Every game that I go to, I have seen the exact same thing. The assistant coaches jacking up 3's and having a shooting contest with the players for an extended period of time. I have not once this year noticed one of the assistant's doing ANYTHING productive. At least with teams like Dallas & San Antonio you can watch on TV and see the assistants getting fired up over bad calls or in that zone of coaching. Those guys on our bench just shake the players hands after every time out and their job is done!
My assumption for a while now has ben that the Rockets roster is structurally flawed. The players are not complimentary, and we have the wrong type of players int he wrong spots. But still, we have the talent and experience to make the playoffs. All we have to do, is play the experience, and let the inconsistent talent develop and show flashes from the bench. Yao Ming/Cato MoTaylor/Griffin Rice/T-Mo Mobley/Posey Francis That's it, ditch the rest of the rotation. No minutes for anyone else, cut Posey and Griffin's minutes.
Sane, i can agree with your lineup but with one small exception. If posey is stoned again and can't realize how to defend a jump shooter, replace him with hawkins.
I totally agree... #$%* the petition on Rudy, the players aren't there and right now, unless theres a change, this is what we'll see next year...
I think the two who might need to go are Mobley and Griffin. Mobley is a smart dude, but we all know who the franchise players are. Griffin hasn't shown us much potential. He is potentially a good role player at best. He's the guy i question as far as lack of savvy. I say we get rid of them and make a move for a real POWER forward, if there are any available this summer. A strong inside presence will get you deep into the playoffs. Webber/Divac, Duncan/Robinson... Brand would be a miracle.
as one of the visiting teams commentator wondered "what if francis just played SG..." currently his priorities are divided.. he has to try to get other involved, direct the offense, while still trying to get his points, and provide energy on the court for the team..his natural gift is to score/get to the basket, not pass....and his decision making is a work in progress... granted there are night where he does it all, but those are few and far between, but the current situation is like a "jack of all trades, master of none" syndrome... i wonder how effective francis would focus on his strength, scoring....i think he would still get his share of assists, since he is unselfish...i have visions of a 30ppg player..i guess this goes back to the whole cuttino is redundant argument....
Let's cool our jets off of the players for a while and try to analyze the real problem. I believe that here is the root of the problem. Check out these stats: 2001-2002: Player FG% FT% 3pt% RPG APG SPG BPG TO PPG Francis .417 .773 .324 7.0 6.4 1.25 .44 3.88 21.6 Mobley .438 .850 .395 4.1 2.5 1.47 .50 2.43 21.7 Griffin .366 .744 .330 5.7 0.7 .23 1.84 0.64 8.8 Norris .398 .751 .269 3.0 4.9 .99 .05 1.90 8.1 Cato .583 .582 .000 7.0 .4 .53 1.27 .71 6.6 Morris .384 .683 .192 3.1 .9 .31 .40 .66 3.8 2002-2003: Player FG% FT% 3pt% RPG APG SPG BPG TO PPG Francis .434 .803 .382 6.1 6.1 1.69 .48 3.93 22.5 Mobley .434 .841 .326 4.4 2.9 1.37 .53 2.12 18.2 Griffin .389 .616 .336 6.2 1.1 0.65 1.65 1.11 8.7 Norris .418 .659 .219 2.0 2.5 .71 .07 1.08 4.5 Cato .529 .571 .000 6.0 0.3 .49 .94 .78 4.1 Morris .451 .769 .286 2.8 0.5 .16 .35 .65 3.7 Here are the players that played most of last season for the Rockets. How much if any improvements do you guys see from these players from last year to this year? Every single one of these players are still young, athletic, and supposedly developing their game. The correction would be that I don't see any REAL development in their game. Either they are stagnant or declining with the exception of Terrence Morris and Cato due to his limited play time this year. Who should take responsibility here when your players are not growing? Are the players being lazy or is the coaching staff not doing their job? With the addition of Yao Ming, a healthy Glen Rice and Mo Taylor, the Rockets improve from a 28 win team to a currently .500 team, so there really should be no suprise if the Rockets don't make the playoffs this year. I say if the Rockets are gonna make changes, replace the coaching staff first.
Pgab, You want facts, WE LOST !!!! That is all you need to know..the team lost. I concur about Ginobli, and EG getting toasted, but Parker made Steve look like his BIATCH on defense. Steve could not guard a german sunbathers crotch if he were a weenie bikini. Steve should lead by example and learn to play defense and to pass the ball to open teamates, and to stop turning the ball over at crucial times. Steve is as much to blame as the rest of team scrubs. DD
So when the Rockets lose, Steve's fault, Rockets win, Yao's responsible. How many points did Parker score. Let me see, Parker, more shots, less points, less assists, less boards, clearly outplayed Steve. Your anti Steve posts get more ridiculous each time. Oh yea, less steals, but he clearly played better D.
Good points! I agree that from last year to this year player growth has been minimal at best. And I also have some issues with our coaching staff, especially the assistant coaches. I firmly believe we need a few more teachers on our staff and less video tape breakdown guys such as the people Rudy has pegged as our assistant coaches. We have some young players here that need some TEACHING about fundamentals and techniques and less time watching video tape breakdowns of game film on other opponents. When are we going to see Griffin in the post??? This is going to be an important off-season for the Rockets. I expect BIG improvements from everyone next year and and microscope will be on Eddie Griffin and Bostjan Nachbar in particular this off season. Nachbar has to be a rotation guy next year and Griffin has to get close to Troy Murphy (Golden State) numbers (12ppg and 10rpg) next year to take this team to the next step. Chris
Pgab, Stats don't matter, the only thing that matters is wins and loses. Parker got his team going in the 1st guarter and then ran it smoothly the rest of the way. I think Steve is better then Tony at this point, but Tony is smarter then Steve Basketball wise. Tony has an understanding of the point guards role, Steve doesn't. Steve needs to commit to doing whatever it takes to lead this team, or get the heck out of the way. As for fault etc....I give Steve Props when he deserves them...However, he gets probably too much credit and too much blame, but that is what you get when you are the leader. DD
This has to do with the coaching stuff. Like I said before, Rox seems playing less restrictions on the court and Rudy seems encouraging them to do so. Hard to image if Tony Parker has couple of unforce turnovers and Popovich will still leave him on the court like Rudy did. Kids always have bad habits, but when they show it on the court, what coach need to do is let them SIT DOWN, calm their mind, and tell them this is wrong, and you will be punished for doing so. What Rudy did is just the contrary.
Noone says Francis is a terrible player. Talent-wise, he is in the top 10. Savvy-wise, he is somewhere in Neverland. He can do better himself and make people around him better if he plays smarter.
The thing lost in this mix is the offensive philosphy. If the Rockets ran a scheme similar to the Nets where basically, they give the ball to Kidd and no one else ever touches it unless it's to shoot and they put all off the playmaking responsibility on the PG, then yes Steve would be to blame. But this is more of a motion oriented offense where multiple people touch the ball. To make a blanket statement that "the offense sucks and Steve is the point guard so he must be the problem" is like saying "we give up way too many layups and Yao's the center so he must be the problem. How could Yao let David Robinson and Duncan go off like that?" But when you watch the game objectively, you realize that it's not all his fault. Whether anyone here wants to accept it or not, the NBA made a marketing decision to change the rules to hurt the low post game so that it could feature some of it's up and coming stars - Kobe, TMac and guys like that - perimeter players that slash to the hole. They were tired of the low post guy surrounded by 4 statue waiting to shoot threes kind of offense. Every since people started calling Steve and Cuttino selfish and saying they don't throw Yao the ball, they have not been the same. It started around the time of the Laker win at COmpaq center, and ever since, it has taken the aggressiveness and decisiveness out of their games. And the Rockets offense has suffered because of it. Yao hasn't shown me that he is going to be aggressive enough to score 30 or 40 in a game. So what happens is we spend the first three quarters throwing the ball down to Yao where the other team sends EG and Posey's men to double him so that Yao will kick the ball out to them. And we fall way behind. And when it starts getting late in the game, Steve and Cat decide, to hell with it and start slashing to the hole and raising the tempo of the game and we get back into the picture. We need to understand that we have been a less than .500 team since we started featuring Yao as the focal point of our offense. We have fallen from the 3rd or 4th seed all the way to out of the playoffs. If this team is going to make any noise, it's going to be because Steve is carving up the defenses for 25 to 30 a night. Sometimes, I wish like hell that Rudy would say, we're moving Cat to the point and Steve to the two just so people would get over this "the point guard shouldn't score" mentality. I WANT THIS TEAM TO WIN! The Rockets would be better off pullling Yao out of the paint, allowing our guards to penetrate and kick out to give him open jumpers which he seems to hit almost all of the time. All I know is, it seems like whenever either Steve or Cuttino gets over 25 points, the Rockets seem to win a lot more than when they don't. I'm not saying I want ten second dribbling exhibitions, but I do know that no team wants Steve ripping through the heart of their defense, shooting 12 free throws, and getting their big men in foul trouble. That is the only way this team is going to the playoffs!
Yep. It is screwing them up a bit... And they have been injured. You're right. Mobley....sometimes is not even involved. He just stands there sometimes. Francis....has been taking less shots..I believe. It seems like it.....until the last 6 minutes. He becomes desperate and takes a bunch of shots. Our team is pretty much screwed. BUT WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO DETROIT? 7 game losing streak? Golly....that means we will probably lose. We will have a 4 game losing streak. But it's not like we will change instantly...how can we just say No More Yao. And just tell Mobley and Francis to do what they did last year. It's not gonna work.....cuz then everyone will be complaining about Yao Ming just standing there and the guards not getting him involved. WE NEED A SHOOTER. And a coach.
We can't say no more Yao. I think we should get Yao some jumpers and find him on cuts and while rolling to the basket. Yao was much more effective at that early in the season when that's how we primarily got him the ball until all of the "experts" said that we had to start the offense through Yao. I say let Yao be a finisher. When Yao put 30 on Dallas pretty much 75% of his points came after one of our guards penetrated and was able to find him close to the basket. We were a MUCH more explosive offensive team back then.
You made some valid arguments but I don't know if I agree on your conclusions. Sure, the Rockets most likely will win if Steve and Cuttino have good day and score a bunch of pts. They are talented players but I don't think they can do it every night. Further more, even when Mc Grady, Kobe light it up, they need other players to play well to win. I don't advocate Francis, Mobley NOT to shoot. I advocate the open man shoots. (even Griffin, , he might get better or we should give him closer-in shots!) I believe a great player trying a difficult shot is no better than a good player attempting an easy one. We said we try but we'd clearly done it less often than more.
Well our offense isn't looking too pretty nowadays. It's either let Francis try to go in.....or just give it to Mo Taylor or Yao and let them score. And if they don't score.....we're screwed cuz we haven't been stopping anyone on defense. They must have mental problems. Our team is good.......but we have very bad preparation. We are always down by like 10 points at the end of the 1st quarter. WHY?!?!?!?!? Coach needs to do a better job of preparing them for the game and getting them intensified or something!!! I still think Glen Rice needs to start...and we need some more shooting. Francis should still be scoring. But he needs to get healthy first. Soon. Mobley...he actually has some success...some....when he goes inside. But Francis should be setting Mobley up for wide open 3's...whereever is nice spot is.... Posey.....should never shoot. He should only be cutting and dunking and just scoring on fast breaks. And then he will have energy to play his fabulous defense. Griffin SHOULD NEVER SHOOT!!!!! He is so confident....but looks so terrible. He can't even shoot 5 feet from the basket. Use the backboard....the best thing he can do is sneak inside and get a bunch of tip ins and offensive rebounds. He could do it well. Yao......well it seems like no one is complaining about him not getting involved. I don't know....we need to try different things with him. Francis is not the dumbest guard!!! I still think he needs some help. He can't do it by himself. Let's just see if they can beat the PISTONS...who are on a 7 game losing streak.
