Incomprehensible... unless the single biggest key cog in your defense gets pouty very early on and decides his time as a Rocket is pretty much over. See #6 above. When that defensive foundation checks out, the entire defense crumbles around his remains. With no defense at all, it really doesn't matter what your offense does. <BR>
It's a fair point, but it doesn't explain why Lawson, TJ, Josh, Brewer and others all fell off of a cliff. Everybody got worse. I'm at the point where I could be convinced it was more of a curse or bad juju type of thing as opposed to any attempt at a rational explanation.
1. haren 2. haren got a pass from fans 3. dh12 thought playing D was low-rewarding work, he stopped D too. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Nobody wanted to play D.
TJ just never came back from his injuries, too much rust to shake off and too much confidence lost. Brewer was never good, just hustles a lot and last year, he missed a lot of transition shots trying to do too much. Josh Smith was good for like 3 games before last season where he was just garbage. Lawson was never good since he stopped drinking.
Pretty much sums it up. Harden wasnt in shape even quarter way through the season, and Dwight only playing defense for 41/82 games is still 41 more than Harden did.
According to OP, shouldn't it be Dwight Howard without the D ... then it fits, as well 1. w 2. i 3. g 4. h 5. t 6. H 7. o 8. w 9. a 10. r
About half of the teams followed us and half were ahead of us. But heypartner was wrong. Turning the corner three times does not always get you back to where you started. He assumed that all the corners were 90 degrees. I contend that the corners we turned were more acute than right angles. That's why everybody got dizzy after the third turn.
On topic. I can't argue with OP's 10 points, although some of them could be combined. No need to have so many. I especially agreed with #9 and #10. Howard was injured half the time the season before last. The biggest difference between that season and last season (regular seasons, not playoffs) was Harden's effort and DMo. But no matter, this team had no character even before last season. I blame it on Morey. I hope Harden will grow up. And the new guys bring some new attitude. Still don't like the D'Antoni hire.
Not pinning this all on Terry, since that would be grossly unfair, but this is yet another reason why last year's epic failure is so puzzling. We weren't bringing back a 38-year-old Terry to be a rotation player. He was supposed to be our chemistry safety net. The experienced locker room guy in his twilight years just looking to be a leader and contribute small minutes when needed. A guy that theoretically could squash turmoil, call people out and put people in their places. Your prototypical veteran leader that every great team has. We had our stars, our role players, our major upgrade and momentum coming into the new season. We signed Terry last minute for the reasons I mentioned above. We had seemingly checked all the boxes.
You can not put the defensive woes solely on Howard. That is absurd and ludicrous. Especially when Harden wasn't putting max effort. You can't let a player blow right by you and expect the big men to always clean up your damn mess. When one person messes up their assignment, then the entire defense is screwed. The rotation is all jacked up and the defense is at the mercy of the offense. Another reason why last season was an epic failure; the entire locker room was divided. It started when they didn't bring Smith back and brought Harden's boy Ty Lawson in. Dwight then realized the Rockets was only Harden's team. During that three game skid Harden was struggling to get his game going but continued to jack that bad boy up. Not only that but he refused to play his part on defense. Thus causing a division in the locker room.
Conversely, and this is what so many fail to acknowledge, you can't expect Harden to go 100% on defense when he is being forced to go 40,0000% on offense because of the teams struggles: Lawson plop, Coach plop, Howard plop, all the role players shooting terribly, and many in their own respect individually lacking on D: Jones, Lawson, Thornton as starters to name a few. Even Bev couldn't keep people in front of him.
Great point. I agree 100%. We could have found someone younger and better if all we needed was a backup PG. Terry also let us down by talking a big game about being the veteran locker room presence, then not delivering when it mattered. I suspect that's why he's currently on someone else's roster. <BR>
But if your key defensive player, the guy who can absolutely shut down the paint on his good nights, decides not to bother, it barely matters what everyone else does. A team can withstand a few nights where the main defensive guy is off his game, but not 3/4 of a season. Absolutely. I really believe Howard's attitude problems popped up because he realized he was not the main guy, or even sharing that role, on the team. I think by December, Dwight had already decided he would opt out and move on to another team that he felt would value him and give him the prominent role he deserves (and the respect he thinks he's earned). His own comments in the off-season confirm that he checked out mentally at some point during the season. Was DH the cause of ALL of our problems last year? Certainly not. But as one of our two key guys, his horrible attitude definitely brought the entire team down around him. <BR>
