I'm in general against "assigning minutes" to certain players such as Landry and Scola. I think in these situations you have to play to who is hot, matchups, foul trouble, among others things. As far as the PG situation is concerned, I wouldn't be at all surprised if AB isn't starting by the end of the year. Having said that, I think he is perfectly acceptable off the bench as our off the bench scorer. Similar to Jason Terry and Manu Ginobili type players (I'm not saying he's at their level), I think AB needs to get 25 minutes and up each game. I'm sure I'm not the only one who sees as AB as a potential star in this league. If I had to bet, I would say he will average 20 points per game at least once or twice in this league. All in all, I think he needs to be used more effectively and deserves some run with the 1st team.
exactly, he needs to be strong n tell other players don't contest him when he grabs the rebound. Look at Mutombo, when he grabs the rebound, everybody step aside cause they know they don't want to be hurt!
We the same as the Celtics, Ray Allen and Pierce aren't exactly high fliers anymore. Plus it will take some time to jell. We will be no lower than 3 in the WC.
Well that starting lineup went on a 22 game winning streak last year, so I'd have to say the lack of speed/athleticism doesn't really matter. Health matters more. Health would've won us the Celtics game since Battier would've been there.
I'm with you BB. I think the Kwame Browns and Stromile Swifts of the league have given athleticism a bad name and misled people to believe it isn't important. It is. Our team is among the best as far as offensive and defensive principles but athleticism makes the game easy and we don't have much of it. Atheletic players can screw up on a play and make up for it on the same play. We see it all the time. Dwight Howard can contest a PG's shot and get back to his man in time to stop him. Yao can hardly move his feet quick enough to stop the first part of the play. Don't be fooled by Mcgrady's good ball handling either, he now has near PF level athleticism. Athleticism has always been our biggest problem, teams get to the second round with crappy shooting or rebounding or defense all the time. With all that said, we can win without it. And in that sense, it does not matter.
I should have also included our lack of frontcourt length in the OP. Watching this game tonight, we are getting killed by their speed (or our lack of speed to match them), their athleticism and their length. We are getting killed on the boards because of our lack of quickness and length. The Blazers are grabbing boards inside and getting the long rebounds because of their length, quickness and athleticism. Barry can't guard Fernandez. Artest can't stay with Fernandez. Why? Speed.
There was a reason why the Rockets coveted Fernandez. He's a very good player. That said, I wonder if DJ would have been able to slow him down. Stawberry is a very physical defender. As for more athleticism and speed/leaping ability, Morey really needs to consider trading Head for the Nets' Sean Williams. He has the skillset you are talking about: 6'10 (w/long wingspan) and crazy hops
Last night, we got killed by a quicker and more athletic team. They also had more frontcourt length. 16-5 was the difference in offensive rebounding. Why did they kill us in this facet? I don't think it was laziness, other than maybe McGrady and Yao on occasion. Their long bigs outjumped our mini PFs. Their quick bigs took away Yao's height advantage. On the long rebounds, their quicker, more athletic perimeter players beat ours to the ball. Speed and athleticism aren't everything... but they matter. The Spurs weren't the fastest or most athletic team in the league during recent years (still faster than us w/ Parker, Ginobili and Bowen), but they won championships. How? Impeccable execution. Something we have never proven to be good at. Now, even our defenisve execution and rebounding is subpar and that is unacceptable given that this is essentially the same group of players (plus DPOTY Ron Artest) that has been among the league leaders in several defensive statistics for years, including def. rebounding.
I just kept thinking of the "2004" Francis when one talked about athletism and leaping. Any news on him?
I don't believe it's an issue because they have defense, talent, bball IQ, and experience. Those are proven to be more valuable. Just look at recent successful teams: Spurs, Heat, Pistons, Mavs, Celtics, even going back to the 97 Jazzholes and Rockets.
All those teams you listed had greater speed and athleticism. All of those teams executed better than we have so far. I agree that you can get by with inferior speed but not if you don't execute well on both ends, avoid TOs (something we've done very well so far but not historically) and have enough frontcourt length to compensate for your slow-footedness. Right now, we aren't executing well on either end. Our offense is still stagnant, too much one-on-one. Our team defense is inconsistent and teams our getting too much easy penetration. Rotations are slow and the help defense keeps coming late. Our rebounding has been abysmal at times. I am sure some of these things will improve over the course of the season, esp. when Battier gets back. One thing we can't overcome w/out a trade or two is our lack of frontcourt length. We need to address this and I'm sure we will. After watching the first few games, this is a bigger issue, imo, than our PG play. Slow + short is a terrible combination.
Yao is slow. Yao can't jump. Scola is slow. Scola can't jump. Battier is slow. Battier can't jump. Artest is slow. Artest can't jump. McGrady is slow. McGrady can't jump. You don't need to have track stars but you can't have that much lack of athleticism in your key players. All our athleticism comes off the bench (Brooks, Landry, Wafer) and each of those players has weaknesses that prevent them from being starters (lack of size, lack of experience, poor defense). Slow plus short is a bad combination and that's exactly what the Rockets are, especially when you consider the frontcourt rotation and the fact that all of our quickness and leaping ability comes from a few young players that aren't starting material. I'm confident that our starting lineup has the worst combined vertical in the league. That's why you see so many rebounds going over the heads of our frontcourt players. The main reason we've been an elite rebounding team in recent years isn't that we've had great rebounders. It's been that we've been a disciplined defensive team, getting back on defense and cleaning up on the defensive glass while avoiding getting into track meets where our lack of athleticism gets exploited. I'm pretty sure our starting lineup has the lowest collective speed in the league, too. That's why it's so difficult for us to get easy baskets in transition. That's why you don't see much success when players try to go 1-on-1 (they can't get around their defenders, or over them in some cases). That's why we see games where the other team seems to get all the loose balls and long rebounds. Again, you don't need to be super athletic. Some of the worst teams in the league are loaded with athleticism. At the same time, you can't be a team made up of key players that are all at the bottom end of the spectrum in terms of speed and leaping ability (or have lost those attributes due to age, wear and tear). There are at least two reasons why the Spurs were able to have so much success in recent years with a relatively unathletic team: 1. Parker and Ginobili handle the ball so much when they are in the game and are able to get to the basket almost at will. They makeup for the relative lack of speed in the rest of the lineup. Bowen was also tremendously quick as a defensive stopper. 2. They execute with precision at both ends of the court. The Rockets have only proven to be effective at one end during the JVG era and beyond. We've never been a good offensive team in the Yao/McGrady era.
all we need is an athletic big man who can jump to grab a reb and a guard who can drive the rim often. so trade yao and rafer for Horford and Joe Johnson plz.
I've moved beyond my complaints of the Rockets lacking "athleticism". It's much, much deeper than that. Really good teams have players that are "physical specimens". Jason Kidd isn't athletic. But he's 6'4", quick and muscular. Same with Baron Davis. Dirk Nowitski isn't athletic. But at 7' and with 3 point range, he's a "physical specimen". Pau Gasol isn't particular athletic, but he's a 7' PF. Would a 6'6" Lamar Odom be as successful? Doubtful IMO. Peja isn't an athlete. But he's 6'10" and knows how to play passing lanes. If you get past Peja, you're confronted with Chandler and West. Both physical specimens in their own ways. Parker is very fast and not undersized. Manu is 6'7" SG with a quick first step and has established the Euro-walk as a legit move. The list could go on and on and on... The Rockets IMHO were asleep at the switch on athleticism and will never understand the next phase of developing/cultivating young players who are physical specimens. Morey is on record that height is not part of his $Ball equation. Personally, Ron Artest is the only Rocket I consider a physical specimen. Yao's is too slow and vertical and McGrady's best health is several seasons in the rear view mirror. If the Big 3 are healthy, they can beat anyone in a 7 game series. If the Big 3 have any degree of health issues, the physical/athletic drop-off is too severe.
When healthy, the Rockets would be considered by any unbiased individual with basketball knowledge as a "really good team", so that defeats your argument right there. There are a lot of ways to win, and athleticism is only one way. Moreyball's way works just fine. You will see that it will work in the playoffs. Only way it won't work is if Yao/Tracy/Artest goes down. If that happens, then even the most athletic role players in the history of basketball would not save this team.
Sorry but the Celtics don't really support your argument. Other than Kevin Garnett who remains freakish for his position even as a veteran and Rondo who was pretty quick, none of the Celtics key cogs were really in the top half of this category for their position. In fact that's probably one reason why a young athletic team like the Hawks gave them more trouble than anybody else last year in the playoffs. Same as the spurs. Ginobili has a quick first step but he's not going to physically blow people away like Kobe or Iverson used to - and none of the rest of the spurs other than Parker can claim to be above average in this department. Even go back to the Heat a few years ago, other than Wade and arguably Mourning relative to his position, the rest of their guys were not even close to being explosive - I mean they had Kapono, Williams, Haslem, Shaq and Posey rounding out their playoff rotation. That's not exactly the And 1 tour.
The Rockets didn't do too well with Rafer Alston replaced by Aaron Brooks, and with Ron Artest replaced by Von Wafer. Brooks and Wafer have much better leaping ability than Alston and Artest. The Rockets had problems last night because they were working without 2/3 of their stars, and 2/5 of their starting lineup. Not because they didn't have a leaper. They'll be fine once they get the talent they have back into the lineup.
