Without Landry, expect Rockets to be worst finishing team at the rim

Outside of Lowry and Scola, I'm beginning to consider this team more and more a finesse team. Bit of a 180 from last year when Kenny and Charles described the players that Morey surrounded Yao and Tracy with pitbull type of players.

We lost a bit of toughness losing Carl.

 

More of a reason to look forward to next season when that Chinese guy returns.

 

Was looking at some NBA.com hotspot numbers earlier. Not this year, Hilton Amstrong from LAST year and before is pretty good close at the rim. Thats with the help of Chris Paul feeding him easy looks. Everyone else is on the low end. Jared Jeffries is NOT a better finisher than Chuck Hayes.

 

First game seems to prove you right -Jeffries blew at least two easy ones at the rim last night...

 

And at the beginning of the season plenty of people were afraid we wouldn't block any shots. And we haven't. So instead, according to hoopdata, the Rockets lead the league in charges drawn - which are more valuable than blocks anyway.

I don't wish to disparage your point here, you're quite correct. Not being able to finish at the rim is a serious flaw. But the Rockets have won enough to stay in the playoff hunt with all kinds of holes and a roster that's flat out weird.

I mean, how do you win a bunch of games when neither your starting SG or your starting SF can't handle the ball a lick? Where one (Ariza) can't shoot straight and travels half the time he goes to the hoop, while the other (Battier) can't create his own shot at all? Well, maybe if you have a dominant center, a superstar lowpost player... Maybe if you have a pure point guard who creates tons of good looks for his teammates... It's almost goofy that they win as many games as they do. And it's sure fun to watch, isn't it.

So yeah, here's another case where they take a loss in one respect and hope to patch the hole by strengthening another aspect of the team. I'll give Morey and Co. the benefit of the doubt that Martin brings enough to the table to make it worth losing Landry.

 

I wouldn't be ready to conclude who is the better finisher just yet. Give it a few more games, but if I were to predict, Jeffries seems to potentially be a better finisher than Hayes simply because of his height.

 

Whats Hill's number at the rim? But since scoring at the rim is not a factor that denied Rox from having winning seasons in the past, it does not really matter, does it?

 

Good read as always durvasa and its pretty much what we've talked about in the past. When you lack explosion, it hurts at the rim more than anywhere on the court. People are enamored with the dipsy doo's of scola or craftiness of others, but when those long high jumpers jumpe for your shot, you need to be able to power through or finish over the top of those guys. Landry could do that and take the contact to boot. He had explosion through the hips and core and that made him a really good finisher around the rim. Trevor is a good athlete, but he's not strong enough to go to the rim and power through the contact. Thats why it always seem like he's off balance when he does get a drive. All those guys get hit going to the rim, but the really good ones can just power through.

The lack of athleticism continues to haunt the rockets. They're getting better at getting players that can play and are good athletes. I look at the Jazz and they have guys that are athletic and play smart and i don't see anything wrong with that. Most on this board think its either a smart,unatheltic guy or a high jumper,dummy type and thats not true at all. There are guys that are both and those are the kind of guys that can help close loopholes like these. Just like we talked about the team being a layup drill without yao or deke on the court, teams can easily finish at the rim vs the rockets when a 6'6 guy like hayes is standing there.