Ahh a hypothetical premised on the myth of the fully healthy Rockets team. Off and on for the last few years I have been a firm believer that, any such hypo caveat'ed with "WHEN HEALTHY" is the equivalent of bludgeoning the lifeless emaciated body of a unicorn with blunted edge of Excalibur, then slowly, slilently gliding back to the depths of the Loch astride Nessie. Some things don't exist, won't exist, and get less likely as time goes on. The "fully healthy" version of this iteration of Rockets is one of them and will continue to be one.
Brooks and Wafer should come off the bench for instant offense, when the starters have lulled their starters to sleep. Starters play half-court offense, while the bench comes straight off and plays a fast breaking game. That would just be awesome.
I think u missed the most important thing there and it wasnt the fact that alston gets more minutes than brooks, its that wafer only has 10
With the exception of Indy, the teams scoring the most 1st qt point have the best record in the league. If the Rox get off to a fast start by starting, brooks tracy, and wafer, it increases the chances of winning. The fast starts makes teams play catchup and adjust their lineups. People never think about fast starts. What's wrong with instant offense to start the game?
Nothing, if you're not also giving up instant offense to the other team. A lineup up Brooks, Wafer, T-Mac, Landry, and Yao could be scary defensively. For us, not the opponent.
The OP said when everyone is back. That's how I'd expect the minutes to break down with Adelman. Between McGrady, Artest, and Battier, there just won't be a lot of minutes for Wafer, unfortunately. If those three average 30 mpg each at SG/SF, that already accounts for 90 out of 96 possible minutes that can be allotted to your SG and SF position.
Dont you think we can put some minutes at the 4 spot with Ron Artest and maybe Shane Battier. Also T-Mac can play point forward for part of the game which i doubt.
Durvasa, ur great at pulling stats, pls pull kobe's number vs the rox when wesley was here vs since shane has been here. It might surprise u.
take rafer out. brooks can start at PG. when he rests, we can have tracy at PG with wafer at SG. rafer is just a terrible player right now and yet he plays like he's god.
Minutes at the 4 spot for Artest is a good possibility. I don't really see that for Shane, at least not regularly. In my breakdown earlier in the thread, I showed the minutes that I thought seemed most likely for each player.
The Head-to-Head feature on basketball-reference.com makes pretty easy to investigate. I'll summarize the relevant numbers below: Kobe vs Wesley (4 games): Code: [B]MPG PTS TS% AST TO GmScr GmScr/40 [/B] Kobe 45.0 25.5 53.0 8.8 1.8 21.8 19.4 Wesley 37.4 12.8 61.8 3.3 1.8 8.8 9.5 Kobe vs Battier (7 games): Code: [B] MPG PTS TS% AST TO GmScr GmScr/40 [/B] Kobe 43.6 35.1 49.1 4.1 3.5 19.7 18.1 Battier 36.7 9.6 54.4 1.1 1.1 6.5 7.1 GmScr is Hollinger's Game Score, essentially his version of NBA EFF for boiling down how a player played according to the box score into a single number. I show both per-game, and per-minute GmScr rating above. Basically, Kobe shot a lot more against Battier, with less efficiency, turned it over more often, and he scored a lot more points.
/\ /\ Just noticed the GmScr stat in basketball-reference earlier. And, sorry, I though uugh more darn cumulative stat measures that only half the people will think is valid. Anyways, shows Kobe was a worse overall performer in more games against Battier, thats good. Also there's 9.9 GmScr margin Kobe over Wesley and 11.0 for Kobe over Battier...so Wesley still gained 1 point over Battier with more offense? Again, dont know what to think of GmScr... Wafer, might as well keep him in there I say. Keep riding that horse til it drops. Not like there's been any continuity ANYWAY. But if we're to coax McGrady back in, McGrady off the bench might more damage to his "swagger" than good though... And when will Rafer ever come off the bench again? If Artest can do it, Rafer sure can.
Hm, everyone is saying that he brings offense off the bench but isn't out bench where we get most of our offense anyway? Our starters are usually the ones struggling and the bench ends up outplaying them.
Bravo for a HOF-worthy methaphor there. Is that from Once and Future King?' Also, I think people might enjoy seeing the recent SG PER's by Hollinger. Wafer accrued just enough minutes to be accounted for finally: LINK 12. Tracy McGrady - 16.99 16. Von Wafer - 16.11 Not bad for Wafer, disgraceful for T-Mac.
I think having Von Wafer off the bench finally gives us the scoring threat we need to bench Alston's ass and start AB0. Alston can use his playmaking skills on Artest, Landry and Wafer off the bench, while Ab0 can score all he wants in the starting lineup with Tmac, Battier, Scola and Yao Ming
Tmac should come off the bench for a while at least.....especially if Wafer continues to play well. I believe strongly in the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" adage. DD
GmScr also includes defensive rebounds, steals, blocks, and fouls. We could argue that those aren't strictly determined by the player he's matched up against. Though, strictly speaking, none of the stats are exclusively based on who he's matched up against. With a player like Kobe, it is really a team effort.
