I didn't say he was a better player. I was referring to raw talent/skill package. Juwan obviously is a veteran and is more efficient and experienced with using his repertoire of skills to make an offensive impact -- especially with that 18 foot jumper. But while Stro has a jumper (albeit inconsistent at this time), he also has some great post moves that I sometimes wish Juwan had. I don't know if he just picked those up while he was here, or if he's always had them, but they look pretty good. Add to that his leaping ability and speed and you'll understand where I'm coming from. Stro's problem is definitely not his talent level, it's his efficiency/consistency. That's what's frustrating to so many people -- you look at this guy and you know he could be twice the player that he is. All we want him to do is catch a pass, HOLD it, and finish.
I think Stro's already a better defender than Juwan. But you're definitely right about smarts --- the reason why Juwan is better overall right now is because he's much smarter.
I wouldn't call Stro a better defender. I'd give Juwan the edge on defense BECAUSE he is a smarter player. Stro has the ability to be better but he misses assignments too often. I'd also wish Stro would get more blocked shots and defensive rebounds than he does.
Juwanna man is a horrible defender. Stro has the POTENTIAL to be a top 5 shot blocker in the L. Its time Ju HO stepped down and let the Stro Show take over, cuz something needs to change.
stromile plays good with Yao, i think he should start even if the minutes between howard and him and shared equally, add a little chuck hayes to the mix too
Stro is inconsistent at best. At least Howard gives thye same production every night. Stro comes and goes. Hell. he let chuck hayes take gametime.
I am not a big Stro fan. He has been terribly inconsistent, especially offensively and on the glass. But the one thing I am convinced of is that the Yao-Juwon combo is terrible, terrible, terrible. It puts 2 slow, flat-footed big guys on the floor together and it is killing our defensive rotation. Personally, I like Juwon. I think he's a great guy. But, at this point in his career, he should be coming off the bench with the second unit and providing some scoring and post presence with those guys. Hayes or Swift, depending on the matchups should be starting, until we can make a trade and bring in somebody better.
for the 10000000x time, we dont care about Juwan's freaking stats. do you guys pencil him as an allstar?? we only care if the rockets win. off course Juwan's average goes up when the Rockets have tmac or yao on the shelf? what do you think would happen? Ryan Bowen going Kobe Bryant and dropping 81 points?!!! there are 4 types of Juwan people here: 1. People who care about his stats since he's on there fantasy team 2. People who care if he helps the team win 3. Stromile fans 4. me
From the beginning of the year, i have said that Stro should start. He is a confidence built player, meaning when he has the confidence in himself and from the people around him, he allows his atheletiksism to bring out the best in him. Van gundy has done nothing this year to give stro confidence, and as they say you reap what you sow. I feel horrible for Stromile b/c the young man can bring so much to this old team and Van Gundy is not giving him a fair shot at showing his abilities. I watched memphis for the last two years especially and they ran many plays for stomile going to the basket and putting him in position where he can get a few easy buckets to ignite himself and his team. Van Gundy has not done that ONCE this year. Its disgusting
Since van Gundy has done nothing for poor Stro who seems to need his ass propped up to be a player or maybe patted on the head and a gold star slapped on his forehead, how about we compare Stro's numbers on the Rockets with Stro's numbers in past years with Memphis? His numbers are almost identical all the way down the stat-line, including minutes played. If Stro could beat out JHo for the spot, he'd have it. As it stands, he has to watch out for Chuck Hayes now taking time from him. Stro is inconsistent - you can't build gameplans around people that are great one night and make dumb play after dumb play on both the offensive and defensive sides like Stro often does. How many times are you going to sit there open in the paint and fumble away a beautiful TMac pass? How many times are you going to be caught out of position for rebounds and defensive assignments? JHo has nowhere near the athleticschism that Stro has, but every night you know what you'll get out of JHo. You know what he can do, and more importantly, he can usually pop the 15 foot jumper that he often gets all night long while the opposition is trying to guard Yao and TMac.
I don't understand how anyone can conclude that Juwan Howard is statistically better than Swift this season. That's absolutely not the case. Per 40 minutes, this is what they're doing: Juwan Howard Points: 14.2 Off Reb: 2.8 Def Reb: 5.5 Turnovers: 1.9 Assists: 1.9 Steals: 0.6 Blocks: 0.2 ( <- PATHETIC!) True Shooting%: 49.2% ( <- SUCKS! ) Stromile Swift Points: 17.0 Off Reb: 3.1 Def Reb: 5.8 Turnovers: 3.0 ( <- CLUMSY!) Assists: 0.8 Steals: 1.3 Blocks: 1.3 True Shooting%: 53.7% True Shooting% (often abbreviated TS%) measures points scored per shot attempt or trip to the free throw line, divided by 2. So, for example, if someone never attempted any free throws, only took 2-point attempts, and shot 50%, they'd have a TS%=50%. On the surface, 50% field goal percentage might seem decent but such a player would actually be a very inefficient scorer. A decent TS% would be above 53%. League leaders are usually up aroung 60%. Anyways, a good summary stat to determine how productive a player has been is the Player Efficiency Rating (PER), developed by ESPN contributor John Hollinger. It's a pace-adjusted, per-minute rating which takes into account scoring ability, assists, rebounding, turnovers, shot blocking, and steals -- pretty much everything conventionally recorded in the box score. It doesn't take into account positioning on defense or ability to force opponents into low percentage shots, nor does it take into account other "intangibles" on offense like drawing double teams or hitting clutch shots. Still, it's a decent, quick measure of a player's performance, and is superior to many others that purport to do something similar (like NBA.com's efficiency rating). Rockets PERs Juwan Howard: 12.7 Stromile Swift: 14.7 Also see League Wide PERs (for eligible players) for an idea of how the PER ranges. Roughly speaking: 30+: historically great season 25+: All-NBA caliber 20+: All-star caliber 15+: Good solid player 13-15: Borderline starter 10-13: end of the bench under 10: probably shouldn't be in the league too much longer Some players with low PERs are still worth keeping around because they do other things on the court that aren't measured statistically. Players who are extreme specialists might have a low PER but be useful in specific situations. My thoughts, for pretty much the whole season, has been that Stromile Swift is a better player who deserves more minutes than Juwan. Juwan offers consistency, but being consistently mediocre isn't more useful over the long haul than being an up and down player who on average is better. Over the course of the season, the team has been slightly better with Stromile on the court compared to Juwan (which is evident from the stats provided here). That's not to say that Stromile hasn't been a major dissapointment and frustration. But there's no way that Howard deserves to have the lion share of the minutes. Some might point to Howard's production while McGrady and Yao were out. Yeah, he put up some nice numbers in January when he was the goto guy, but as a third option on the court he's mostly useless offensively. Being able to hit a jumper now and then at a 45% clip does not make up for all his other weaknesses (defensively and on the boards). Actually, I'm in favor of mostly taking Howard out of the rotation and sticking with Swift and Hayes. Howard has had enough opportunity this season to help this team, and as a team we've outscored opponents in 14 games with him on the court but the opponent outscored us in 33 games. Compare that personal win/loss record to Swift's: 14-33 to 15-22.
Great... the per-40 minute stats... a guy that can't get into the game for 25 mpg gets his stats inflated to 40 mins per game. Save me. In that case, we just traded away a great player in Lonny Baxter : 12 pts, 12 rebs, 1 block, 1.3 steals, 1.9 TO's per 40 mins But don't worry, we have someone about as great on the bench in Chuck Hayes : 12 pts, 14 rebs, 1 block, 1 steal, 0.7 turnovers per 40 mins This isn't about stats - it's about Stromile : 1) learning to catch the ball 2) not making dumb mistakes that ruin possessions 3) not being caught out of position on the defensive end 4) being consistent as opposed to a no-show one night and a near-stud the next (rarely) Stro had his shot to excel when TMac and Yao were out. What happened? He had 1 or 2 good games and imploded on several possessions - hell, even Baxter and Hayes were getting off the bench earlier than he was at times and those guys are scrubs. One thing is certain - if you miss assignments in JVG's offense/defense, your playing time will suffer and this is what Swift is experiencing. He's even stated he's had problems catching on with JVG's terminology. Until Swift gets brighter and focuses on what's going on on the floor, the only way he'll get more playing time is if we completely give up on the season.
I don't like both players but I'd start Stro over Howard, because maybe he will respond better. You know what you will get if Howard starts, Howard either (1) does nothing, or (2) will bust out on occasion for 18 to 22 ineffective points. comparing Stats with Stro and JHo is a big waste of time. Howard never impacts a game positively and Stro rarely does. Robert Horry would lose evert stat argument and look what he does that impacts a game positively for his team.
It could be per 10 minutes, if you like. The purpose is to "level the playing field" when comparing two players statistically. Stromile has been a statistically more productive player, per minute, than Juwan. That's pretty clear. Not really. First of all, a lot of his minutes came against scrubs, so it's slightly inflated. Also, you're ignoring his relatively poor FG%. He wasn't bad, for his role, but he's by no means a "great" player. Hayes, on the other hand, is a quality player who deserves more playing time than Juwan Howard. He's proven his effectiveness in a good stretch of games, and he does many good things that aren't measured statistically on defense. I can't dispute all these deficiencies. I certainly wouldn't call him a "good" player. And, yes, he makes many more mental mistakes than Juwan. Despite all that, I think we'd be far better off in terms of winning games if Howard played much less, and either Stro or Hayes got his minutes. Game after game, I see us getting to slow starts to begin each half. It's been a fairly consistent pattern all season. And yet, Van Gundy decides to stick with Howard as a starter all year. Where Swift makes mistakes due to mental lapses and poor hands, Howard also makes mistakes (arguably more) due to lack of quickness, strength, length, and leaping ability. I mean, if Juwan is in the middle defensively, and a player is coming at him -- it's basically a guaranteed two points or foul.
Stro gives us A LOT more coming off the bench than starting. He is more versatile than Juwon in that he can play either PF or C which is a big plus as a reserve. With Deke playing VERY spare minutes, that becomes an even bigger asset. It's not about who the 5 best players are in determining the starting lineup. It's who fits better and be more effective in the rotation. You could argue Cassell was a far better overall player than Kenny Smith, but he was MUCH more effective as the backup and was MUCH better in that role than Smith would have been. Whether Stro is a better player than Juwon is debateable. But, Swift brings a ton more to this team in the role he currently fills than Juwon would.
The Swift/Howard combination has been horrible for us. Neither are particularly strong rebounders or defenders. Swift has been much more effective playing the PF position than C (and has been throughout his career). I don't like Howard in the starting lineup because his only real strength is his versatility as far as scoring the ball from the field. But he isn't an efficient scorer taking jumpers all the time, so it doesn't make sense for him to be the third option behind Yao and McGrady on the court. Role players on successful teams need to play efficiently. In the starting lineup Juwan's been relegated to a spot up jump shooter, and I think he's more effective posting up and shooting his jump hooks. In January, when he was the main post up option on the team, he shot 50% from the field. That's the kind of role he could have coming off the bench, when Yao takes a rest.
You can't normalize the playing field by showing stats of a guy who comes in and plays C for a lot of his minutes while Yao was out and often plays against other teams' 2nd stringers. Check your sarcasm meter, but you did prove my point above. Stats alone will not tell you the story. And in this case they are skewed in Stro's favor. Hey imagine that, things that can't be accurately measured statistically leading to playing time or lack thereof... Check out Stro's foul count when he's out there. That's a good indicator he's either late or often out of position - it sure aint' 'cause he's taking a large number of charges. Look at the month of November when he came here. He'd be in foul trouble after playing 15-20 minutes. He usually ended the game with 4 or 5 fouls and 15-20 minutes playing time. He's improved on that lately (starting last month, anyway, because December wasn't too pretty). If you're going to use defensive potential and ability to say Stro should get the nod over JHo, I'm sorry - I'm not going to buy it simply because Stro causes defensive breakdowns by missing assignments every bit as badly as JHo does by not having athleticschism. On the offensive end, JHo is dependable with the ball at least. If you throw Stro a pass in the paint, half the time, you pray he holds onto the ball.
By your own argument, Swift or somebody else should start. When you say, "If you're going to use defensive potential and ability to say Stro should get the nod over JHo, I'm sorry - I'm not going to buy it simply because Stro causes defensive breakdowns by missing assignments every bit as badly as JHo does by not having athleticschism.", you are admitting that Juwon is missing assignments and can't rotate fast enough..........and he's been playing for Van Gundy for almost 2 years now.........and he's not going to get better........only worse. Yeah, agreed, Stro has been a screwball, but I'm sorry, at least he does have the athletic potential to maybe, possibly, bring us something. You know Juwon doesn't have any athletic potential. And you know he misses assignments. What else needs to be said? We need a change to our starting PF slot.
I have no clue where you're getting I'm saying what you think I'm saying. What I said was that defensively if you say that Juwan Howard is bad, I can counter that by saying Stro causes as much, if not more, defensive breakdowns and fouls. But if we were to call that a wash, I'll take JHo's ability on offense to hold onto the ball, be able to pop a 15 foot jumper (because Yao is in the paint and TMac may need to drive the paint, and because, as you'll notice, that 15-18 foot jumper at the elbow is available often), and his intelligence on offense to know where he needs to be. Stro either does not possess or has yet to show that he can possess those skills consistently. I hope that clears things up...
