Yeah, both Yao and Tmac will be 1a and 1b....both look like they will be extremely dominant scorers under this system for the simple fact that defenses will have a harder time predicting the point of attack and will have fewer seconds to read our offensive sets. Scoring wise, 2 right now probably looks like Bonzi and 3 Scola. A couple of our guards from James, Francis (when he adapts down the road) or even Head will probably have some big scoring nights might end up moving up to 2 and 3.......and I see Battier as having occasional nights where he's getting 20 points and hitting 5/7 of his 3's like he did last year. As for defense, I hope Mutombo stays with us past this year. He got in the game and already did some good things intimidating and deterring with his elbows. Announcers like to rib him for being a dinosaur, but high flyers think twice when they see him in their waiting for them. It was funny that even in practice, Deke was doing the finger wave. LOL. As for Scola, it seems like he's pretty smart defensively and at least grasps team defenses and all the little things to help the team get extra possessions a la Battier. It's only been a few games, but he's already taken a lot of charges (one that got boos from the opposing crowd), stolen the ball, rotated well and gets a lot of high energy tough rebounds in traffic. And, Landry looked promising....he still needs to work on some stuff, don't get me wrong....but since he's an end of the bench player....hopefully, he can be another hustle player like Hayes became for us.
Nice thread. Beats alot of others out there. I'd be impressive to see you keep this up during the year, since it looks like you put a fair amount of thought into it. I think I'll wait until the season starts to throw in my .02
Since this has turned into a T-Mac vs. Yao debate, I'll just say that the idea behind power rankings is that they fluctuate and talk about who is hot at the moment. T-Mac just dropped 30 points in a half without breaking a sweat, while Yao struggled a bit. For the time being, T-Mac is 1A and Yao 1B, but trust me, both players will do something to change it for the next write-up (T-Mac will "slump" and/or Yao will dominate).
I understood the point, and I don't care about who's better between Yao and McGrady. But I always thought the terms "1a" and "1b" were strange, since it still seems to suggest an ordering.
That was not even a glimpse or a minscule sampel of what mcgrady can do in this offense. dont burden him with the resposibility of running the whole offense and let him concentrate scoring and do what he does best, you'll get a top 5 player in this league. last season he had to run the team and was asked to do everythingelse. he had no energy left to even begin to creat or look for HE'S SHOT. Against the sonics tracy showed that if he is told to play he's natural game, there is'nt a better pure scorer besides kobe then him. adelman knows who he's best player is..
Rafer is way overrated. James and SF3 are going to prove that they're better than him throughout the season; Bonzi is better than Rafer; Battier is better than him; and Scola -- before the season is out -- will be easily the third best player on the Rockets behind Yao and T-Mac. That's my $0.02...
yea did tmac even look to penetrate to create ONCE v. the sonics? his 2 assists were to shane simply by backing down his guy and drawing a double team and passed out. dude is gonna have it easy if all he has to do is score.
good post. I wont say which is the "better" player, but I think McGrady will lead the team in scoring. Here is how I would rank the players at this point: 1. McGrady 2. Yao 3. Battier 4. Wells 5. Scola 6. James 7. Alston 8. Head 9. Hayes 10. Francis 11. Brooks 12. Snyder 13. Landry 14. Mutumbo 15. Butler
Tracy is a natural born scorer. he is at he's devastating best when he's looking to score. conversly when he is looking to be a playmaker, he goes into he's shell. look at the jazz game where he had 44 points (21 in the 1st) or the mavs game where he had 45 or the kings game where he had 40. he was looking to score from get go. he had decided he had to look for he's shot at all costs. Good to see adelman has realiazed that tracy should be looking to score from get go. the only thing i wanna see tracy stop doing is to take less tray's. i dont mind those mid-range shots. with he's legs and elevation back, he'll get more then he'll miss.
This argument has gone in circles with the same tired arguments being rehashed again and again. Arguing based on a few select regular season games is a very weak argument; what if I picked out the 8/25 games from last year as an example of why McGrady is over the hill? All I will say is that I believe by the end of the year Yao and McGrady's performance will prove you wrong.
