is about how badly we're misusing Ariza. We're asking him to do too much. His forte is spotting up and working the transition game. Tonight he was handling the rock, posting up, shooting fadeaways, dribble drives, etc. His four TO's were all the result of him being asked to do things he shouldn't be asked to do. I don't know what it is -- maybe it's the #1 and Adelman is getting confused, but Ariza is not going to magically morph into some do-it-all megastar! You can give Ariza this supposed "expanded role" in the offense without asking him to be T-Mac.
Wafer is one guy. What about Brooks, lowry, ariza, budinger, taylor, andersen? Even dorsey. there's plenty of players here who have room to grow that will be here when Yao returns and could be here for years to come. the two guys you singled out are probably the oldest next to yao and tmac. Keeping a hot-headed defenseless wing who's had what, 4 years to grow, and yet didn't grow a lot over that span is not the logical decision. Not when you can draft a guy like budinger, who's also defenselss, but teachable, who's got a better head on his shoulders and can match Wafer's scoring output? And that's just in year one, two maybe...meaning he's starting higher than Wafer did and has more room to grow..
There was that one stretch in the second that cost us the game. In that stretch, we, as a team, had no idea how to score w/o AB in, and also we couldn't defend. I think we got a few bad bounces, a few bad calls, and we just couldn't hold anything together for that period. I'm not sure how many we will win, but every win is going to be sweet. These guys are easy to root for. LOL at the no dribble, no cut brothers. It was nice they were replaces with zippy and the bowling ball. LOL.
i was just saying one game is too soon to say whether he improved from last year, regardless of where you or i think he was at... But if one move is what he's depending on, then maybe that's why he went ice cold for almost an entire series. If you can't accept he could have been a series changer then i dont know what to tell you. He really stunk it up for most of the series, by the time he snapped out of it it was too late. And this isn't me trying to hate on a player you suggested, i think hes a good player and i agree he could average 18-20 per, but right now he's mostly Travis "drag step jimmy" Outlaw. He needs to add more to his game, which i think he's capable of, but he seems content with just shooting sometimes, shane does too, but at least i know shane can't really go jam it down someone's throat. The only thing worse than someone who can't, is someone who can and won't, bcause then you're wasting talent and that's affecting efficiency. And i know Outlaw does and can score differently, but he needs to do it from game to game, regular season, playoffs, etc..
i dont thinkyou can actually stop worrying, the point is can they block it off and just continue planning a team centered around Yao? that's what Morey seems to be doing, blocking it off.
Of cause i know, we lose this game. But there are still have some positive aspect, such as Lowry and Anderson. Bettier and Scola had bad perfermence, but you know Bettier and Scola just 20+ mins on court, tomorrow they will be have excellent action. You know, we lose 20 rebounds and etc, but we just lose 9 points, that's not bad. Come on, Houston.
MourningWood, there are a lot of people on this board that are in love with scrappy, hard working guys that are not very talented basketball players. A lot of people get sensitive when you criticize those guys, but their emotions blind them to the reality of the situation. In the end, as your post alludes to, there is no substitute for talent in this league. The Rockets are short on that commodity. Their two most talented players are injury prone. I've been saying that the Rockets need to get taller and acquire younger, athletic, multidimensional basketball players on this team for a while now, but the vocal defenders of guys like Battier, Hayes, etc.. scoffed at that notion. Hell, many on this website defended Rafer Alston until the very end. This season will really expose the lack of talent and size on the Rockets. Guys like Rudy Gay, Outlaw, etc.. fit that bill. But then you have the inevitable stale responses, such as "you don't know as much as Morey", "I'm glad you're not our GM", "those guys are ball hogs", "they haven't won anything", etc... Rarely do those who criticize people who advocate for certain players present counter-proposals of their own. Case in point is RV6 (the poster you were replying to with the comments above). He is a Battier apologist and admitted Battier lover. He has never, not even once, criticized Battier for his play. He is quick to shoot down any proposal to trade Shane and criticize you for bringing it up, but he has never offered up a counter-proposal of his own involving a trade for Batter. I challenge you RV6 to present us with a trade involving Batter, especially since you don't think Outlaw, at this point, is good enough to trade Battier for. Hopefully as the season progresses it will help more people to see the desperate need for size and talent on this team.
I think the Rockets will be a middling NBA team, winning somewhere between 35 and 45 games. Like any such team, they'll do some things well, and some things poorly. For this roster, one of the things they'll do poorly is finish and defend at the basket. Take any team in the league, remove their best player for the season and and remove the second best player for a good chunk of the season, and you won't find too many who'll still win 40 games. So I'm not so sure how the Rockets are being "exposed" in losing roughly half their games. Its to be expected.
if cuttino mobley came out of retirement he could give the rockets more than ariza...ariza was never the star of any team...not at ucla, not for the magic or the lakers
you see the star of a team has the ability to beat team defense or at least be a step ahead of team defense but ariza showed that its easy to trap him
