Stro is going to remain the same player if he doesn't get a lot of minutes. I say we play him a bunch, have high expectations and be patient while he learns. It will pay off in the long run. Pay off starting with game number 83.
One monster dunk from the Stro Show will have you thinking we stole one from Memphis and have the NBA Finals version of Shaw Kemp. However, that dude only comes out every 20 games, as a result, we only see that cat 4 times a year. I say we trade him and the 2nd round and get a 1st rounder to draft Sheldon Williams who is sliding down the draft boards because other athletes are moving up.
NONE of these players are good enough [ in many ways] to be the starting Power Forward on a Contender!!! If one is the starting Power Forward on the next season Rockets then we will not be a contender!! Plain & simple!
Swift certainly isn't that great, but he's at this point better than Howard. And Hayes I think could be a nice backup, but I really don't see him as a starter.
Please for the love of God, start Stro and let him play significant minutes! He plays much better than the other two with Yao...Remember when everybody was healthy early in the season and the Rockets won 5 out of 6 on that tough west coast road trip. Stro was closing out games and his chemistry with Yao was good. Also, I remember when Yao had his toe problem and Stro got the chance to play a lot of minutes consistently and was playing well, but he injured his eye. The Rockets need to get rid of Juwan and his ridiculous contract somehow this offseason and Hayes should be the backup.
I'll leave +/- analysis to the coaching staff. I'd bet they have better analysis tools than you. If they feel Juwan gives a better shot at winning a game than Stro...and they have...then you'll excuse me if I take their word for it. Many folks around here do have blind hatred. AT LEAST you have given it some thought so I can respect that. Most don't. They just hate him. I agree with JVG that you don't give out minutes based on "potential." You give out minutes based on who can help you win now. If Stro has any gumption, he'll take it upon himself to convert his potential to W's. Stro needs to have some personal responibility to pull himself out of the "has potential" category. Just like Head this year? He played good early and trailed off late. Why? Lots of reasons that I won't bother listing. The same would happen with Hayes. Rarely in the NBA do you discover a diamond. Diamonds find YOU. If a player has the talent, they will impart themselves when given the chance. This idea that players should simply be given minutes based on potential is mostly a load of crap. He shouldn't. btw, my opinion is none of the above should be starting. Ideally we find somebody else. If we can't do that, I'd take Juwan 1st and keep giving Stro chances to prove himself as a legit starter. If Stro can't OBVIOUSLY set himself apart from Juwan in the minutes he gets, too bad ...so sad.
Hayes gets by on energy and hustle, he can't sustain that for full starter minutes. He is better off coming in for 5 minutes at a time when we need an energy lift, if he plays 35 mins a game I guarentee you he won't be as effective.
You can't guarantee that. You may possibly be right but we'll never know unless Van Gundy chunks him out there for a couple games like that. And the bottom line is even if he sucked, it wouldn't be any worse than us dragging Juwan around last year and him logging 30 mpg. It simply can't get any worse.
If you actually check his numbers last year, you'll find that his per-minute productivity actually increased with the more minutes he got. I've charted this in previous threads. So, I wouldn't assume this as given. That's a big misconception with role players. People assume that their per-minute productivity will typically go down when they get longer and more consistent minutes. Actually, if anything the productivity tends to go up. But as you say, Hayes depends a lot on energy and hustle. He also probably played a disproportionate amount of minutes against reserves. That's why I said that his per-minute stats might overstate how good he is. But, you can't just assume that's the case. Even if his productivity goes down 10%, he still would be helping the team more than Swift or Howard. And that doesn't take into account that as a rookie there's a much higher probability he'll improve in the following year. And I'm not saying he should start the season getting 35 minutes a game. Give him maybe 25-30 minutes a game to start the season. And if he can handle the minutes, and looks like he can handle more, then give him more. The problem with JVG is he's too conservative as a coach. Even at the end of the season when the playoffs were a lost cause, he didn't feel comfortable giving big minutes to "unproven" players. Even when all the evidence showed that the team played significantly better with Chuck Hayes on the court than either of the other two PFs.
There's no hard science to substitutions. Often, when there's a coaching change in the middle of the season, the rotations change drastically. It's silly to just assume that whatever the coaches do is obviously the best decision because they know best. What better tools do you think they have? We KNOW that the team plays significantly worse with Howard. You can follow it, game by game if you like (game flows). Sometimes coaches, even good coaches, make very bad decisions. How does he determine who can help him win now? How much stock does he put into how well a player practices and attitude? As a coach, these things could be important to him, and maybe they play a big role in who he decides to put on the court. Potential? Hayes put up better numbers per minute last year, period. The team was better with him on the court, period. And you're contradicting yourself. Player will "impart themselves when given the chance." How exactly do you give a player the chance to show they're a "diamond" WITHOUT giving them the necessary minutes? On a per-minute basis, Hayes has proven he's a very, very good player (particularly for a first year player). What else do you want him to do before you give him that "chance"? Does he need to average 10 rebounds per 15 minutes before you'll say to yourself, "Hey, maybe this guy really CAN rebound!" And Juwan gets the starting job by default, even though the team sucked offensively and defensively while he was on the court. Brilliant.
Agree with you, but will JVG start Stro. I like Haye's cause of his defense and rebounding, but he had some nice stats during alot of scrub time and when the rockets were out of the playoff picture and most teams were not going 100% against the rockets. I think he could be like a Malik Rose type without the outside shot, but a better rebounder.
His stats were even better his first month with the team, when he was playing more minutes per game and the games mattered more.
...and it also would be silly of me to take your word for it over JVG. I respect your opinion and you make valid points but I don't put much stock in your analysis ...all due respect. Like any BBQ master or cook, their recipies are surely guarded secrets. I don't ever recall hearing a coach divulging how they statistically analyze players. Any analysis of the team last season is basically garbage since the team on the court bears no reality unless you think we'll continue to have huge injury problems. You won't find many people to support you using this line of logic. It's a pretty well known fact that per minute stats are meaningless for players that don't play many minutes. Stromile has had plenty of changes with the minutes he's played to prove that he is a legit NBA starter. He has yet to demonstrate that he is capable. As has Swift. If Swift was a real difference maker in the games, then I could live with his mistakes. But since Swift's and Howard's #'s are comperable, I'd favor the guy that can take direction better. Again, from my perspective, this is a silly rehashed converstaion because the best starting PF is not on the roster. Howard and Swift are negligable. Hayes is simply not an NBA starter.
I'm not asking you to just take my word. I'm actually explaining my reasons using evidence. If you want to disagree with a point I'm making, I'll only listen to it if you can make your argument using some kind of evidence as well and/or if you can explain why the evidence I used isn't legitimate. "JVG played Juwan the most minutes, so therefore Juwan should be playing the most minutes" is simply not a credible argument. Sorry. Guess what. The Rockets were much worse with Howard on the court the previous season as well. But you're right. Let's throw everything that happened last season out the window. In fact, let's just shut down our brains and blindly accept whatever decisions are made from now on. No point in questioning the infallibility of the Rockets coaching staff. They are perfect and make no mistakes. Chuck Hayes played over 500 minutes last season. Top 100 Players, by PER, (at least 250 minutes played) If what you said was true, there should be a number of players who played very few minutes per game last season that ranks high on this list. But, in fact, the top per-minute players (statistically) are almost entirely made up of players who played a significant number of minutes. Chuck Hayes (ranked 51st), is an exception. Why is it that he's the only player who didn't play a lot of minutes that ranked in the top 100? Isn't that pretty striking evidence that maybe he isn't your typical end-of-the-bench garbage player? I'm not talking about Swift. I'm talking about Hayes. Actually, the team was better with Swift than with Howard, overall, last season. And Swift's individual numbers were far better. I'm not saying Swift is definitely better or worse than Howard. But there's good reason that Howard should get the majority of minutes by default, in my view. I think Howard's gotten his chance to prove himself. He failed. At his age, he's only going to get worse and worse. Let's move on. It's frustrating to me that you keep saying that but you don't actually put forth an argument beyond "Van Gundy didn't play him a lot, therefore he shouldn't get more minutes." Maybe there's something else to what you're saying I'm just missing, because that reasoning doesn't make any sense to me. Coaches, even good coaches like Van Gundy, can make blunders with substitution patterns. It's not like there's a magic formula only NBA coaches are privy to that let them know what precisely the optimal rotations are. To an extent, stats are considered. But a large part of it is just high-level, instinctive strategizing that's error-prone. And conservative coaches like Van Gundy are usually reluctant to "experiment" with playing younger, inexperienced players more minutes when there are veterans (however ineffective they might be in general) at the same position who they are familiar with. Particularly when those players are unheralded and went undrafted.
It seems like 90-99% of people hate Juwan, including me....his shot is decent but he is lazy on defense....cant we move juwan just to move his contract....if we can trade moochie, y cant we trade this guy?
He's much harder to move because of his contract. He's also an older player, and his effectiveness is rapidly diminishing. Last 4 seasons: Code: [COLOR=Navy]Year Team PER[/COLOR] 2003 Den 17.2 2004 Orl 15.6 2005 Hou 13.0 2006 Hou 12.5 Considering league average PER is set to 15 each year, it's frightening how bad our production might be at PF next season if Juwan remains the starter.
