Terrence Jones can not be a starter on a championship caliber team.

This is a championship caliber team?

 

I was not doubting him in the regular season, bro. That was his best season ever so far.

But as Clutch stated in his podcast he sporadically did play well in last year's playoffs.

If it wasn't for JSmoove, Tjones, Brewer and couple of others we would not be in the 3rd Round, period.

I am not talking about winning in regular season or in the 2nd round.

I stand by my statement that ADavis is still the best young guy to build around, and Steph Curry is a tremendous team guy and Top 2 individual shooter in history.

He deserves the MVP.

It will be extremely hard to build around Harden given that Morey has to establish a PHILOSOPHY, get a much better coach than McHale(THAT IS HARDER ITSELF THAN MOST THINK), find better role players and stars (DWIGHT IS PROBABLY HALF DONE OR GONE)

and Morey should stop the LES ALEXANDER frenzy to panic fire every coach in Houston

You let him go at half time and that it, Bickerstaff part of the same problem

 

You better hope that Durant will be our new number 1 or else it is gloomy

 

No. He has grown from the completely worst starter in defence in the league to bellow average. Congrats. That's still not called playing defence. That's called at least showing a bit effort.

 

If you think getting a block is called defence then ....you should learn more. Just try to download a game and pay close attention to rotations and screens.

 

I guess I kind of misunderstand what the problem is with your post. It seemed like your problem is based mostly around Harden issues, but then again i guess we are talking about TJones being a problem too? Now the coaches, now Les?... I'm not sure what you are wanting to discuss here honestly.

Last thing I'll note about Harden-

There were alot of Doubts for Iverson leading Philly as well, but what other options did they have? I mean you are talking about a superstar that literaly did not believe in practicing. But ask any Philly fan if they would rather have 10 years with prime Iverson & role players vs. what they've had the past 10 years (before Hinkie drafted Okafor) where their best player has been Jrue Holiday and Igoudala.

So my question to you and others alike is this - What is the alternative to a team built around Harden? A team built around what other alternative player that is actually available to Morey right now? Its either Harden or a full blown rebuild. What do you prefer, and what is the best chance we have to win a title?

We all know Harden is far from a perfect superstar, but he's the superstar we have. We DO NOT have Curry or Davis. We don't even have Durant, and probably won't have a shot at getting him. This is a reality check.

If I had to give an answer to my own question it would probably be to take another chance on Harden but with a different supporting cast, and maybe making at run at a high profile coaching hire like Thibs who is no nonsense. I think JB should get a chance, but win or lose you still have to evaluate him vs. the other options this Summer.

I think a D-Mo/Capela front line along with Harden seems like the way to go with all the Battier/Scola type of guys I could get my hands on this season or offseason. Can we get a team that at the very least you know gives a S#%* every night?

 

Thanks! You know D-Mo coming back could help spark a turnaround. Hell... Harden and Lawson giving a rats arse on defense might be the catalyst just as well.

But what WONT spark a salvaged championship run will be trading Jones right now with this team having to go even smaller and having Harrell and Capela fouling out in the 3rd quarter. Without Jones, you are putting Harden and Ariza back at the 4/5. Anyone think that's actually going to HELP this team at all right now? You know the team that doesn't believe in defense and rebounding as key essentials to winning basketball games?

Not saying Jones is doing a great job or anything but its him or the alternative which is nobody. ..... Depressed...

 

Pls I'm not saying he's all world but he is playing at the same level as last year the past few games. Anytime he gets 3 stls and 2 blks that atleast 3-4 extra possessions on offense for our team.

You should know that's huge in basketball.

Clutch had his opinions and for the most part he's right but he's wrong in tge fact that last year harden was Damon good in the playoffs. Sure he has some duds game 6 of clippers and games 3 and 5 of warriors. But guess what so did every other star player in the playoffs last year it happens.

Iv already documented how well James played overall in the 17 game run we had last year he scored over 20 ppg the first 14 games in a row had a triple double, 2 games that came close to being triple doubles he had two 40 plus point games a couple 30+ point games and multiple double doubles.

Look at the stats he actually outplayed curry in te warriors series numbers don't lie. Sure he had a terrible game 5 but he's the reason we were even in that game 5 because of his 45 point game 4 and also he was incredible the first 2 games of that series also.

Harden deserves criticism but he's not the problem of this team and If you cant see that then I don't know what to tell you.

The team is getting easy looks even layups and are not converting them. You can't have all your wing players shooting under 40% and expect to win on a consistent basis.

This team will turn it around but it's typical for the fans to turn on the star player. Happend with Hakeem happened with Barkley happened with Francis, tmac and Yao. I guess it's hardens turn.

I mean the guy had only Been the most winningest superstar we've had since dream but that doesn't mean anything to you guys because for 14 bad games that he actually played worst least season to start the year thru 15 games but because we're 5-9 and not 9-5 he's the problem.

 

I'm sorry but steal and blocks tell me nothing.
Judge by rotating, help defence and fighting through screens. Not raw stats.
And last year at this time he was better than now.

Stop looking at boxscores. It's too bad we can't make defence into stats to stick into a boxscore (yet!) so that they can easilly be measured by all.

There's a reason people are turning on Harden. It's not because we hate him. I really like Harden. Doesnt' mean I will turn a blind eye to what he's doing on the court. Not running pick and roll with Dwight or trying to, but running it with Capella. Not communicating at all on rotations and if you exclude the last two games not even trying. Like shamelessly not trying. Shooting awfully.
You are talking like we are seeing something else than you and we are turning on Harden as scapegoat. NO.
He's the first and foremost reason he and his awful effort that this team stands at this record.

 

Haha, championship and rockets should only go together with the 94 and 95 team when talking about the Rockets, these new age rockets are far from a legit champion.

 

Our 6'9 PF had a hard time finishing against 7'0 and 7'3 Lopez and Porzingis, I'm shocked, he's garbage trade him.

13 points, 5.5 rebounds, 1 block in 28 minutes

Shooting 47% from the field and 41% 3pt line (0.8 makes per game).

Jones is still one of the best and most efficient perfper on the Rockets right now

 

Sheer ignorance here. Apparently you haven't watched Terrence play for 4 seasons now.

He gets 80% of those numbers against scrubs.
He folds up and dies everytime he has to play any legit bigs in the primary rotation of playoff contenders.


And what exactly do you think will happen to that glorious 3-point shooting percentage once Terrence has to put up a decent volume of 3's???? This the same song and dance. He's not a good 3-point shooter. 7 for 17 doesn't make you a good 3-point shooter.

 

Very solid point, dobro. We need a bunch of guys with passion and professionalism. I remember McHale saying something like he wished he had a team full of Arizas. Guys who show up and do their job every night. While his shooting and D may have tailed off a bit, I've yet to see Ariza quit.

As I posted in the trade thread, I agree with you that Harden, DMo and Capela are the new foundation blocks of this team if we decide to move in a different direction. We already know Harden-DMo works from last year, it seems like Harden-Capela is working this year, and I've got a gut feeling that DMo-Capela will compliment each other well.

 

I've watched every Rocket game for 6 seasons straight now. Firstly.

Secondly, guess what? All those scrubs he got numbers against, have been wrecking the Rockets and 80% of our team can't score efficiently against them. You don't seem to understand that, nearly everybody else is shooting much worse then Jones.

Only Jones, Capela and Howard are scoring efficiently on offense, they are the only players averaging over 5 points with above 40% shooting on this team.

I didn't claim his 3 pt shot to be glorious but 41% on his 13-37 is better then not.

 

What you don't understand is just because his numbers look better than everybody else playing like scrumb does not turn him into a good player capable of helping us win a championship. He isn't a good player and he cannot help us win a championship with his limited skill set and failure to compete against the big boys we have to face in the playoffs.

We're trying to win a championship here....not find guys who are at the top of the bottom third players in the league.

 

Thanks. I mean I look back at how Morey acquired players to build around Yao & T-Mac and there was no accident that he was selectively going after guys that just so happened to highly under valued, and guys that were high character.

I posted about this in another thread, but if we have some silver lining to this season of SUCK its that we are learning ALOT about our superstar, and there is no reason why we can't learn something and change direction based on our newfound knowledge.

I'm not saying that you are guaranteed titles with Harden and insert your favorite Moreyite Battier type player, but I like the stability long term better for Harden's second act as a Rocket.... assuming of course the season is lost, and this team needs to be dismantled... mostly meaning moving on from Dwight to get you the flexibility to bring in these type of guys.

Morey made the right call to put together the talented team he did, but what you don't know about someone is what you don't know. We are still learning about our primary superstar James Harden, and we still have much more to learn. I want Morey to stick around, and I want him to go back to trusting his process for finding the right guys to build around your superstar.

 

How much of us sticking with T Jones is due to his Kentucky pedigree?