The only thing I know is any lineup with Brewer is the opposite of the lineup of death...or maybe it's just the bad kind of death.
It won't take several MONTHS to learn MDA's system - DMo has played in a similar system all his life, MDA's system fits his game completely - now it will take time to get in game shape, but that is a couple of weeks at worst. DD
Couldn't agree more - he's badly handling Dmo's career. If he wants Dmo to get paid, he has to get him on the court and looking like peak Dmo this year because the only things teams will remember about Dmo is he was sorta good for a minute, got hurt, never can back at full strength, and got a trade rescinded because of medical red flags. That's not exactly the arc of a guy teams are in a bidding war over. At this point I think BJ is waiting out an Anderson injury to get more leverage but the flaw with that is Dmo will be needed in the court immediately and he won't be ready meaning he will look bad to scouts/potential FA suitors...
I agree he has the skill set for it - but remember that in season teams don't get as much practice time and the time they do get is not always focused solely on how the offense works - that's stuff that would have been covered more in training camp/preseason. Plus - D'antoni doesn't want to throw a guy out there who is unfamiliar with the offense meaning he won't likely be a first of the bench guy. I think your seriously overestimating the amount of opportunity Dmo will get early on. It's going to take longer because he simply won't have the opportunity unless injuries carve out more time.
I have seen enough. KJ needs 25+ minutes a game. He does so many little things for the team but they are good things.
Watch the last two games closely and pay attention to how teams are guarding him. So far Anderson has been THE guy teams have chosen to eliminate from the equation leaving Harden and Gordon available to create, why you wonder? Easy. Teams know they can't shut Harden down even if they tried so what they will do and start doing is drawing up schemes to shut down his shooters. In doing so it forces Harden to go one on one and play hero ball, last night there was a possession where MDA got on Dekkers ass because he was caught ball watching Harden rather than cutting to the basket which caused a shot clock violation. MDA knows basketball and loves back door cuts and screens for layups and when your standing around with your thumb in your butt he's going to call you out on it. Anderson will continue to get guarded closesly not because he's the best player but because he's the most dangerous player when he gets hot and having him get hot with Harden distributing is a recipe for blowouts. Trust me Anderson didn't just tear up the pre season with a high ass 3pt shooting %, he's being guarded in a way where he is shut to make everyone else figure it out which I would do too if I knew KJ, Brew, and Harrel where coming off my bench meaning team score know those players have a least chance of beating them versus RYno
Brewer was expendable before KJ played a meaningful minute. Brewer should have left with JB Bickerstaff.
Not sure how that answers my question about Anderson's absence from our supposed strongest lineup... but OK.
Can we all just agree that any team's "best line-up" or "crunch time line-up" is not a "line-up of death".
Happy to see KJ doing work. Needs to keep working that baseline backdoor with Harden. Should keep pulling the shot if he is open, because if he doesn't Brewer will or Ariza on a bad day. His shot mechanics look ok so I think if he stops worrying about it and just shoots in rhythm he'll be fine. He needs to get more confident dribbling a little bit, mainly learning to cover some ground with his dribble. Would be interested to see him try a hard baseline drive with a jumpstop towards the middle of the paint for a baby hook or kickout or double backflip 360 dunk.
Oh and yeah I dunno about that lineup of death stuff. How about we win 2 games in a row? Save all rockets fans from the brain pain
Not quite. We would need Paul George instead of Ariza for that. Let's hope Indiana misses the playoffs and PG wants out as a free agent this summer. Our death lineup can hang when Ariza scores 20 points or more. We were 13-2 last season when Ariza scored 20+.
Our lineup of death should be Tyler Ennis Boby Brown Corey Brewer Samuel Dekker Cnianu Onuaku Rockets Death that is R.I.P Rockets
