SI.Com-Rox one of five teams that have taken a step backwards this offseason

Bwahahahaa. Yeah, I knew this was coming. The eternal crutch of Rafer Alston defenders, among others - once Yao and Tracy are healthy, these guys are going to SOAR.

Well, it's not true. And I can prove it.

Juwan Howard 2004-2005 (healthy Yao & vintage McGrady)

PER at PF 13.9
Opponents PER at PF 16.9
Net -3.0

What do you see there, DD? You see that as the performance of an "average starter"? I sure don't - I see it as somebody who doesn't measure up, night in, night out, and I sure don't see too much of a difference from 2005-06.

Alston - while he wasn't on the Rockets in 2005 (when his net negative PER was only 1.0 with Toronto) and I can't run the same analysis, I can tell you that his Yao/Tracy performance was not appreciably better than his season average (I don't have PER, but in the 22 Yao-tracy games he averaged 9 pts, 7.2 assists, w/ 37-30 shooting, not far off his season averages of 12-6.7 37/32 shooting - so IMO, Alston's PER in those games with Yao and Tracy is likely at the same mediocre level that it was without them. (thanks to the research by Clutch) - which is the level of a below average starter.


http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?p=2415830&highlight=Alston#post2415830

It's simply a fact of life that the Rockets are well behind the "average" team in this department as far as personnel goes at these two spots - it's plain as day.

 

Sam, I won't argue that they are NOT great starters, but that is why I called them average.

Miami did ok with Jason Williams running the point, and Antoine Walker at the PF position.......right?

If you have a couple of people with negative PERs you can more than make that up with 3 people with outstanding PERs, right?

DD

 

Cat, that was a great post, and completely what I am trying to say as well.

DD

 

Some more fuel to the fire... I posted this chart PER back in mid-march tracking the role-players over their careers. Hasn't been updated for the final season tally but close enough.



DD - a PER of 15.0 is considered NBA avg.

 

That might work in theory, but it's not realistic. Remember how long it took this team to gel in the first Tracy and Yao season? It takes that long for individual players as well. When you've played your career in mediocre franchises like Toronto, it takes time to adjust to the spacing and become comfortable playing in an offense built around two elite scorers. It doesn't happen instantly; it's not as simple as looking at a piece of paper.

22 games is approximately 1/4 of one season... and I doubt those 22 games were even consecutive. It's far, far too small of a sample size to make any kind of conclusion of how he would perform on a long-term basis in that situation. Call it a crutch, if you want. I call it reality.

 

I agree completely with what you said, but come on man - are you trying to tell me that the guys we have outside of Yao and TMac are on the same level of established veterans like Thorpe, Maxwell, and Elie? Horry was young but we were lucky that he along with Kenny Smith fit the Rudy T system to a T. And Cassell was such a huge steal for us. He has more talent in his pinky than the guys we have (once again outside of TMac and Yao) in their whole bodies.

I'm sorry but I don't see Juwan Howard (at least the Juwan Howard of today) being a similar type PF to Otis Thorpe. I also don't see an unproven Euro player like Spanoullis being the second coming of Sam Cassell as a rookie. And for Chuck Hayes? Chucky Brown would mop the floor with him as would Mark Bryant and Charles Jones would come pretty damn close despite being 70 years old right now. The point is we had tested and proven role players along with some key system players and one big break, talent-wise in Cassell. We don't have that now - nowhere even close to that. If we did, the Rockets wouldn't have had a 2-18 or whatever it was record when Yao and/or T-Mac was out with injuries.

 

I think SI had some points to make. I think we lost a little ground to Dallas Potentially, i.e. Novak,VSPN (I like it more then V-Span), and Hayes have to be Major rotation players for us to catch up to them. New Orleans is going to be interesting on paper they got better but I am not sure they did in reality. Peja has been declining the last few years and Tyson chandler and their draft picks pretty much play the same roles and position. Also who is their starting SG? They should be fun to watch at least. San Antonio... who is their starting center? Elson or Butler? Horry, Finley, Bowen all got older. I do not see how they were so much better then us.

I think Houston overreacted a little and wanted more out of the off-season. If we had landed Mike James, Battier and Kirk I do not think we are having this conversation. But we did not.

All and all until the season tips we do not know what we got in the off season. I think we had a better off season then some right now middle of the pack, remember we were discussing the off season not how we would perform in the season.

Although I might disagree, it was fairly well written and pretty objective with the biggest problem being our first and third best players playing the same position. Thank you for the insight I think some of these things were said about Miami as well. All and all Mr. Dwyer is one of the better writers on the NBA beat.

Fierguard - Celebrating 20 years of bleeding Rockets Red.

 

They are not average starters. They are below average starters for the reasons indicated above.

Miami's players are average starters.

Miami's PF starter was Haslem who played the majority of PF minutes. he is the epitome, more or less, of the average starter PF last year, with PER ratings slightly negative but right around the 15.0 average (14.8 vs. 16.1)

Same with Walker's PF minutes last year were slightly net positive (15.8 vs. 15.5)

Williams PG PER is slightly net positive, but again very close to average. (17.8 vs. 16.2)

The Rockets have Howard and Alston, who are significantly below average The Heat have starters who are at or around average.

Are you telling me you wouldn't swap Howard-Alston for Haslem/Walker/Williams, either collectively or individually, in a heartbeat? I sure would and I don't need to go to 82games.com to know that.

 

Great chart, but again, it all depends on whom is on your team.

There are players that are GREAT complimentary players (Like Horry) but would be horrible if asked to do too much.

Manny, I am not comparing those players heads up, just that they were complimentary players ala the current Rockets squad outside of Yao and Tmac.

People laughed when we picked up Mario Elie, and we had to trade Robert Horry to make him shoot.......

DD

 

OK,

I concede that they are below average, but are still NBA starters. Agreed?

DD

 

I think this is why DD considers our offseason not a total disaster. It's true, anyone can be a Y-level cutter if the put their mind to it, but to be a good NBA-level cutter, you have to have the athletic ability and instincts. Battier doesn't have them, Novak doesn't step inside the three point line, and Head can't finish. Snyder, I believe, is actually a good cutter, but he can't shoot from the outside.

We need some guys who can do both. Dallas has like 5 swingmen who can all shoot, slash, and defend, why can't we have one besides T-Mac?

 

But no low post presence.....different styles of play....we are closer to San Antonio than Dallas in Style.

DD

 

You have to go back several years to find a season where Alston even approached "average" on a PER basis no matter who he is playing with, and he has gotten worse as his minutes go up.

As for the "he plays on a weak team " plank (Mike James played on the same weak team yet his PER was off the charts), Clutch put that in the woodchipper and set the pieces on fire then buried the ashes in a hole last week, so I'm not even going to bother to address that one.

I call this assumption fairly safe.

And the Rockets didn't take that much time "gel" in 2005, what they did is discard sh-t players like Tyron Lue, Reece Gaines, Bostjan Nachbar, and Charlie Ward and replace them with Sura, Barry, James, and Wesley and JVG took the shackles off McGrady. Once those personnel were in place - the wins started to come easily.

how you can compare that to the fact that Rafer bricks open shots and layups and can't play a lick of defense, ever in his career, is unclear to me.

 

Yeah, they're NBA starters because they start basketball games in the NBA.

They also wear red uniforms sometimes too.

 

so you want to emulate the spurs now? I thought we had a ton of flexibility? spurs don't have any flexibility..

 

Mike James is a creator. Rafer Alston is not. It's no surprise James would be more efficient than Alston on a team lacking star talent when the environment calls for both players to shoot a lot. That's where the PER stats fall short. It doesn't take into effect each individual situation. On a bad team like Toronto where each player has to shoot more than they probably should (and has less quality teammates to pass to), it's only logical that a scoring-first PG would have more success than a pass-first PG.

As for 2005, you can believe whatever you want. But to this fan, it had a lot more to do with McGrady becoming more comfortable with the situation and his role than JVG "taking the shackles off." Also, Gaines and Nachbar rarely played... and Ward didn't take that long before getting hurt.

 

I'm not sure about your exact question. If Haslem is in the equation, it's a no-brainer. Haslem might be the single best PF for what the Rockets are trying to do. He's one of the "super-duper" role players like Battier that are very difficult to find. (And when you include Mourning, the Heat have 2 of them.)

But individually, Alston is more consistent than Williams. Williams's stats get skewed because 1 game in 5, he'll go 7 for 7 on 3 pointers. And the Heat have the players to make up for him when he's gone.

I will give you that last year, Walker was better than Howard. Getting something productive out of Walker was the big reason Riley deserved Coach of the Year. But historically, Walker deserved Least Valuable Player year-in and year-out. So I'd call last year an aberration and keep Howard over Walker.

 

NO !!!!

I want us to play to our strengths and make the other team bend to our will.

I said we are CLOSER to them in style....Miami too.

Dang....

DD

 

Enough. Rafer sucks according to all available evidence. So I'm not sure what else there is to say.

Nachbar started the first few games, but I forgot to mention Jim Jackson. Either way, they swapped the entire guard rotation out.

But the reason why it took the team a long time to "gel" is because they totally remade the backcourt (swapping out all the starters and backups and moving Tracy to SF) in midseason. once they completed it, it didn't take a quarter season for them to start winning.

 

so now since Rafer consistently puts up 3-9 from the field he's superior?

Clutch -- add this one to the list!