I am a new member, obviously, but have been a long time Rockets fan. I have mainly posted at realgm but decided to come here. Anyways on both forums mostly everybody is blaming Sura and wanting him gone. Reason being he's not athletic enough and he doesn't stop penetration, all stemming from the Dallas series. Well its not his fault and if we trade Sura for chopped liver like alot of people are suggesting, our chemistry will take a big hit. Sura is the guy who took up for Yao and Tracy more than anybody on the team. What happened when Francis came to town? What happened to Josh Howard? Who was taking up for teammates when refs or players did anything that hurt the team? Who played injured for half of the year? Bobby is not the reason we lost to Dallas in the playoffs, Juwan Howard is the reason. If you put Damon Stoudamire on our squad and take Sura off, we still lose. Its not Howards fault that he had heart problems, but having to stick T-Mac on Dirk totally killed us. After that it was like a domino effect. Yao on Howard, Wesley on Stackhouse, Sura on Terry. All of those defensive mis-matches led to open shots and easy buckets. If Howard had been healthy, Dallas would have had no choice but to play us straight up. If they went small we could have countered with Howard on Dirk, Bowen on Josh Howard, McGrady on Stack, Wesley on Terry and Sura on whoever they decided to play. Terry can say bye to all those open threes, because with Mcgrady on Stack, there's no need to double.. If they play Damp, we put Yao in and have a bigger advantage. After game 2 Avery did something very smart and basically used Yao against us on the defensive end. We had to keep him in because we needed his offense but it hurt having him on Howard and Avery milked it bone dry. If Howard was healthy it would have been a whole different ball game. We were the better team, without our better players. With a healthy Howard, Sura wouldnt be the scapegoat.. Last year w/o Sura, we dont make the playoffs. If we lose Sura this year, you can throw that great chemistry we had out the window, and you can count on rebounding being a big problem.. To be honest, I really dont think Sura is going anywhere. When JVG said we needed to surround Yao and T-Mac with pit-bulls, he wasn't lying. So far, Sura and Swift are the only pit-bulls we have, and I'll be pissed if one of them leaves.. This year with the addition of Swift, Bobby Sura will be back to the guy that Rockets fans loved during the regular season. He will be helping on the boards, picking fights, getting t-ed up, and most of all, taking our stars backs. We need that..
Nice post. Welcome to the board. I look for Sura to make another big contribution next season, if healthy and playing fewer minutes. Love the guy. (I suggest a long, hot shower... to get those realgm cooties off ya!)
I'm sorry, I must have forgot the Lakers were a playoff team. Beating them should have told me something..
Sorry, misread you. I thought you said the last year we didn't have sura, we didn't make the playoffs. My mistake.
I agree. Good post. It's not his fault. I like the way he plays. It's true he stood up for his teammates. That's what I liked most about him. He wouldn't back down from anyone. He was actually the one that would initiate these little confrontations. He's a tough guy.
I would also like to say that Bob Sura is a good player and Rockets ought to keep him. He wasn't billed an all-star before the Rockets signed him. He's counted on as a role-player. That he's done. Other players like Ward, Norris, Baker, maybe even Weatherspoon ( now that Stromile Swift will be a Rocket ) should be players that the Rockets consider dropping from the roster. For some reason, the Florida State connection has been beneficial for the Rockets. First Sam Cassell, now Bob Sura.
Welcome to posting Kvoss. I share your opinion. To me it seems obvious that the rockets took off last year when Sura began to play for us. When he was injured is when we started to slide. I know there were other factors, but Sura had a huge positive impact on the team. That much just seems so obvious to me.
I'd love to keep Bobby. He's not a starting PG in this league though. It'd be nice to have him come off the bench and provide energy, rebounding and toughness.
He was a starting PG for a 51 win team out West.. I dont know the stats, but after he came back from his injury in December, he probably has one of the highest win %'s in the league as a starting PG. I believe we started off 6-13 w/o him, then took off with him. He must have done something right..
Did I say that he didn't do anything right? I didn't say that he's not a decent player, I just said that he's not a point guard. You can't be if you can't handle the ball or pass it. That's the definition of a PG. Bobby hustles and rebounds. He'll always help a team because of his energy, toughness and intangibles. However, he could barely bring the ball up the court without fumbling and he couldn't get us into the offensive sets. We need a much better facilitator at the PG position, somebody who can actually create for others. I don't doubt that he helped us win games. We had Andre Barrett and Lue before Bobby. The improvement is relative.
Sura would be a brilliant rotation guy for a championship team, but it's hard to imagine him starting at point guard for one. That doesn't mean he's not a helluva player. He played his ass off last year, and he helped the Rockets tremendously. I'd love to see him retire as a Rocket.
I like Bobby and agree that we should keep him. That said, I think we'd be much better off with him as a third guard off the bench. We just can't count on him to stay healthy for an entire season as a starter. If he's our sixth man, it doesn't hurt nearly as much if he goes down due to yet another injury.
Sura will always be a hero to be since he tackled Josh Howard in the playoffs. He brings that type of attitude to this team which is surely needed. I dont see the point in pointing fingers and blaming anyone. We got beat good on game 7, we just didnt have what it takes to close out games plain and simple.
i dont think anyone here wants to lose sura. its more a question of trading for a more key player. the benefits of a real distributor outweigh suras contribution. and about him playing hurt, it may have been more productive for us to have started james in that position. he should have admitted to himself that he couldnt contribute well enough to start. that hurt us in the playoffs.
Finally someone says what is the real reason. I think desert scar agree with the same thing. The dominoes were falling after Howard went down. In the first 2 games we made it happen and won the games. The rox came home with a chance to put Dallas and didn't. I disagree that Avery used Ming against us. Ming should never let Dirk hold him in the blks. When Deke was on the floor and Avery went small, the defense was still solid, but Yao would play Howard too close and get blown by. The sura/james combo was good in the series, but like what was pointed out, stack posting up Wesley caused the domino effect. When Sura plays well, the Rox plays well.
I've been as hard on our starting backcourt as anyone. But let's get the facts straight: 1 Early in the season when Sura came back from his injury, we turned things around. This also coincided with Wesley joining the team. Sura struggled at first but when he finally got in NBA game shape, he was very good for us. His nasty attitude, rebounding and unusual toughness were what this team needed. He was also a great lockerroom guy and contributed greatly to the chemistry of the team. 2 In addition to the positives above, Sura has downsides at the PG position. He is slow and cannot stay close enough to faster point guards. He allows too many open jumpers. He is poor at feeding the post and his lack of offensive chemistry with Yao was frustrating sometimes. (This was a big issue for some of us). He rarely finds players cutting to the basket. His ball handling leaves a lot to be desired, especially against full court pressure. I'll stop the negatives here. More could be said. 3 His injuries are worrying. If he logs starters minutes on our team, either his knee or back could give out and he could miss a large number of games, or even miss the rest of the season. My conclusion: If injuries were not such a concern, I could stomach having Sura start at PG again if we upgraded our starting SG position. Sura's positives outweigh his negatives, IMO. But we cannot expect him to be our starting PG during the regular season also expect him to perform well when the real season starts. There is no reason to believe his health will hold up better; it's a high stakes gamble we cannot afford to take. Juwan Howard's injury is indeed the main reason we lost to the Mavs, but Sura and Wesley's defense were a major contributing factor. I like both of these guys because they gave us a huge boost, play their hearts out every game, and helped us to 51 wins last season. But for us to be a championship team, neither should be starting, especially Wesley. Both are in decline and we need new blood to take the next step. I say keep them as reserves, if possible, but not as starters. Sura as our starting SG next year is not what I had in mind.
Why are we using Dallas as a benchmark? Dallas got beat by the team that got beat by the team that won the championship. The fact that Howard went down, shouldn't expose us that badly. Just because one player goes down, it doesn't mean that the team defense collapses. It just shows that we don't have any versatile players who can defend more than one position ala T-Mac. Bobby can't guard most starting 1's or 2's in this league. They get by him very easily. Paint penetration is the key to all defensive breakdowns, including Yao's foul trouble. A real point guard solves a lot of problems.
