This has been the best offensive team in the last 30+ years of Rockets history?

When you are pouring 60 or 70 by the halftime on the celtics we know they can score. The problem problem is they sell out on d. You always see kmart back getting an easy lay up cause he is just looking top score and not play d.

 

All the way back to the OP...

Here is the roster in 78/79, and I remember it well. An easily forgotten but very fun squad to watch. Getting primed for the finals run to come later.

http://www.clutchfans.net/teams.cfm?Season=1979

Rudy and Calvin at the tops of their games. Moses coming into his own. Those three were all near or above 20 PPG.

We had an old but still effective Rick Barry, and 2nd year guy named Robert Reid. Newlin was playing alright too, with a newish Mike Dunleavy playing at guard also. All SEVEN of the guys I just mentioned shot 48% or better from the field for the entire season, with most of them over 50%.

And we had Slick Watts off the bench! We had FIVE guys on that team average right at or well over 4 dimes/game.

Team lost to the Hawks in the first round. Don't really recall that series.

Fun times! :grin: Thanks for the thread, CH.

 

Apparently that's not true since Yao and Tmac had lots of different parts around them and they were never above average offensively.

 

Best offensive team but we can barely make the playoffs? We must be that bad defensively..,,

 

If you read the post before the one you quoted, you'd see the reason why I point out this team is hard to improve. Yes, we can bring in players like Chandler or a SF who plays D(a young version of Battier perhaps). But that would ruin the offense, because Chandler or any other big can't pass the way Hayes does. Or if Hayes remains while Scola goes to the bench, Chandler can't finish like Scola.

In many ways, our offense truly resembles the Sacramento team quite a bit. But the problem is we don't have a two-way player like Webber to make the defense just as stout without sacrificing offense. That's why I mentioned Dwight Howard, because he can be that guy. I think Morey also thought Bosh could've been that guy too if he wasn't such a p***y.

 

Also basketball has become more offensive orriented. The game has changed drastically with all the new rules especially with the hand checking.

 

If you consider Webber a two-way player then you might as well say Amare and Dirk are...you're joking right?

 

I wonder who the last team is to significantly improve without adding all-stars. Lakers, Celtics, Heat, Bulls all added all-stars to get where they are today. Mavs, Spurs, Magic, OKC haven't improved.

So yes, "any team would be better with Howard" is true except we have no examples of teams with superstars improving without adding more stars to their roster, so the point is moot.

Ummm,

 

And to what do you attribute the sharp rise in Sacramento's defensive ranking after Webber got there, and then the sharp decline when he got injured?

No need to look at other teams. I point to you Rockets of 4-5 years ago with healthy T-Mac/Yao but little else, or Rockets where Hakeem was in his prime.

For example, I am saying that it's easier to find your Cassell+Maxwell+Horry+Thorpe than finding even one Hakeem.

 

It just so happened to coincide with the losses of excellent defenders like Clark and Pollard and so the Kings had to turn to Brad Miller for defense and we all know how that turns out.

Once again do you not understand how big it is to have someone like Clark or Mutumbo coming off the bench as opposed to Hill or Miller? That IS the game right there. 20 mins of no d is far more impactful than 30 mins of average d (like our current starters).

Anyway, nobody who watched Webber can honestly say he was a good defender. Team stats have dozens of variables as I've shown. Also let's look at other examples. Who was the two-way star for the Mavs when they went to finals or the Suns last year?

There's plenty of ways to make a successful team.