Just for fun, I went through and checked the stats of our starting line-up over a varying period of games... First off, after Griffin started in LA, over 21 games, he has been averaging 14.57 ppg, 8.8 rpg, 3 blocks per game. The three blocks is outrageous because that would mean he would be ranked second to Ben Wallace. Cato's improvement isnt as clear yet, but it *seems* to be increasig dramatically. His stats are over a period of 12 games. 9.58 ppg, 10 rpg, 1.25 bpg. His rebounds would put him in 9th in the league, right behind Jermaine O'Neal. KT has been playing a little bit better than his 14 ppg. Hes averaging 15.5 ppg over 17 games. A dramatic increase over his scoring last year. Since he is playing small forward now, his rebounds have decreased a lot though. Steve Francis has been kicking some @$$ as usual. 23.1 ppg, 7.9 rpg, 6.2 apg over 20 games. He is without a doubt deserving his all star start, no matter how many games he hasnt played this year. "Cat" has been playing a lot better ball lately over 22 games, hes averaging 22.4 ppg. The lineup that weve been starting lately seems to be really working and I think we should keep it intact. This is what we should do... PG-Francis/Mooch SG-Mobley/Torres SF-Thomas/Rice PF-Taylor/Griffin C-Cato/Griffin Granted, its questionable whether Maurice should come back and take Griffin's starting spot after his solid year. However, Taylor is making $8 million. This way we solve our problem at backup center with Kevin Willis leaving.
Who's the best defender at his position on the team right now? Cato or Griffin? T-Mo??? Maybe MAYBE KT? What do you guys think?
I disagree I think our problems are possessions. In every game a team looses a certain number of possessions because of steals, missed shots and the occassional mental breakdown. Our team looses games because we loose so many possessions due to mental breakdowns such as dribbling into traffic with out a plan, dribbling the clock away and then being forced into a bad shot that does not drop and of course the across the court pass that turns into a steal because the oppossition is playing the passing lanes. Add the loss of those possessions to the normal amount of turnovers that happen during the normal course of the game and suddenly our team has about 20 fewer quality possessions to try and score more points than the oppossition. Quality possessions are about moving the ball around and aquiring the best possible shot. If you get the ball to a man in a position that he is comfortable shooting the ball and he takes his shot then that is a quality possession regardless if the ball goes into the basket. If you dribble into the paint with your head down with out looking at the rest of your teammates and are forced into a bad shot or a turnover then that is not a quality possession. If you dribble to the corner and you are trapped being to make a blind pass or a wild shot then you have wasted another possession. If you make these same mistakes over and over throughout a game and the oppossition does not then the other team has an advantage that we don't. This is why we lost to the Mavs Thurs and the Hornets Friday. We just gave away to many scoring oppertunities and they did not. It has been the same all year. If we play ball and you are only allowed 20 shots at the basket and I am allowed 35 then I will almost always win regardless of how well you shoot.
I bet the Rockets move Taylor to the 3. Francis made a reference to that earlier last summer. So then, we'd have: Cato/Willis/Collier Griffin/Thomas/Morris Taylor/Rice/Williams/Langhi Mobely/Torres/Brown Francis/Norris I believe Williams will either be traded to facilitate someone's cap space, or signed for the minimum, or just let go ... we need the capspace. I bet we'll trade Thomas and our draft choices for a young but not rookie center, such as Ratliff, LaFrentz, Clark, Mihm, MacCulloch, Diop, Curry, etc. ... and yes, I'd trade our first round pick for any of those guys... If there was any way to get Rashard Lewis, I think we'd try. And that would include Taylor, KT, Cato, Willis, Collier, Langhi, Rice, Torres, or Norris, and/or our draft picks. And if Cato continues to improve, he'll either be good trade bait, or a valuable rebuilding block for the team, reducing our need to trade for a center, although I still believe we'll need another good one. We will either need to sign and trade for Lewis, or create capspace. We'd have to waive Williams, and trade Cato/Norris or Rice for expiring contracts to get low enough to outright sign Lewis. I doubt we'll be able to move Rice. Let's say, we sign and traded KT, Taylor and both draft picks for Lewis. Then we'd have: Cato/Willis/Collier Griffin/Morris/(rookie) Lewis/Rice/Langhi Mobely/Torres/Brown Francis/Morris NOW THATS A TEAM!
Id rather keep KT and Taylor because if we trade them for Rashard then we will be weak on the bench. I think we would be better keeping Taylor, Thomas and Griffin all together than to trade away KT and Taylor because that would weaken our bench. We need continuity off the bench to complete our team. Our starters seem to be fine, but we need a solid backup unit.
Crash, I think you did a good job bring some of our woes together. I do agree that defense is also one of our biggest problems. There was some talk about concentrating on defense earlier in the season, but I do not see any credible attempt at defense. As for those unwarranted double teams that leaves people repeatedly open. It is not wonder our def fg% is so horrible.
I disagree that our defense is a problem when we have Griff and Cato in the middle. If we have a defensive problem, it is mental breakdowns of our guard play. Even that's a stretch. Our biggest problem is poise, IMO. First we too often let teams get big leads in the 1st half making an uphill battle. Then we can't finish a game out. We'll go through a scoring drought at 4:00 +/- because we don't execute our plays or we'll string 2-3 possesions w/ turnovers. Lately our nemisis has been allowing offensive rebounds by the opposing team. These are all things that we can easily improve when the team gets more PT together.
