Sura was supposed to be our starting PG. With two broken legs he is still better than our 3rd stringer. Besides, Febuary and into the playoffs is what really counts. I think you are too focused on points, instead of looking at the things we really need from the PG position. With Tmac and Yao, the PG needs to can his 3s, don't turn the ball over, and shut the **** up. So far, Ward is hitting .400 from 3, getting almost 5 assists and leading the team in steals. When you highlight the fact that he didn't hit his first basket until the fourth quarter, you neglect to mention his 6 rebounds, 9 assits, ZERO turnovers. Oh, and by the way, he's averaging 8 points a game too. OOPS. Lue.... can't say the same for her. The Chronicle is full of ****. If they called that foul on Yao's dunk, or if Ward hit that 3, or if Lue didn't mistake JVG for Yao and try to lob the ball to him, and we won the game, the Chronicle would be all over that jock. Saying how much heart we showed to come back from a 22 point deficeit despite not having our leading scorer. Our BEST player. But one little play goes wrong, and all of a sudden we suck. And we can't beat anyone. Calling all b****es. Please stand up... Ok... i think it isn't. So you agree that they are improving, but you just don't give a damn. Great. Thats your opinion. In fact, if Tracy played in the last two games, we would be riding on a nice little 5 game win streak, and you, along with the Chronicle, would be riding on my ****. You would probably be predicting Championships and Dynasties, and i would have to calm you down and b****slap that post all the way back to Bangcock just like i have to with this one. Oh, thats easy. Lets just get a bunch of Yaos and Tmacs for the rest of our starting lineup and bench. If you think Sura is talented, what does that make Taylor, JJ, Juwan, Deke? They all make about the same level of contribution to the team. I think you fail to realize that Yao and Tmac are top 2 players in their respective positions. No **** they are talented. And when you have that kind of talent on your team, the rest can't be balanced like the Pistons. We have ROLE players. When you ask JJ to create and penetrate, he is going to look like a headless chicken. When you put him next to Tmac and Yao, hes almost putting up triple doubles. And you are too nearsighted to see that once Tmac comes back, he and Yao will make them look alot better, just like in the first couple of games. [/END smackdown]
Got depth, jack? statistically, our point guard situation isn't even close to last year using adjusted numbers. Francis + Moochie/Jackson/Wilks was mediocre, statistically, overall. http://www.82games.com/0304HOU5.HTM Ward + Lue is just atrocious (though its early) http://www.82games.com/0405HOU5.HTM
Ha, welcome back SamFisher. How was the trip. You need to go back to the other thread and respond to my complete and utter humiliation of you, your family, distant relatives, and casual acquaintances.
hey jack, guess which deep team full of redundant, mediocre role players is now frittering away the first half of the season, due to its lack of depth? My guess is that you already knew that which is why you had to start this face saving thread.
Wait a second.... Did you just suggest that Francis and co are better than Ward and Lue??? Oh no you Di UNg! And you brought up stats to back it up. Aw, how cute. All you had to say was Francis is better than Ward + Lue, and noone would argue. But.... last time i check Francis wasn't traded for a PG.
jack, remove Francis from the equation then, jack. Lue and Ward statistically are among the very worst point guard lineups in the entire league. You can accentuate the positive, but they are gettin owned, offensively and defensively, by their counterparts. That's just a fact.
This is some funny ****. Face saving? You don't need to save face when you're as pretty as me. You do realize that even without our best player we were close to beating 2 western playoff teams in Minny and LA. And with our best player we would be 5-2. And that its only been 7 games, with a brand new team. And... Oh **** it, its pointless to argue with a cement block. While I'm waiting on Roc Paint's response to my offer, why don't you just back up your BS with some real dough. Same deal as Roc? So much for face saving..
^ ^ ^ On a side note...I have the feeling that JVG is trying to let Yao lead this team for a while since TMac is injured. This is the first time that Yao has had to carry the team for any length of time without another star player helping him out. Last year, he never really had the chance since Francis was running the point and Yao was *sensitive* about not being perceived as *taking over.* And this year, with TMac on the mend, Yao has his first chance to win some games by himself. The thing is, he's NOT confident. You can tell that he's not quite comfortable in this role yet. I remember last year he missed 6 free-throws at the end of TWO close games (which we narrowly won). Even a few games ago he missed some crucial free-throws. There's something about Yao CONFIDENCE that is not quite there yet. He seems scared to fail. And I think that JVG is trying to shake him of those thoughts. Yao needs this experience. He needs to be prepared. He needs to understand that he can't always depend on McGrady to "save the day" for him. He needs to understand that in the play-offs he may be called on to lead the team and there can be NO WAVERING. NO MISSED FREE-THROWS. NO CARELESS TURNOVERS! He needs to be made ready now, so he wont do it later. Make all the mistakes now, not later.
Weak, weak, weak man... We gave up something to get something. Obviously we are going to have holes. PG is one of our holes. Not every position of ours is going to be great when you have, not one, but TWO, not allstar, but SUPERSTARS. Who was the PG for LA's 3peat? Derek Fisher. Who, production wise, averaged 3 more points than Ward, with everything else the same. Sam, just quit while you are ahead before you get hurt. At this point, no one is even listening to you anymore. No one even gives a **** what you're saying. I'm the only one with the decency to actually respond to your BS. And I'm even about to stop. In this world, you are like a little cricket. Chirping. With no one to hear you. And I am like an Elephant. About to take a dump on you. *chirp chirp* *chirp chirp* .... .... ... ... *SPLATTTTT*
Yao isn't quite there yet. That much is certain. He has made drastic steps, but he is not yet (as I mentioned in another thread) a "Supremely Confidant Assassin." But I think he can grow into that role. If you look at KG, I'd say it took about 7 or 8 years before he really started taking over the late game. First it was Stephon taking the big shots at the end, and even when he left it took KG a few years before he started to put the onus on himself to shoot those shots at the end of the game. Some might say that Yao might not be able to develop that attitude if he's playing alongside T-Mac. But I really think that T-mac will make it a priority to get Yao the ball. Mcgrady is so unselfish already, and Yao has really starting to prove what he can do if he's getting a bunch of touches. T-Mac isn't blind. He can see that when Yao gets the ball, good things happen. I wouldn't even be surprised if T-Mac starts forcing the issue for Yao to be an NBA scoring leader. Yao's got the skills to lead the league, and if T-mac is getting him a few easy buckets a game it'll make it that much easier.
I agree. I just think that Yao needs time to fail. Then, a taste of success (win a few games by himself). After that happens, he'll always know that he CAN DO IT if he's called on.
Hey, Jim Rome, what are you even arguing with me about? if you have substantive points, go ahead and make them. My point is that our lack of depth (both in terms of quality depth as well as in terms of redundancy as near-flawlessly encapsulated by Jeff in that other thread) is now painfully obvious. My second point is that our point guard situation is abominable. If I recall correctly, a few weeks ago, you seemed to advocate that not only were we deceptively deep, but our point guard situation had improved by leaps and bounds in key areas, and you are currently touting Charlie Ward's effectiveness. The results thus far this season indicate otherwise. Your only fact based rebuttal appears to be this: "If" and "almost" wins don't cut it; do you really need me to explain to you why? I don't think you do. And your other point is that it's early. I agree, it is early, hopefully you will be vindicated and the Rockets will be awesome. I hope so too. But the evidence thus far indicates that the very areas you were pronouncing to be strengths weeks ago are proving to be weaknesses, which is apparently why you started this thread Your ball, romey. do your worst, maybe we can rack your next take.
I tend to agree with Jeff, and this case is no different. However, like i said before, our personel issues will be dealt with in the future. Its no hurry since our flaws are not fatal. How in the world so? Ward is proving to be a much better 3pt shooter than Francis, like i said. He is averaging almost 5 assists, and about 1.4 TOs. Hm. I guess i was right. We ARE deceptively deep, and results have only proven me right. If you can remember that far back, in our first few games, our starting lineup was horrible. No chemistry at all. It was our bench that kept us in the games, completely outplaying our opponent's backups. That was against the Pistons, Raptors, and Kings. Supposedly deep teams, and supposedly MUCH deeper than us. Also, with our BEST player out, we were able to hang with Minny, who is a Title contender, and LA, who is supposed to be in the playoffs. That is a testiment to our depth. You forgot one more part, the Tmac being out part. That might be important. You agree. This is what you should have done all along. That would have saved you the embarrassment. The fact of the matter is, I am the smartest person I've ever met. And after speaking to you, that hasn't changed. I suggest you hold off on the "I told you so"s until you are absolutely sure i won't be able to come back and debunk everything you just said and make you look like a fool. And in time, you'll be doing alot more of that. Agreeing. Stop chirping for a second. And try listening. And thinking. And watching our games. And enjoy them. And enjoy life. Because you never know when someday someone is going to come up to you and just take a dump on you.
First rule about clutchfans is, dont talk about clutchfans. Second rule about clutchfans is, dont talk about clutchfans.
You guessed wrong, based on cherry picking a few stats. The adjusted stats relative to his nightly competition shows the Rockets to be at a distinct disadvantage (of course, he is leaps and bounds better than Lue, describing his play as abysmal would be an understatement) http://www.82games.com/04HOU2C.HTM His offense is subpar at best (7.5 a/48? Just to give you an idea, that's exactly what Francis did last year) and he is nonexistent as a scorer. He doesn't turn the ball over a lot, true, but that's all you can say for him. His PER rating on offense is still subpar overall (11.5 to a league avg. of 15). As for his defense, it's beyond ugly. Opposing PGs are hitting with an effective FG% of 65%! Not surprisingly they go for 20/48 on him. Maybe somebody else was slow rotating, but net, net, opposing PGs are just killing the Rockets this year overall, more so even than at PF, (where we have been killed every year for the past 4 or 5)
Ha Ha! That was a real good one! Unfortunately it speaks volumes about the current state of the Rockets' PGs. Now it is you who are overreacting just a bit. With Ward and Lue, the pendelum has swung too far the other way. Sure, Ward is not the mistake machine that SF was running JVG's offense but he at least could be counted on to score more than the occassional 3 pointer every other game. Last night was a prime example where a little scoring from either PG would have gone a long way to helping alter the dynamic of that game. Instead, all we got were mistakes and no points and points DO matter. My problem with Ward is that as a PG he's just OK. Sure he does the things you look for in a PG but in this conference, he's up against players who can do the same thing only better plus score. At this stage, he's a good backup who is exposed when used as a starter. As for Lue... No, I care and care a lot. But I'm always a bit skeptical until I see it out on the court. The facts are that this team will continue to look ragged for at least another month. They WILL get better. Whether that is enough to make them more competative is anyone's guess. Looking at the makeup of this team (again thanks to Jeff for a superb personnel breakdown) that's a legitimate concern. This team is stocked with a lot of the same type of player and that's just not good. I realize that not having TMac is a major reason for the past 2 losses but I feel it is a mistake to ignore what was written in the Chronicle. Yes, both Yao & TMac make this a better team but not necessarily a CHAMPIONSHIP team. So far this season, TMac's presence has allowed them to cover up their mistakes and that's a good thing but to win big will require much much more and not just from Yao & TMac but the rest of this cast of characters and that's where I see them falling short.
This part reminds me of bloodninja. "I put on my robe and wizard hat..." "You are my **** puppet. I put on a play..."
