Obviously Landry had a dominant first preseason game and did very well last year but that doesn't mean he should just be a starter. Let's look at this from all sides. First, him in a reserve 15-20 min role is working perfectly and by playing him 30 minutes he might be able to be as effective. In other words we might get diminishing returns by playing him more. He might dominate for 20 of those minutes and then be bad for the extra 10 he would be getting. Second, we don't have much in the way of back center's. There's Dorsey and then there's Landry. Obviously we could through Scola there with say Artest at 4 McGrady at 3 Barry at 2 and then the PG but from what I saw last year Scola isn't able to do much at all when having to play center and at the least Landry is much more effective. Third (and this is the main one for me) who works best with our starting lineup. To me its Landry and not Scola. Scola is someone who does his post moves to score and can do it on his own. Landry is very much a player who sneaks in and gets quick baskets. I think that makes Landry more suited for running with our starters. With T-Mac, Yao and Artest teams wouldn't be able to cover Landry or if they do Yao is likely left alone in the paint or T-Mac has a one-on-one. Scola and Yao's games are very similar so I think putting Landry in with Yao would be an unstoppable first team. Scola could be the anchor of the second team and be the guy who can create in the post and just be that post presence. So how should the minutes be broken down? To me I see at as Rafer: 30 T-Mac: 32 Atrest: 35 Landry: 25 Yao: 30 Scola: 25 Battier: 20. That leaves roughly 43 minutes to be split between the other bench players changing from game to game depending on the situation and opponent (Barry, Dorsey, Brooks, Hayes and head/Francis being the remaining players to make up a 12 man team).
not saying it's impossible, but i'm not convinced landry has earned himself a starting spot - by only one preseason game.
No Landry brings fire and brimstone off the bench, all we would be doing is wasting all the energy for no damn reason.
Sometimes I think Landry should start since he is a better compliment to Yao with his mid range shooting and athleticism. Scola does a better job creating his own shot and better post player which he showed when Yao went down last year. Scola could be the focus of the offense when Yao goes out of the game.
That is why I ultimately went with Landry starting. In all reality if you look at the minutes portion of my first post they should play the same amount of time its just Landry should be playing with the starters because he fits in better with that unit. And ummm yeah guys if you read the post its obvious it's not based on '1 game.'
I've been on before anyone else. I grew up where he went to college so I have been following and cheering for him since the day he transferred to Purdue.
I agree he compliments Yao better than Scola. Although Scola is individually more polished and talented, he's not going to use his skills to the fullest playing alongside Yao. He'll mostly be getting putbacks, layups, and open jumpers. If Artest eventually starts over Battier, then Scola will be used even less efficiently. Overall though, the starters on paper won't mean much this season. With a team this deep they have the ability to create matchup problems for the whole league, so although they may start with the "starters", the bulk of the minutes will go to whoever matches up best with the opposing players. either way it may not matter much since the PF position needs to contribute only about 13 and 8 each game for the team to be succesful and both Scola and Landry are capable of that. Its a nice problem to have.
I love Scola but his performance in the Olympics (while I was proud) did nothing for me. He was already dominant in the Worlds before that and in Europe. He is a MVP type playing international rules basketball but just a solid guy in NBA rules. He can be 15-8 and guy which is great and love him for it but I expected him to dominate the Olympics.
This actually makes alot of sense to me. I think rick should atleast give it a test run and see how it goes. Afterall thats how we got landry and scola playin the way they do now.
Adelmen, in my opinion, will develop groups he likes on the floor together, small ball, best defenders, all scorerers, etc. He will likely mix up the playing time drastically depending on the matchups. So I would say who starts isnt really that important.
If you play well on this Rockets team - you get noticed. Landry wasn't expected to do anything last year but he worked himself into the rotation. Scola had a slow start and didn't get many minutes for the first 2 months but he was more and more effective as well. Under Adelman great play = more minutes. This is why Francis will get his chance to make a comeback this season.
For the moment, Scola should start and let Landry be the one that comes in and bring energy and motivation.
Landry's high energy and explosiveness is best served coming off the bench to keep the momentum going. What I would like to see is a lil more of the Scolandry tandem especially to give Yao more rest. Thinking about it we are so deep and have so many lineup possibilities, we have more combos than Marvel vs Capcom.
I think Landry is awesome, but at this moment I love what he brings coming off the bench. Now...I think he might be a good starter too. I think if he seems to gel very well when on the court with the other starters, it might be worth looking at starting him.
