Well on the bright side of things Vin Baker will have 6 weeks to get into NBA shape and we have 3 other PF's to spell him. We will be fine, if there is a coach who can get the most out of VB it is JVG.....he took the 1999 Knicks to the finals from the eigth seed with a six man rotation.....lol and we currently have been going twelve deep.
i hope howard is ok. i thought he was doing a great job recently and i think the team needs him. anyway, one way you could look at it / trying to make the best of a bad situation: the rockets wouldnt have had the services of howard much in the playoffs anyway. with him covering dirk/amare/stoudemire/duncan, he probably would have been in foul trouble almost every game anyway. so the rockets would have had to use baker, padgett, and spoon quite a lot, regardless of the injury situation
If the Hawks were going to release Googs, they would have done it a long time ago. I'm pretty sure they won't release him now, "as a favor".
I generally avoid making these types of posts, but: Vin Baker at the beginning of last season > Maurice Taylor in his absolute prime
I still can't understand why Vin Baker is at the top of everyone's list. JVG will start Clarence Weatherspoon. He's not Juwan Howard, but he is a hustle player, is good on the boards, and has surprised me more than once by hitting a foul line extended jump shot or two. Clarence played 18 mpg last year for us off the bench. I'm sure JVG is comfortable giving him that number again. Add Padgett for 20-25 mpg, then maybe some Vin Baker - so 8 to 10 minutes max. Don't get me wrong, if Vin is playing well and can play 20 minutes a night and give you solid production, give him that chance. I just tend to think that as poorly as Padgett has been playing lately - bricking wide open threes and frequent slow to defend, resulting in fouls, if Vin Baker really was 'tearing it up' in practice, we would have seen some signs of him already.
I agree. From what I'm seeing, JVG seemed to play those "proven contributors". Talent/potential comes second if you haven't contributed to the team. My guess is he'll start Padgett (contributed this season) with Spoon being the second option (hasn't played or contributed much this season) and Baker the third option unless he picks up game and starts to make major contirbutions. Another factor is he may be trying to be fair to every one on the team when assigning playing time.
He's at the top of mine because we don't know what he's got left. We know what Padgett and Spoon can do under JVG's system. We don't know what Vin can do. We can make a reasonably good guess his place is at the end of the bench, but we don't know for sure. I expect we're going to find out.
one thing though is that Howard could spread the floor with his shot so his man doesn't double down on Yao. Baker and Spoon probably can't command that respect.
All the more reason he needs to get 8-10 mpg max to start out with. Now is not the time to take a risk that someone can completely suck. As talented as some of the players are, this Rockets team is one of hte most chemistry dependent ones they've had in a while, and inserting Vin Baker into the starting lineup is not a good idea. Letting him work his way into that lineup either through practice or good play in multiple games off the bench, makes a lot more sense.
Put in Deke and let him hit the free throw jumper. Let all those jump shooting PF's have the bomb and we will board like mad with him and Yao. Then switch to the 4 guard lineup or bring in Bowen to guard against the Seattles and Phoenixs of the league like we are already doing.
Spoon has pretty good strok if left open. Time to give spoon some PT. We might get a surprise. Baker and Spoon 10 years back would have been a dream combo for the PF spot.
Taylor was just not a good fit on this team. He was stuck in the Mobley and Francis mind set. He never passed. He was a black hole with the basketball; once he got a basketball, he shot it. It didn't matter if he was double teamed. And he never rebounded. I'll take my chances with Padgett, Baker, and Weatherspoon. Those 3 guys at least try to hustle for a rebound.
I agree. Getting rid of MoTay was a good long term move. Nobody could predict injuries and I believe JVG had pretty good idea how Padgget and Spoon would do when trade MoTay. Let's not panic.
You're crazy if you don't think Howard was a big part of this team. You can quote stats all you want, the Rockets championship teams with show that guys like Mario Elie, Robert Horry and Chucky Brown were stat stuffers, but they were key parts of the team.
Because he has been an All-Star player in the past, and it's not like he's old. I don't know why he has fallen off the way that he has but his upside is tremendous simply because he has shown that he can play at an All-Star level.
