Preseason stats - Eye Popping stuff.

Well, to each his own, but Novak in no resembles McHale. McHale was a gorilla in the low post, and probably never took an 3-pointer at all. He had freakishly long arms and was almost exclusively a low post player.

Chambers was more of an 'athlete', flying and dunking machine, never much of an outside shooter.

Maybe if Hornacek was 6'10", it might be an ok comparison. Kerr? Psh.

To me, the guy is is most likey to end up resembling is going to be Peja. Same size, and similar style of play. But I bet Novak ends up being a much better defensive player than Peja.

All in all, though, unless he completely loses his confidence, or gets injured, I believe we have definitely lucked out getting this kid where we got him. Heck, based on his performance now, I would not have been upset if he had been a mid 1st-rounder (say, if we maybe had somehow pried Memphis' other 1st rounder away and spent it on Novak).

Someone tell me again, WHY did this kid last until our spot? hehehe All the other teams' GM's are all screaming 'Do over!! Do over!!' right about now.

 

good post.... completely agree.

from the only game i've seen this preseason (last night's) you can tell vspan has the talent and tools to become a solid player, aggresive and quick. the adjustment to the NBA style of play is clearly his biggest barrier right now, and that will definitely take at least 1/2 a season (probably more) to get situated.

people need to realize that he is definitely a work in progress.

 

Actually, if you take out his attempts beyond the arc, he's shot 23-48 which is just about 48%, so his shot seems to be fine...

 

He does resemble a poor man's Reggie Miller.

Perhaps 'Miller Lite'?

 

Hey fellas, in my whole post you realize it is a pretty mild dissappointed. Alston has played outstanding, better than I expected, and that is much more important than JL3 and VSpan looking even shakier than I expected. I am OK with neither sniffing meaningfull minutes for a half or even whole season, not down on their future.

 

Here are the preseason stats for the Rockets players.

The GS stat stands for Hollinger's Game Score rating, which is an easy-to-calculate summary metric incorporating all the player's boxscore stats (sort of similar to PER).

Some observations:

• Spanoulis does very poorly by the GS measurement. He's been a turnover machine, averaging over 8 turnovers per 40 minutes played!
• Padgett has played well, particularly on the boards. His 17.1 rebound rate is third on the team, behind Yao and Haryasz (who played just 19 minutes).
• Tracy ... free throws need work! His FT% dipped somewhat last year, but hopefully he doesn't go below 70% this season. Not to worried.
• Yao's done a great job on the boards, but he's been turning it over way too much and not scoring with his usual efficiency (52.4 TS% is below the league preseason average, in fact)
• Chuck Hayes, the stat wunderkind last year, has not faired too well in the preseason. Rebounding is well below-standard for him and he's been fouling like crazy. To be fair, a lot of the turnovers he's credited with are illegal screens which aren't really his fault.
• Novak's TS% (scoring efficiency) is out of this world; only Artis Gilmore back in the early 80s finished a season with a TS% higher than 70%.
• Battier's stats are solid, but we know that's not where his real value lies
• John Lucas has been a ball hog while in the game (third in Usage behind Yao and Tracy)
• Luther's 0-10 game hurt his numbers big time. He was statistically a top-4 player on the team before that game.

Per game stats

Code:

[SIZE=1][COLOR=Navy]player           Min   FGM  FGA   3M   3A   FTM  FTA  OR   TR   AS   ST   BK   TO   PF   PTS   GS[/COLOR]
mcgrady,tracy    24.3  4.8  11.8  0.8  2.7  4.0  7.2  0.5  3.8  3.0  1.5  0.3  1.7  1.0  14.5  10.0
novak,steve      24.6  3.9  7.3   2.9  6.0  1.6  1.7  0.4  4.3  1.0  0.4  0.0  0.9  1.6  12.1  9.6
yao,ming         25.8  5.8  13.0  0.0  0.0  4.6  5.6  2.0  8.4  1.0  0.4  1.6  3.6  3.4  16.2  9.6
battier,shane    27.7  3.5  7.2   1.0  2.8  1.0  1.2  1.8  5.2  1.3  1.0  0.5  0.3  1.5  9.0   9.0
head,luther      26.8  3.8  10.8  2.0  6.0  1.5  2.0  0.8  3.5  2.8  0.5  1.8  0.3  1.5  11.0  8.9
alston,rafer     25.1  3.4  6.9   1.7  3.3  1.1  1.4  0.3  3.9  3.7  0.6  0.0  2.3  1.3  9.7   7.8
snyder,kirk      25.7  2.9  7.3   0.9  2.7  2.1  3.6  1.9  3.1  1.4  0.7  0.6  1.6  1.7  8.7   5.7
padgett,scott    15.3  1.7  3.5   1.0  2.2  0.5  0.7  2.2  4.5  1.0  0.3  0.3  0.7  2.2  4.8   4.9
howard,juwan     16.0  2.0  4.5   0.0  0.0  1.0  1.5  0.5  3.0  0.5  1.5  0.0  1.5  2.5  5.0   2.9
lucas,john       13.5  2.2  6.7   0.8  2.8  0.7  1.0  0.7  1.3  1.5  0.5  0.0  1.2  1.5  5.8   2.4
hayes,chuck      17.7  1.5  2.8   0.0  0.0  0.7  1.3  1.2  4.2  0.3  0.5  0.3  1.2  3.7  3.7   2.1
mutombo,dikembe  9.6   0.8  1.2   0.0  0.0  0.2  0.2  1.2  2.6  0.2  0.2  0.6  1.0  0.8  1.8   2.0
haryasz,matt     9.5   1.0  1.0   0.0  0.0  1.0  2.0  0.5  3.5  0.0  0.0  0.0  1.5  1.5  3.0   1.5
jacobsen,casey   14.5  0.3  2.3   0.3  2.0  0.8  1.0  0.8  1.8  1.8  0.5  0.0  1.3  0.3  1.5   1.1
spanoulis,vas    20.1  1.9  4.6   0.4  1.7  1.0  1.3  0.0  1.9  2.9  1.1  0.1  4.1  2.9  5.1   1.1
azubuike,kelenna 13.0  0.5  3.5   0.5  1.5  1.0  1.0  0.5  2.5  2.0  0.5  0.0  1.5  2.0  2.5   0.8
[/SIZE]

Per-40 min Stats

Code:

[SIZE=1][COLOR=Navy]player           Min  FGM  FGA   3M   3A   FTM  FTA  OR   TR    AS   ST   BK   TO   PF   PTS   GS[/COLOR]
mcgrady,tracy    146  7.9  19.5  1.4  4.4  6.6  11.8 0.8  6.3   4.9  2.5  0.5  2.7  1.6  23.8  16.4
novak,steve      172  6.3  11.9  4.7  9.8  2.6  2.8  0.7  7.0   1.6  0.7  0.0  1.4  2.6  19.8  15.7
yao,ming         129  9.0  20.2  0.0  0.0  7.1  8.7  3.1  13.0  1.6  0.6  2.5  5.6  5.3  25.1  14.9
battier,shane    166  5.1  10.4  1.4  4.1  1.4  1.7  2.7  7.5   1.9  1.4  0.7  0.5  2.2  13.0  12.9
padgett,scott    92   4.3  9.1   2.6  5.7  1.3  1.7  5.7  11.7  2.6  0.9  0.9  1.7  5.7  12.6  12.9
alston,rafer     176  5.5  10.9  2.7  5.2  1.8  2.3  0.5  6.1   5.9  0.9  0.0  3.6  2.0  15.5  12.4
head,luther      107  5.6  16.1  3.0  9.0  2.2  3.0  1.1  5.2  4.1  0.7  0.4   2.6  2.2  16.4  9.5
snyder,kirk      180  4.4  11.3  1.3  4.2  3.3  5.6  2.9  4.9   2.2  1.1  0.9  2.4  2.7  13.6  8.9
mutombo,dikembe  48   3.3  5.0   0.0  0.0  0.8  0.8  5.0  10.8  0.8  0.8  2.5  4.2  3.3  7.5   8.3
howard,juwan     32   5.0  11.3  0.0  0.0  2.5  3.8  1.3  7.5   1.3  3.8  0.0  3.8  6.3  12.5  7.3
lucas,john       81   6.4  19.8  2.5  8.4  2.0  3.0  2.0  4.0   4.4  1.5  0.0  3.5  4.4  17.3  7.0
haryasz,matt     19   4.2  4.2   0.0  0.0  4.2  8.4  2.1  14.7  0.0  0.0  0.0  6.3  6.3  12.6  6.1
hayes,chuck      106  3.4  6.4   0.0  0.0  1.5  3.0  2.6  9.4   0.8  1.1  0.8  2.6  8.3  8.3   4.7
jacobsen,casey   58   0.7  6.2   0.7  5.5  2.1  2.8  2.1  4.8   4.8  1.4  0.0  3.4  0.7  4.1   3.1
azubuike,kelenna 26   1.5  10.8  1.5  4.6  3.1  3.1  1.5  7.7   6.2  1.5  0.0  4.6  6.2  7.7   2.5
spanoulis,vas    141  3.7  9.1   0.9  3.4  2.0  2.6  0.0  3.7   5.7  2.3  0.3  8.2  5.7  10.2  2.2[/SIZE]

Misc. Stats (for definition of terms, see B-R glossary)

Code:

[SIZE=1][COLOR=Navy]players          min  FG%     3P%    FT%     eFG%    TS%    ToR   RbR   Usg[/COLOR]
yao,ming         129  44.6%   0.0%   82.1%   44.6%   52.4%  17.9  19.0  31.6
mcgrady,tracy    146  40.8%   31.3%  55.8%   44.4%   48.4%  8.5   9.2   30.4
lucas,john       81   32.5%   29.4%  66.7%   38.8%   41.0%  11.9  5.8   27.3
head,luther      107  34.9%   33.3%  75.0%   44.2%   47.3%  10.8  7.6   22.4
spanoulis,vas    141  40.6%   25.0%  77.8%   45.3%   50.1%  34.1  5.4   21.3
azubuike,kelenna 26   14.3%   33.3%  100.0%  21.4%   31.7%  20.2  11.2  19.7
alston,rafer     176  50.0%   52.2%  80.0%   62.5%   64.9%  16.9  8.9   18.4
howard,juwan     32   44.4%   0.0%   66.7%   44.4%   48.4%  20.9  10.9  17.9
snyder,kirk      180  39.2%   31.6%  60.0%   45.1%   49.2%  13.3  7.1   17.8
novak,steve      172  52.9%   47.6%  91.7%   72.5%   75.5%  8.7   10.2  15.8
haryasz,matt     19   100.0%  0.0%   50.0%   100.0%  79.8%  44.4  21.5  14.9
padgett,scott    92   47.6%   46.2%  75.0%   61.9%   63.7%  12.2  17.1  13.1
jacobsen,casey   58   11.1%   12.5%  75.0%   16.7%   27.9%  22.0  7.0   13.1
battier,shane    166  48.8%   35.3%  85.7%   55.8%   58.6%  3.6   10.9  12.8
hayes,chuck      106  52.9%   0.0%   50.0%   52.9%   53.6%  23.7  13.7  11.2
mutombo,dikembe  48   66.7%   0.0%   100.0%  66.7%   69.9%  40.2  15.8  10.3[/SIZE]

 

I wonder if JVG's question as to whether Hayes can perform every night is true. I guess we'll see soon enough. He's looked good at times, and lost at times. Hayes is a player whose talent increases immensely based on energy level.

Yeah, I noticed that in the stats too. Lucas really looks for his own shot when in the game. I wonder if that is by design or what? VSpan seems to be the exact opposite.

Luther was really not himself in Orlando. He was playing out of his mind earlier in the preseason. Hopefully he'll be somewhere in between when the regular season hits.

 

I never saw Haryasz play. His stats line doesn't look too shabby. I was one of the few who wasn't at all happy about Rockets dismissing him. Unless Deke keeps playing another several years after this season, the Rockets will have to address the backup center issue pretty soon. Juwan is never the answer to me. I mean what could possibly go wrong with a working project like Haryasz when you have JLIII who is absolutely worthless on this team?

 

You shouldn't underestimate the importance of depth after the injuries we suffered last year. Yeah, if everyone is healthy, it may not be as important. But that's a big if.