No, he means Kenny Smith. Yes, The Jet who many revered after we won the championships. Up until Game 7 of the 1994 NBA Finals, people called him so many names on talk radio, it wasn't even funny. Championships do a lot to alter the perception.
Howard is not to old that he can't still make an impact on this team. You forget Howard is a good 15 feet and in shooter which this team needs to spread the floor. Howard also averged 7 rebounds a game last year. He is a solid role player and I'm happy he's our starting power forward. By the way Chuck Hayes will get the backup mins and I'm glad about that to. Go Rockets!!!
Stro>Juwan thats why I hate him, hes also a career loser, he was one of the most ridiculously overpaid athletes in the history of professional sports, which he still is. He makes others around him worse. This isnt the 1st time Juwan has started in front of a superior player. Gooden was by far the better pf but Juwan saw all the minutes.
juwon howard does not play well with yao ming together...both these guys are too slow footed ..I to myself do not want j howard starting for our team... he is to slow and way too inconsistent and a horrible defensive player......u might look at this guys stat and think he is ok ....but the stats dont show how much of a defenive liability he is....look at j howards career...hes been on losing teams his whole career...putting up decent stats.... wouldnt that say something about j howard....j howard put up 17 ppg and 7 rbg in orlando that year... and look how horrible that team was... they started out 0 - 19 that year....even t-mac gave up on that team that year....
We all hate him because of his on-court production: http://www.82games.com/0506/0506HOU.HTM You can obviously see from this that Howard gets torched by the opposing PF every night. His fair salary (combination of minutes played and production) was $.85 million. That's good for 11th on the team. Swift was 7th at $1.94 million and he only played half the minutes of Howard. Being the 11th worst player on your team means you're on the verge of the IR. Then you take into account that his salary was $5.9 million and increasing over the next 3 seasons. His production will continue to go downhill. Bottom line is that he is worse than Stro and Hayes and definitely does not deserve to start in this league. Heart will only take you so far. He has no lateral quickness or leaping ability left. He does NOT have a good jump shot. All of his shots are completely uncontested and he shot something like 45%. It's like he is shooting in an open gym. Have you seen a good NBA player shoot in an open gym? There is a lot more swishing than Howard's shotput-style heave provides. Finally, he does not complement Yao at all. If you remember the preseason and beginning of the year when Yao and Stro actually played together, Stro did a good job of provided quickness and athleticism to clean up the boards and scramble for loose balls when Yao could not. Hayes does much of the same. Despite the efforts of Howard, he can never be a good complement to Yao in the frontcourt.
No we wouldn't. Swift is better than Howard now. Check the Roland ratings and it will show Swift is significantly better than Howard. In fact Howard may be the worst player on our team. In addition Howard is declining and he knows he is not getting any new contracts so he is theiving to save money (joke). Swift in all his faults had some good games last year. There was a stretch at the end of december January where he averaged like 8 rebounds and 16 points while playing 30 minutes a game and struggling to understand VG's system. He never got those kind of minutes or that kind of consitent production again. He was in his doghouse days you could say and the result was a brooding player who never improved and showed little passion like he had earlier in the season. It was so obvious he was in the doghouse that even with the season over with and the only thing left was to improve the lottery position and allow the Younger players to audition for next year JVg refused to let the dogs out. Swift had his lowest minutes per game month of the year. So yes he is inconsistent and doesn't get along with Van Gundy but he certainly had more upside than Howard. And given the right coach he should improve which makes him more valuable trade bait than JHO much more. I do understand why the Rockets dumped him instead of JHO or at least I have a theory. Everything is about team salary these days. ANd with the Rockets struggling to get people in the stands they have to look at that. So they could not afford to take on Battier's salary unless they could dump some salary too. (They couldn't have done it because of cap restraints as well)... Anyway so they had to dump salary and the next decision was who well so then everything else is History...
Niner : sounds to me like you don't follow the Rockets very closely! The reason that I say this is because we don't hate Howard ,we just want a much superior player in his position of starting Power Forward. Howard plays little defence and has limited athletic ability, he can be a decent spot up shooter, but gets too much money to do the few things that he can still do. He can still contribute to a Rockets team but is eating up too much of the limited money that the Rox have to spend. Howard has a good head on his shoulders & a decent personality most of the time! Stromile Swift on the otherhand was a lost cause with little ability to apply himself into the rythem of an NBA game. Athough reasonably priced he also was much too expensive for what he contributed to the team. Both player's performances were disliked and both players needed to be traded! Possibly Howard might be next.
BINGO. Throw into it, Juwans terrible terrible contract and it leads to pure murder for the Rox. NO PF in this league should average 30 mins over the last two years and garner a whopping 12 total blocks over two years. His head alone should garner that many accidentally. Everyone gripped about Mo Taylor averaging 5 or 6 boards a game, but suddenly its ok for Juwan to do this? And btw he is slooooow, his defense sucks, and character means crap to me...especially when hes out pocketing sunglasses...lol.
Thanks for these comments!!! I hope everyone in the "Gay" Parade will understand and get behind the Rox!
This Howard hating is way too excessive in my mind. I recall him becoming a very important cog during the 04-05 season before the knee injury took him out. I give him a pass for last year because Yao and Tracy were out so much and he had to take on a bigger role than what he's suited for. Yes, he has his weaknesses which are expounded on enough in this forum. But let's not forget is strengths: -Better than "decent" shot out to 19'; it's one of the staples in the Rocket offense when Yao and Tracy are healthy -Good passer into the post; he frequently looks into Yao -Good team player; will do whatever it takes to help his team including change his game -Decent low post scorer; probably 3rd best on the team after Tracy and Yao -Heady player who plays within his limitations -Hard worker -Leader in the locker room There's a reason why Howard started over Swift and Gooden. His coaches felt that they could rely on him more than those other guys. I value their opinions a little more than some arm-chair coaches.
Howard is an important part of the team. When McGrady came to Houston he made sure Juan was coming as well. His pay is not out of line for an all star veteran. He still plays very well and is a hard worker.
Ditto to everyone that is saying Howard is too slow. The problem with Juwan is his game MAGNIFIES Yao's greatest weakness and makes it seem much worse than it really is. Because Juwan is so slow and he cannot help rotate and he cannot jump he makes Yao put himself in all sorts of bad positions to pick up cheap fouls because Yao knows he has to constantly try to cover his man who is playing up high more often than not and then he's got to try to cover all the mice coming in the back door because Juwan left it open. Juwan and Yao together are TERRIBLE. As bad and as dumb as Stromile played, he was still much better on the floor than Juwan because the penetrators had to actually think about him blocking the shot. With Juwan they just walk around him. I'll say this, the biggest improvement in Yao's numbers will be when we get a legit power forward with SMARTS, quicks, and hops that can shut down traffic. Personally, I like Juwan. He is a class guy. But, he is a TERRIBLE fit with Yao.
Juwan Howard sucks. I mean he can't keep up with the PF's of today, he's to slow, no defense, only good thing about him is his short jump shot. That's about it, and we get all this crap for a big fat contract? I would rather trade him for Miles, Miles would be a better bench person.
I admit that Howard is a nice man with good character, but as a player he is not a qualified starter in a team with championship aspirations. His statatistics were much better than Stro, but that's not b/c he's really better than Stro, but b/c he got much more time and many more chances while Stro did not(b/c JVG did not like him, any player that Van Gandy did not like would have no good result in his team). If Rockets really want to be more competitive among other teams, JVG and Howard should both leave the team, or there will be no chance for Rockets!
Let there be no mistaking that the reason Howard is here was to balance out the deal for TMac.He would make for a decent rotation player off the bench,but for his monstrous salary.We cannot afford to keep him and hope for any quality depth.CD can wait for the best deal though as the chemistry is good when the whole team is healthy....just have to have an above average rebounder/interior defense guy at the 4 too.Hayes helps,but does not bring enough to compensate for Howard's deficiencies.
I record most games on DVR, and reviewing games I have noticed too often Stromile has lackadaisical cycles and doesn't seem to know where he should be on the court. He has trouble reading defenses and rotating and sometimes gets caught napping in transition. Thats when he gets beat and people interpret him as being lazy. I just assume he has a low BB IQ and lacks proper conditioning to play at a fast pace for extended times. However, sometimes he can surprise you with hustle, blocks and steals. Just in short cycles of good play. He just isn't consistent enough to be a starter.
I agree with those points, and until we are able to get a stud 4 (not sure we can get that because of salary cap and few viable assets to trade) he will beat out most available players out there we could bring in to replace him. I think Shane will give some relief this year at the 4 and play surprisingly well and create mismatches. Shane looks to be stronger and more physical than Stro ever was. And we all know Shane shoots at a better clip than Stro and JHO.
i didnt know that about jHoward. 12 blocks in 2 years? Stro could get that in 2 weeks. Stro, when playing for Tmac and Yao like he did in the later part of last january, puts a nice fit to the team. besides, stro doesnt need the ball like jHo. give stro some lobs and he could score as much as jHo put jHo in instead of Stro and i will feel much better about the Gay trade(pun intended)
