I`m worried about his low post defense, don`t know if you guys agree but I was surprised to see Nicholson move him with ease. I certainly was not expecting chuck hayes defense but he was moved around with ease.
Yeah, signed 2012 but signed to the Dleague team in 2011. It's likely as such he had a whole off season of work with our big men coaches and a whole offseason here. That's huge. Robinson has not had that yet.
While that's true, Smith doesn't have the quickness, speed and ballhandling that Robinson does. IMO T-Rob is already an above average defender just on raw skills alone, when he adds the discipline and learns schemes he's going to be a very valuable piece to any team. And like Clyde likes to point out, he does have a pretty good release on his shot, a summer of hardwork and he'll probably have that midrange shot in his arsenal.
Greg Smith signed with RGV on December 29, 2011-- remember, the lockout affected the D-League schedule, too, so there wasn't much of "2011" left when either the NBA or the D-League season began. Meanwhile, it's not like Robinson was sitting on his ass last year-- his Kansas team went to the NCAA Finals and lost to Kentucky. The guy was playing against some talented guys.
T-Rob needs an offseason of hard work similar to what Morris had last year. Like Morris in his first season with us, T-Rob looks lost and not certain of where he should be. A good summer getting aclimated to what we do could do wonders for T-Rob. BYW, Durvasa is correct that he should not be part of the playoff rotation. He just isn't ready to significantly contribute just yet. Smith needs to continue what he is doing. He has improved by leaps and bounds and if he can develop a 15-foot jumper, this guy could be our starting PF for years to come. I don't want my PF sitting behind the 3-point line jacking up 3's.
It's not even the midrange shot that's the big issue. The issue is he seems to have trouble finishing around the basket. Tends to get stripped often and fail to convert layups. His "ballhandling" tends to result in futile drives at the basket ending with a missed shot or (worse yet, a turnover). He does have good quickness for defense and good rebounding instincts, but Smith is roughly his equal in rebounds and has solid defensive potential himself (when HOU played LAL, Smith was the team's best defender against Dwight Howard while Asik struggled to keep up with Howard's explosiveness).
Well I mean the offseason and preseason that Greg Smith had to work. He was on the summer league team and he had a offseason of work coming into this year. That's big, that's what it is all about when it comes to improving as a NBA player. No Robinson wasn't sitting on his ass, apparently everyone he's been under credits him as a hard worker...and I'm sure unless there is a trade...he'll work with the same guys that Patterson, Smith, Dmo has worked with and it may do wonders for him. Just that Smith is not a rookie and Robinson is. Smith has been working with the Rockets much longer than Robinson has.
Robinson also played in the summer league (I was there in Vegas with Clutch and several others and saw both Smith and TRob in person) and worked with the Kings coaches in the offseason and the preseason. In fact, being a high lotto pick Robinson probably got more individualized attention than Smith did. I recall he got more summer league minutes than Smith did, too.
What worries me is what we are going to do with the 2nd unit... I think Trob and Dmo at the same time is brutal, and that'll always be the overlap at some point, especially if Greg can't limit his fouls.
Well that's part of the problem right there. Remember, these are the coaches that wanted to experiment with him at SF. Just like they've tried putting Tyreke at every other position except the position he actually succeeded at. Meanwhile the Rockets have a pretty good track record with developing bigs. I think it would be more than fair to give Robinson a shot before you close the book on him.
Given that Robinson has at least one more guaranteed year under contract, he'll be getting that shot. Of course it's possible that he improves a great deal. I just don't think that available data suggests a high probability of that happening.
Obviously he was coming off the bench to anchor the second unit. But with the horrible first quarters he's helping out the first unit now. And we've all seen what happened to the second unit today. Needless to say it's a tightrope act trying to work with these bigs.
I am of the opinion that we should keep starting Smith and have Garcia/Anderson and Delfino anchor the second unit. If Delfino starts bricking we still have Garcia for shooting or Anderson for playmaking.
Maybe you are right... But it is rare to see guys who work their tail off and remain scrubs in any sport. If you put in the work, the results will surely show. The one thing that seperates Robinson from all the other busts mentioned around here is some of those guys did not haev the passion or wanted to put in the work to get better. We see hard work can make even what looks to be a scrub player and turn them into a more than useful player in Hayes. I think with Trobs skillset and his supposed great work ethic that he'll turn things around before his contract is up. He is on a Morey team though and any of these guys...Smith...Dmo...Robinson can get traded in a second.
Greg Smith is a career bench/role player a la Joe Anthony, Haslem. The tandem has been effective purely because of the democratic ball, and much improved defense, due to absence of Harden the last couple of games, very small sample indeed. In fact, by replacing DMo/Harden with Smith/Anderson/Garcia, the team defense has improved on their weakest links. It's a smart move, finally, by McHale: with Harden it might be much harder to score, which turned out to be wrong fears, but we'd give ourselves a chance of winning by tightening D as much as possible. Here, Lin's ability to control tempo on O comes in handy that allowed the ball to find to right hands for scores. But when Harden comes back, and come playoff time, I doubt it'd be as effective.
Smith's production will stay more steady if he is playing consistently at the PF. He has suffered from our need to play him as backup C due to a lack of other options, but he continues to work and improve. Greg's defense is actually pretty decent, it's just when mismatched against true C's he has foul problems.
In fact, the other athletic freak Shumpert of recent drafts has the similar issue: stone hands around the basket. However, the little I see from JRob, he seems to be a smart bball player unlike the other athletic freaks Stromile and Tyrus Thomas before him. He is already a very good and smart defender which will land him a NBA job for a long time. Can he improve on his offensive game to the level of a Carl Landry, Okafor or maybe even just Haslem? That remains to be seen.
Greg Smith is a great player: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVSbE6fMkzU I think he will need to cut down his PF's if he wants to see longer minutes. But if cutting down his fouls makes him a timid defender, then I'm glad we have D-Mo / Trobb to come in later. I don't think having two bigs in Omer/Smith "crowding" the paint for drives by Harden/Lin is a problem. We'll see how Smith/Asik works in the line up with Harden/Lin/Parsons. Anyone with stats on these?
