the worrisome direction coach RA leads this team to

I'm not seeing your point, based on the list you provide. What's wrong with being No. 2, 1, 2 and 5 in four straight years? The only bad year on this list is 2009-2010, which is an abberation with Yao out.


2005-2006 42.9% No. 2
2006-2007 43.0% No. 1
2007-2008 43.3% No. 2
2008-2009 44.4% No. 5
2009-2010 46.8% No. 22

 

But with summer league, training camp and pre season do you think he would still be lost ?I don't,its not like he's Dorsey

 

Yawn, concerns are overblown, when Yao comes back next yr, we will be atop 10 defensive team again.

I will say this though, the Rockets' defensive effort has steadily deteriorated as the season goes on, but it's due to the team losing their appreciation towards playing D more than anything else. They can still play good D if they actually put in the effort.

When Yao gets back to anchor the D, the team will regain its effort on the defensive end. I predict our D will start off bad next year but becomes top 10 by the end of the year.

 

It's not just Yao out. Rafer is replaced by AB(defensie downgrade), Artest is replaced by Martin(huge defensive downgrade), Battier is replaced by Ariza(slightly defense downgrade).

Next year, Yao might lose his foot speed even more(another defensive downgrade).

 

I doubt it. You can't really make Hayes a good offensive player, you also can't really make AB/Martin good defensive players. They are all one dimensional, just different directions.

 

No. Yao >>> whatever C we plug in the game right now. Yao coming back will be a huge D upgrade, and hide our perimeter players inability to stop dribble penetration (cough Brooks)

 

No are young'n's themselves cant play defense individually. We cannot ride on the shoulders of a 7'6'" chinese giant back to the reputable defense we once had.

 

Let's analyze this a little further. The Rockets had the fifth best defensive team in the league last year without Tmac. And this year they are pathetic defensively. The coaches are the same. We upgraded Artest with Ariza and only lost Yao for the season.

2005-2006 42.9% No. 2 Yao
2006-2007 43.0% No. 1 Yao
2007-2008 43.3% No. 2 Yao
2008-2009 44.4% No. 5 Yao - 30 Games
2009-2010 46.8% No. 22 NO Yao

HMMM... could it be Yao is a much better defender than you give him credit.

Nah it's just the coaches . They are idiots and we need to blow up the ship.

It's not to late to remove your head.

 

Wishful thinking.

Rafer is replaced by AB(defensie downgrade), Artest is replaced by Martin(huge defensive downgrade), Battier is replaced by Ariza(slightly defense downgrade).
Next year, Yao might lose his foot speed even more(another defensive downgrade).

I highly doubt Rockets will be back to top 10 with so many defensive downgrades, even though they should be better than this year.

 

^Rep-worthy post, Old Man Rock

 

We will be better than this year, and with our improved offense, we won't need to be an elite defensive team anyways. The defense just has to be good enough so we win most nights, and I think it'll be easy to achieve that level of defense next year. Yao coming back will magically 'improve' a lot of his teammates defense...

 

Yao will help defensively but he may also hurt defensively going against quicker teams or going against players like murphy, dirk, bargani, okur, frye or rasheed at the center position.

 

This summer, i told people the defense will suffer big time without yao. I had many pointing to the lock-down defense of #31 and he is the reason the rockets have been good defensively. Yao makes a huge difference on defense and thats not even up for debate. He's a good post defender with his size. Of course he struggles in space because of his footspeed and mobility. He's also the player they funnel other players to. Now, he can't do it by himself and contrary to opinion, he doesn't help the offense as one might think, but defensively, he helps alot.

 

In last 30 years, only 2 teams won championship without a top 10 defense, and they are top 2 in offense.

I don't think Yao/Scola/Ariza/Martin/AB would make us a top 3 offensive team. There is chemistry to build since Yao never played with Ariza/Martin, and there is no Nash to run the show to make everybody shoot better.

 

Here are some interesting stats. It's a smaller sample size for Adelman but the numbers still portray a promising outlook for the future if all the pieces fall into the right places.

Tomjanovich 1992–2003 GP: 900 W/L% .559 Playoff% .567
Jeff Van Gundy 2003–2007 GP: 328 W/L% .555 Playoff% .368
Rick Adelman 2007–present GP: 164 W/L% .659 Playoff% .474

 

theres a huge misconception out there that Adelman doesn't care about defense.

sure hes known for his offense, but he knows the importance of defense too.


http://www.nba.com/coachfile/rick_adelman/

basically, hes a lot closer to phil jackson than he is to mark d'antoni.

 

Why don't you show us Adelman's stats with Portland and Sacramento also? That way everybody can see if it's just this season because of Yao.

 

I'm surprised no one mentioned how Yao helps relieve the stress on the other players that allows them to defend the perimeter better. Yes Yao may be slow but his presence is without a doubt an intimidation to many who drives down the lane. With Yao back, Battier/Ariza/Scola wouldn't have to work as hard to rotate and gives them a bit more breathing room to perform better on the offense.

 

Seriously people I understand the concern but I also know the potential our rockets have with this young team, but we have not played that long with our new players to the point we should freak out, we beat good teams this year such as Denver, l.a,dallas etc. and yeah we got our asses kicked by okc but our team is crippled and are playing with not 100% Kmart, ariza, lowry, injured jj, hill , Andersen. .. next year we will be top 5 seed trust me our future is looking bright, we have a smart gm

 

7'6 to 6'6. the end.