You can see my business online at duffybooks.com. I am a middle aged short white guy who spent 25 years in the oil patch, started out watching Oscar Robertson in Ohio, and no I am not Rich Lord or any other journalist. I am a season ticket holder and enjoy watching the games from row 17, section 116 for any rowdies who want to stop by. But I am intelligent. Maybe even more intelligent than Rich Lord. So, again it seems like Luther Head is the exception because he got a chance due to injuries last year - yet even his game has been stunted vs what he used to play in college. Novak comes in for 2 minutes every two weeks, misses his one shot and lots of people are yelling "hey he can't shoot!" Rafer shoots almost as often as AI, misses tons of key shots and JVG says he is theman and will remain theman! BTW I went thru the boxscores last night and most teams played about 8 men for big minutes and 2-3 more for filler time. 9-11 man rotations are common. The Rockets are the statistical outlier. I will do a little test on our 41 game stats vs other teams and see what the minutes per look like. Also starting some stat work on PG's. Should be fun. Lots of good talk here. Doctor - so Avery taking Nelson's offense and keeping it pretty much similar, but adding real D - this is possible? So someone - perhaps not JVG - could take this team, keep the D and add a more creative O and it will still be Rockets Basketball?
So we sign Snyder the Hornets castoff - who is experienced, and we let Azubuike go and where are they now? Snyder EFF 4.93, vs Az 11.22 Roland Rating on 82 games: Snyder -3.7 vs Az -1.3 +/- Snyder -11.7, vs Az -10.5 3P shot Snyder .178% vs Az .519% Net Production Snyder -0.5 vs Az +2.3 About equal on ball handling rating and rebounding. So the diff seems to be Snyder's experience. Az would seem to have more hops. Snyder has a strange hitch in his jump shot - maybe why it is so low percentage. So maybe Az can play in the NBA - or I wonder about the fascination with Snyder. Maybe Az's hangdog look during pre-season was all on him and putting too much pressure on himself. Or maybe JVG puts unbelievable pressure on people like Admiral Rickover did in the Navy to see what men are made of and see who can make it thru the program or the system.
I think this is the key question you're getting at, but I don't think using Azubuike as an example helps all that much. But obviously, the Rockets are not an up-tempo offensive team. I would agree, though, that if you knew beforehand that neither coach is going to take you to the championship, then with the same players I'd rather have Nelson than JVG. Of course, exciting offense with losses is more fun to watch than exciting defense with losses (and the same with wins). The most fun to watch, though, is exciting offense, defense and wins. With the same talent level, at this point, I'd be more inclined to think JVG would get there first, but I couldn't be certain. Don certainly doesn't focus on defense, but then again, it's not like he hasn't been around and doesn't know what he's doing.
I think Snyder's stats are being negatively influenced by the 4 or so games where he came in for the last minute of the half after injury.
The GSW have been winning again ever since Azubuike got sent to the bench. Don Nelson doesn't think Azubike should play 10min/game and I agree with that. Snyder > Azubuike Pietrus > Azubuike Barnes > Azubuike
For like, the x-millionth time, as a historical trend, coaches that play rookies and "develop young players" end up in the lottery and fired. Coaches that rely heavily on veterans are HOF caliber.
