Your choice for primary backup PF: Hayes or Novak?

Shane can and will play PF. He's bigger than Hayes! Besides, Battier at the 4 spreads the floor for Yao on offense. What the opening lineup will be is still a mystery, but I think the Rockets are going to play matchup ball this year, meaning Juwan will get his fair share of starts at the 4 and so will Shane. The one thing we can definitely be sure about is Shane Battier will be a starter. Sometimes he'll play the 3 as Tmac moves to the 2. He will take the toughest defensive assignment whether it be a 2,3, or 4. Offensively where he plays does not make a huge difference, but his ability to play the 4 gives the Rockets the opportunity to put a slashing guard or another deep threat on the floor with Yao, Tmac and Battier.

P.S. All you Juwan haters need to just stop. He's not that bad. He's not that good either, but he fits the system. IMO with a healthy Juwan in 2005, we take that series from the Mavericks.

 

Hayes. No matter if Battier or Juwan starts at PF, I want to see a guy come in and give us energy down low and grab some boards.

I think Novak can come in certain situations, but I would really like to see a rebounder get some minutes with this team.

 

The solution is to trade Juwan and Rybo for Miles. That way you've got 3 6'9" long athletic players to man the 2,3,4 positions and they are all interchangable defensively. All 3 of those guys can play any of the 3 positions defensively, with Shane and Miles being interchangable at the 3/4 positions offensively and McGrady coming from the top. Between Yao, McGrady and Miles, we'd get more than our fair share of boards too to start the break. I'm telling you, we would be the best defensive team in the league, we would get plenty of run outs and have great finishers on the floor in TMac and Miles and have the kick out 3 working with Battier. Those guys would be unstoppable.

 

i have no idea who the starter will be but i expect hayes to earn and provide big minutes for us.

he is the best rebounder/post defender on the team. it's unfortunate his shot is so hideous but his energy/b-ball IQ will keep him in the game.

 

Per Krosfyah:

"Only thing I disagree with is who is starting at 4. I think Battier will play A LOT of minutes at 4 but I doubt he starts there. I'd bet TMac starts 2 and Battier 3 with Juwan 4. At least until somebody else steps up and clearly earns to be the starting 2-guard.

Battier and TMac obviously start but where they start depends on who can play more consistent. Juwan or Snyder/VSpan. Right now, my money is on Juwan being the more consistent"

Make sense. I agree-I just wish Yao had more help inside rebounding. Juwan cannot help much there.

 

This gets my vote.

 

what ever happen to that jho trade rumor

 

Did you forget how when both Yao And T-Mac were hurt J-Ho was getting 25-30 pionts per game . He may not play like that when both guys are healthy but if something happens to either one (knock on wood) Howard can step up.

 

I see T-Mac starting at 2, Shane at 3, and Juwan at the 4. I say Hayes should be the backup at the 4 and Novak at the 3.

The lineup is going to change quite a bit anyway. The lineups you'll see will depend largely upon who the opponent is...

 

Yeah, but it's only when one or two of them are gone that he can get 20+ points. Also, I think Juwan Howard has been relagated to a 15-foot jump shooter on offense since he doesn't seem to have much of an inside game.

 

The guy who needs minutes is Hayes. By the numbers, he was your 3rd-best player last year, and you have to find out whether that was a fluke or whether Hayes is a potential contributor.

Also, I have a hunch Hayes would fit well with Yao. The Cavaliers have had success putting smaller PFs with high motors next to Zydrunas Ilgauskas.



I doubt Novak will get minutes if everybody's healthy. Battier is probably the Rockets' shooting PF (or McGrady is, if you want to describe it that way), so Novak is kind of the backup shooting PF, and I don't think JVG is that interested in shooting.

 

I'll say let's start Hayes. he reminds me of Malick, when he first started in San Antonio. The blue collar worker!

 

Hayes is the one who plays Power Forward. Novak plays a lot on the perimiter but can cover for a number of other positions.

 

http://sports.sina.com.cn/nba/photo/32611/index.shtml

Speaking of Novak...does this look like a PF to you?

 

Does Nowitzki look like a guard...he sure plays like one....bring it inside without flopping you big sissy!

Brantonli24, what is wrong with JHo and his 15 ft. shot? Half of the guards in this league can't hit a consistent 15 footer, they settle for 3 pt.s instead. I wish we could upgrade Jho as well but IMO I don't see anything workable. However, I realize that almost evry team in this league could use an upgrade in a couple of positions as well and big men are hard to come by...that's why this is a guard league like Shaq says...but Shaq also says Yao is part of the dying breed in this league....so lets mix and match with what we got and if that means Novak can pop jumpers on guys and keep them honest, then that is no different than the "germiflopinator". All we need is to let Novak study the way Dirk allows 6 foot guards to knock him to the ground in the paint.

 

So much talent to choose from I don't know which way to go!!!!!!!!!!

 

I don't think Shane can play major minutes at the 4. He doesn't seem to rebound well enough for that. I do agree that JHow gets bashed way too much. He's a pretty good player and I still think he'll be our 3rd scoring option.

 

That will kill our spacing, Hayes cant shoot (unless he has been shooting 5000 shots each day since last season)

I think Hayes matches up well against the opponent's bench, not thier starters

 

Yao and Hayes had a little Yao post pass - Chuckie puts up the unguarded layup thing going a couple times last season. Chuckie's man rotated to double Yao and the quick dump was virtually unstealable.

JHo never scored 25-30 reliably when the big two were down. In fact I would like the poster to please go count how many times JHo scored 25+ I remember occasional big game surrounded by lots of games where JHo was overmatched, got blocked by bigger younger guys and kept his scoring average down near his actual 11.8 ppg. So if he had scored big numbers in lots of games, then that would mean he scored zero an awful lot as well - and that just ain't true either.

NBA.com EFF was 12.64 which is below the 14.0 for an average player.

82games.com says production vs. -3.7, on/off was -9.0, Roland was -5.4 which was in Jon Barry territory and Jon was good enough to retire.....

JHo? Can you help us out here?

JHo produced years ago, but JHo is at best a bench player now. One who knows the offense and can pass the ball. Who gets blocked too much, can't dribble, is not a very good rebounder, and is just as bad as Rafer in having people blow past him to the rim and exposing Yao to potential stupid fouls.

Can anyone say "can't jump anymore"? He turns 34 in February.

Personally I would like to see Hayes get significant 4 time and Novack get some time at the 3 & 4 - he would bring more height, speed and energy to the 4 than JHo - hard to do any worse than JHo.

If the rooks are going to be given a chance to contribute and grow then JHo needs to start out the season at 24 mpg or less, and gradually trail off to 12-16 at the end. His legs will be fresher anyways.

 

No you don't have to because he is not money with that jump shot.