You know this talk about Bonzi and Shane and the 6th man make me think of when Bonzi and Shane played for Hubie Brown in Memphis. Hubie had a really interesting style of subbing there for a while that I liked. He had a finesse team with Wright, Pao, Shane, Miller, Williams. And then had more of a bruiser team in Jake?,Swift,Bonzi,Posey,Watson. He would rarely have 1 guy off the bench unless there was foul trouble. He would sub many players at the same time. It was like watching 2 different teams. It was pretty cool while it lasted. In that scenario there is no real 6th man. Just a A Team and a B Team.
luther got skillzz but he was directed only to camp out at the 3 and shoot 3 ptrs. He can do much more than that.
Assuming Francis is the starter, then I think the safest bet would be that our best sixth man will be Luther. Then again if Francis, Bonzi and James all suck (could happen), Luther could very well end up being the starter...
I don't even know what our starting lineup is going to look like. We have three guys who could be our starting point guard. Adelman could easily decide to start Bonzi at the two and push McGrady to the three and have Battier coming off the bench. We all assume Scola will be our starting power forward, but he still has to beat out Chuck. Really, we only know that Yao and McGrady will start and we're not exactly sure if McGrady will start at the two guard or the three. So how can I even begin to make an intelligent guess at who is going to be our best 6th man?
I agree that Scola is not a lock to start. Chuck Hayes works very well in the lineup with Yao and Tracy. His offensive limitations actually make him BETTER as a starter. His man often goes to double team T-Mac; and Chuck is good at going to the basket when he's open. He was great taking feeds from T-Mac for easy layups. He even made some tough layups in traffic. Plus, with Yao set to play more in the high post, Chuck should be the beneficiary of even more easy baskets. And don't forget that the lineup of Rafer-McGrady-Battier-Hayes-Yao had the BEST plus/minus in the entire league last year. My guess is that Francis starts, given the size of his ego and his past star-status in Houston. While he doesn't have the handles of Rafer Alston, he will be able to penetrate and dish much more easily than Rafer could. Bottom line: I think the starters will be Francis, T-Mac, Battier, Hayes and Yao. The Rockets' bench could be the best they've ever had, with Mike James, Luther Head, Bonzi Wells and Luis Scola all able to play significant minutes at a very high level. Throw in Deke as a legit defensive presence as well. This doesn't even include Aaron Brooks as a developing young player or Justin Reed as a "suped-up Ryan Bowen" for spot minutes. It's looking like it'll be a good year.
How can you possibly consider Brooks!!!!! Brooks is the best Point Guard on our team and should take the starting spot from Alston after the All Star Game, at the latest. Battier possibly will come from the bench and he could gain the 6th man honors!
I agree with your assessment. you also want a good balance of scorers and defensive/rebound specialist in the lineup. you don't want to have to substitute with both deke and chucky in the same lineup because you will not much offensive production from them.
There are only three sure fire starters on this team. Tmac, Yao and Battier. The other spots are up for grabs. We are lucky to have Battier on this team, and he would have to have a pretty crappy season to lose his starting spot.
The problem with Shane being your 6th man is implicit in your own post. You want your 6th man to be an offensive spark off the bench. Shane is great defensively, but as you said his offense is often limited. Even if Bonzi is a more potent scorer or maybe even a better all around player than Shane (which I don't think is true) he should come off the bench. Shane plays solid basketball and wouldn't fit in so well as a spark plug guy off the bench.
First of all I think its doubtful that Alston will have the starting job to have it taken away from him. However, assuming Alston remains on the team I think Brooks is fourth on the depth chart. He's going to have to climb over Steve, Mike, and Alston to get that starter position. Brooks may get quality minutes (and I think that's still a big if), but I'll go out on a limb and say there's no way Brooks will be a starter for the Rockets in 07-08.
If I'm not mistaken wasn't Adelman quoted a while back as saying that he thought a combination of T-Mac, Bonzi and Battier together in a game would make for a pretty potent lineup.
not so sure now, morey may have to sweeten the deal to trade sorry rafer by including luther. we'll see.
