What would each Rocket's role be on a championship team?

Doesn't Eddie-Monster start at the 4? If so, the sub-front line would be Cato, Mo T, and Terrance Morris.

 

griffin, mo. T and mobley are bench players. we need a pure shooter as shooting guard and a rebounding machine at power forward. can mobley or posey slow down kobe? if not, we need a kobe's stopper and i didn't mean ruben patterson, a self-proclaimed one.

 

there is no such thing as a kobe stopper. great scorers simply cannot be stopped. they can - however - be forced to either:

a) shoot a lot of shots - preferably jump shots - thus isolating their teammates; and/or

b) play defense on another scoring threat, thus risking foul trouble.

other than that, there is really no "perimeter" defensive studs/stoppers versus a kobe bryant/t-mac/allen iverson/jordan-in-his-prime.

just ask san antonio. they swore that bruce bwen would be the kobe stopper. they were convinced! then kobe dropped 35-40 points on them and they saw the light. great perimeter scorers are impossible to "shut down". you just try to make them shot jumpers, play defense, and stop passing...

 

Steve must ORCHESTRATE and Yao must DOMINATE.


Go ROX!

 

I know one thing. Mobley's new "in the background" role is great!

Mobley must support the team, not carry.

That's Francis's and Yao's job.

 

i disagree, scorers can be stopped if you shoot yourself in the foot by taking long jump shots that lead to fastbreak for the other team. in the half-court game, kobe can get his 35 pts if he takes 30 shots to get them. you have stopped him. the reason bowen can't stop kobe is because kobe is 6'8" not like the 6'5" latrell sprewell. bowen has the quickness to stop the penetration, but not the length to contest kobe's jumpers, especially the fadeaways. therefore, he has to guess and put himself in jeopardy of being faked. another thing is he should never be the one to double shaq because if shaq swing the ball out to kobe, kobe can easily go by anybody who charges at him.

 

James 23:- Koby Bryant is 6'6'' not 6'8''.

 

Artest can stop those players. Probably the only 2 players in history who can stop dominant swingmen are Artest and Dumars.

 

training -----------team work
confidence ---------stamina
the most important two!
a champion team is not only made of players but the up things!

 

I agree with most of what you have here, haven.

Francis and Yao clearly have their roles pretty well set: Outside Stud and Inside Stud.

our starting Power Forward needs to be able to do the following things:

- rebound like a fiend
- rough people up and serve as Yao's enforcer
- have an effective low-post game when Yao is working from the high-post

the question is: can Eddie Griffin be this guy? I hope he will, but I think it will be another year before he begins to be that guy. I have to allow that he may never be that guy.

our starting Small Forward needs to be able to do the following things:

- hit the wide-open 3 all day long
- probably be our best defender
- get out on the fast break and run, run, run

the tough thing about Posey is that I think he's great at 2 of these. I don't know if he can stick the 3 as consistently as Francis and Yao will need him to to make them as effective as they can be.

bottom-line: can the Rockets win a championship with Posey as the Starting Forward? I'll say yes. but only if they have a guy who can nail the 3 in his sleep coming off the bench. Nachbar?

to be honest with you, I don't really have as clear an idea of what our starting Shooting Guard should do. I guess it would be ideal if we could pair Francis with a 2-guard who was really more like a true 1, if that makes any sense at all. whatever the case, I'm pretty sure that Cuttino Mobley is not that guy.

I think the following players can function well in the following bench roles:

Cuttino -- instant offense off the bench; it's a lot to ask of him, but basically his role is to come in off the bench and see if he's hot that night; if he's not, enjoy the view; if he is, enjoy your night on the sportscenter highlights. I do believe that Cuttino can bring something positive to a championship club, but he's going to have to figure out what it is and want to do it.

Mo T -- as have been mentioned, he's really great to have coming off the bench as a scorer; the problem is if Griffin doesn't become the starter; if you have Griffin coming off the bench, I think his strengths [shotblocking, interior defensive help] are better coming off the bench than Mo T's; if Mo T could rebound better, I'd be in favor of starting him with Griff being an off-the-bench big guy. the bottom line is that I'm not sure Mo T is here to see our championship glory

Cato -- I think Cato is perfectly qualified to do the things we most need from our backup Center: be effective in enough minutes to get Yao a rest, take up fouls on opposing centers [Shaq], play without disrupting Francis' offense, even be a pseudo-intimidator. bottom line: I think Cato can get a ring here.

anyway, that's pretty much all I got.

I don't think Moochie is the guy as the backup PG. maybe as an 11th or 12th-man. that may sound harsh, but I just don't think he's enough of a role player. I think he's a very, very watered-down "front-line" player. he's too much of a 'tweener for this team.

I think Morris can bring good things to the table, but I don't know if he brings enough good things to the table to justify not using his spot on a different player [ie. bruising PF, playmaking SG, true backup PG].

the vote is entirely out on Nachbar. but we know for sure that we need somebody to hit the wide-open 3, and he is a definite possibility there.

Collier can probably function as a big body to throw at other big bodies in very limited amounts of time, but only if we've got the roster room. he's certainly no priority.

perhaps Tito can be our backup PG. I don't know.

I don't think Glen Rice ever gets a ring here in Houston.

the most interesting thing about all of this is that I think we're still clearly 2 or maybe even 3 starters away from being title-ready.

we might have 2 of those eventual starters on our team now, but in my opinion our perfect role-playing PF, SF, and SG are either going to have to be grown into or acquired from somewhere else.

 

I can only think of two players in the league that can do this that are not all-stars and they both played for the rockets before. Quitten and Horry. Defensive 3's that can shoot the three consistently are hard to come by.

 

it's funny you mention that.

I've been thinking more and more lately that Robert Horry is the perfect/ideal SF on a Rudy T team. he filled the role perfectly.

I don't know if Rudy got him because he was the perfect Rudy T SF, or if Rudy adapted the style that he now loves around Horry.

but Horry is exactly what we need from a 3.

I disagree about Pippen, though. he's not nearly consistent enough from 3-pt. land. plus, he's an a$$hole.

I know that Horry has had the luxury of playing with the 2 best centers in the last 20 years, but I think it's becoming more and more apparent that Robert Horry is one of the best role-playing NBA'ers in a long time.

he has certainly learned how to be effective with a dominant big man.

now, I'm not arguing that we get Horry. I think he's too old for us. but while the rest of the league is looking for The Next Michael Jordan, the Rockets just might want to start looking for The Next Robert Horry.

I wish Posey would spend every day of this next offseason shooting 500 threes.

 

One of the best Kobe stoppers in the league is the Russian in Utah. He is long (6-9) with long arm and jump extremely quick. His lateral movement can not match Kobe but Utah's team defense helped him. Kobe can not just shoot overhim and he has to watch him on the defensive end too because this guy is a running bunny. If Rockets can this guy, they will be a scale up (about 5-6 seeds in the west) but Rockets do not have any baits that Utah will bite.

 

Cato is probably the 2nd best backup C in the league behind Keon Clark.

 

WHAT ABOUT TERRENCE MORRIS!!!! THIS GUY HAS ROBERT HORRY WRITTEN ALL OVER HIM!!!!

 

I just realized that the Rockets only have 2 players worthy of being a starter, Yao and Francis.

It's amazing we are better than .500