now that we added Damp i'm wondering : will Rick adjust the lineup depending on the team we face? The Warriors game was horrible, and we have to be concerned if RA has no intention to play Damp against teams like Celtics, Lakers... like he did not play Hill against GS Basket-ball is all about matchups and adjustments, if the lineup is glued like this and no flexibility is projected we'll be blown out even if we do have depth and talent For example i am all for starting Lowry over Brooks so that we have a balanced first and second unit on both offense and defense Lowry/Brooks Martin/Lee Battier/ Budinger Scola/Hayes/Hill Yao-Dampier/Miller thoughts?
Brooks won't be replaced in the starting lineup by Lowry... it makes no sense. Lowry works well in the second unit with Lee and Bud. There has to be a reason for J. Hill not seeing any minutes agains GS as he is one of the more athletic players on the roster.
wonder what that reason is.....if its not untold injuries then maybe RA is treating him like he did Wallace. Watch a couple years from now Hill becoming a star. Fme.
I dont see the starters changing except on those b2b's Yao doesnt play, then insert Dampier into Yao's spot. Starting Unit 1A - AB/Martin/Battier/Scola/Yao Starting Unit 1B - AB/Martin/Battier/Scola/Damp (b2bs) One problem I see is when Damp is in there, can we afford to have Battier or Hayes in there with him? ?Jeffries ----------------- --------------------- ---------------------- Second Unit Lowry/Lee/Bud/Hayes/Miller Lowry/Lee/Bud/Jeffries/Miller Lowry/Lee/Bud/Pat/Miller Lowry/Lee/Bud/Pat/Damp Lowry/Lee/Bud/Hill/Damp These all work for me
This early into the season, are the coaches still experimenting? The losses are equally on them, since it looks like RA still doesn't have a regular rotation. The way he started theSA preseason game should have also been the way he started aainst GSW--with Hill on board.
I said it at the beginning of the year, we have too many players, and that can sometimes give too many options to the coach and cause problems. That is precisely where we are as a team. I have been very unimpressed so far with how the coaches have handled playing time. They need to shrink the rotation to 9 men and go at it... DD
I agree with you DD. We have a lot of good players and no superstar. But I wouldn't blame the coaches or at least Adelman just yet. Adelman is a very smart coach and just like you and I, he sees what is happening on the court only he sees it and is able to interpret far more intelligently than you and I. Still he is not a psychic. He doesn't see it before it happens. Last week after the Dallas game I was pissed at Turner. He put Budinger in the game and decided to leave him in longer and left Martin on the sidelines probably because Martin and Bud are defensive liabilities together. Logical thought but what was illogical is keeping your best player on the bench over Bud. Against the Lakers he made the adjustment that Turner failed to make and that is to use Bud as martins replacement and Lee as Battier's replacement. Smart move by the coach IMO. Other things he saw that he adjusted for. Scola is average at best defender. But is above average scorer. In order to keep his offense on the court he brought in Hayes to cover Lee. Adelman was afraid David Lee would torch Scola. So he decided on Hayes over Miller, Hill and continued that idea with Jeffries in there. That adjustment might have cost us the game but the reality is Monta Ellis was shooting lights out with hands in his face. Hard to coach against that. He acknowledged in hindsight using Hill might have been a better option but it is not a no brainer. As hill has shown me an inconsistency on defense. Adelman may have the hardest coaching job in the league right now. Just as you said in an earlier post juggling Yao's minutes it is almost to just not play him. The hardest coaching job in the league right now belongs to Adelman because he has to do exactly that. And what consider impossible he is working hard to figure out the best way to do it. Because not playing Yao is not an option. Whether what you say is true or not, Yao is going to play whatever minutes he is allowed. You have to do it because the goal is to have him ready for the end of the season and playoffs and that will never happen by benching him. He has to play into game shape and this team has to learn to play with him as well as without. it's a hard thing to coach and unless Adelman turns psychic expect some ugly games that with hindsight you and I would have coached differently. In the end we do need to shrink the rotation but there probably isn't a harder rotation to determine who should play and not. Trade for a superstar is the best solution.
NONE of us get to see what goes on in practice. Rick does. He may be seeing that Hill is slow on rotations or missing assignments, therefore he wasn't comfortable playing him in the game. We as fans shouldn't get on here AFTER the games with our hindsight and say what the coach (HOF coach by the way) should have done. We will not win every game no matter who we are playing or not playing. A lot of you get on here and say "if he would have played this player or that player we would have won.." NO! It doesn't work like that. The rotations will get worked out soon enough. It's only been 2 games. We are adding another player so there will need to be alittle while to figure out where and how he fits in. Patience people....
Rick has said in the past that the beginning of the season is about figuring out the team and trying to decide what the rotations should be... so I wouldn't weigh too much on what we've seen in the first two games. Basically, you want your team to be playing it's best ball after the all-star break. They create a game plan for these games at the beginning of the season, follow them, and see how it turns out. There's not a lot of adjustment in-game for Rick's staff at the beginning of the year... at least that's been my observation. It's the middle to end of the year where we see the best of his teams.
I think you determine who sits and who plays, Old Man Rock.... ....by determining if Yao Ming plays or not. The idea that the team would agree to an arbitrary number of minutes for Yao Ming to play on his return, knowing and understanding how much the team's success is going to be affected by his presence, is not a smart thing to have done. And that's stating it mildly. Yao Ming hasn't played meaningful basketball for the Rockets in a year and a half. To say that Yao would be rusty or that he would need time to reacclimate himself is more than obvious. And a necessary evil, as it happens. If the doctors "finally got it right" with Yao, then it makes no sense not to see what you have left with him. You need Yao if you've got any hopes of winning...much less chirping from the bushes about winning a championship. The team is suffering the same identity crisis it was seeking to avoid by taking Yao out of the equation last season. It's still too early in the season for anybody to be up in arms about the Rockets' start to the season. But the bells are ringing early. The team, again, is trying to serve two purposes—play through Yao when he's in, and do something different when he's out. Getting Yao's foot properly fixed was supposed to take care of the "Yao's out" part of this mess. You do nothing productive halving of partitioning off Yao's minutes in some misguided plan to use Yao as a secret weapon come playoff time. In case anybody noticed, this is essentially the same team that was unable to make the playoffs last season, knowing that Yao wasn't going to be here. The Rockets need to make their minds up quickly. If Yao is your man (and I personally hope that he is), get him on the floor and play him. Get everybody else to fall in line behind him. Yao's the key. And if Yao isn't the key, for whatever reason, then you hand the reigns over to Aaron Brooks and Kevin Martin. That's partially happened anyway, from the looks of both of them. Martin and Brooks can both score. To say that they are both suspect defenders is being nice to them, but specialists are specialists. Neither of them need to worry about being defenders if there's no better offensive option than themselves. They can't begin to adequately defend their positions (which is what all good players must do before you anoint them as game-changers) if they have no reason or incentive to do so. Here's where Coach Rick Adelman's "system" can become a problem, if he's stubbornly wed to it. The PLAYERS make the system. Not the other way around. This isn't college, or a Disney movie set where you can get away with a one-size-fits-all mindset. The players who give you the best chance to win are the guys you get in the system. And then you tailor the system to what those players do best. Phil Jackson would need Tex Winter's triangle offense surgically removed from his backside at this point. But he's tailored it to his PLAYERS. From Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen to Shaquille O'Neal to Kobe Bryant to Paul Gasol. If Yao is only as good as Zydrunas Ilgauskus to you now, then stop pretending that you need him in order to compete, and you're "...monitoring his minutes to avoid further injury..." or any of this other drivel. The Rockets are not in ANY position to dictate to ANYBODY how they intend to go about getting wins. Not the way The Boston Celtics or Los Angeles Lakers (or even the San Antonio Spurs) were and are, because the Rockets have not WON. Virtually EVERY team that wants to win has to do so by establishing itself by being one of the top teams in its conference and league. The Celtics or Lakers, or even the Spurs, can fiddle around in the regular season and squeak into the playoffs if they like. Those teams have already WON. They've already proven themselves at some point by having one of the best records in the league. They know what they have and what they're doing and who they can count on. They can wait and expect to win when it counts because they've done that. The Rockets, whatever talent they have, do not have that luxury. And they shouldn't act like it, by playing worse tricks with Yao Ming's minutes than that "Mindfreak" character, Chris Angel. I pray I'm wrong, and that this experiment doesn't cost the Rockets. But then, even a broken clock is right twice a day.....
Yeah I was thinking around the same lines with the second unit. Given Hayes/Jeffries offensive limitation, it's smart to put a more offensive minded 4 like Hill or Pat with Dampier...
Come on, DD..... ....that's too easy. Blake Griffin didn't have a cap placed on his minutes in the preseason. As soon as Griffin's kneecap mended, he went back to playing. That's the best sort of adjustment any player or team can make to a returning player. Get healthy. Get on the court. Griffin and Yao are different players. But people naturally tend to make allowances and exceptions for some players and absolve or excuse others. Natural. Happens all the time. But these guys are pros. The should be playing if they're healthy and good enough. No amount of sentiment (misguided or otherwise) should govern that. We've talked about this in passing, you and I. The Rockets have to decide if their fortunes lie with Yao Ming… …or somebody else. The team needs to play through Yao or through Aaron Brooks or Kevin Martin. Don't ask me what I think…
I think if Yao is not going to play every day, then he is not really helping all that much. Playing every other day, or missing back to back games screws up the chemistry. And Adelman has a tough time figuring it out, on offense and defense. Dampier will help with their funnel everything to the middle philosophy.... We shall see, but I am unconvinced about Yao at this point......and I felt better about it in the preseason. DD
You are absolutely correct, sir. Except for the "…Adelman has a hard time figuring it out…" part. If Adelman can't "figure it out on offense or defense", it's precisely because he has no idea what he has available in players. Specifically, Yao. Adelman "figured it out" fine last season, when he knew exactly what he had going into the season. Systems don't make players great. The players make themselves great. Systems give your team a structure to consistently function in. But players win the games. On the court. Where and when it matters. You have every right to be unconvinced about Yao, DD. The Rockets themselves have created that uncertainty, for no reasonably good purpose. Well… …other than their love of the big fella. Cute. They'll get an awful lot of donations, come Tux 'n' Tennis time. Maybe they'll get around to winning a game or three in the meantime…
You already know the answer. Adelman is slow as a slug. He will eventually adjust to use Dampier but it will be a slow process that will cost us some wins in the meantime for him to find out when to use him and also it will be slow process putting him into the lineup. My best guess is we have to start screaming for Dampier and having knee jerk reactions on Clutchfans around the time he starts to finally give Dampier minutes. Definately not soon the way Adelman rolls.
Pretty much how I feel except I knew this would be an issue before the preseason began. You can't yo-yo the centerpiece of your team in and out of the lineup and not screw your chemistry. I've said it before and I'll say it again, either play the guy as much (or as little) as you need each night to win or don't play him at all. I'd rather have him practice and not play until the the All Star break if that means when he comes back he can play 30+ minutes (and far more than that on certain nights) every single game.
I appreciate your well thought out post. I would say perhaps we are all over reacting at this point. There are only 2 back to back games left before december. And Morey has said we will reevaluate Yao at that point. Unless you see something negative in Yao's progression I expect Yao's minutes will increase. I also am hopeful that will include some B2B minutes as well. So the team will have a lot more games with Yao on the court than without which will help the team gel. In fact in the next 21 games Yao will only miss 3. Yes those are 3 disruptive games, but if that is finished by december than I think the team will be fine. The bottom line is we have no say on it. I am sure Yao is pissed he can't play more. I know Adelman hates it. Sooner or later the Doctors will have to admit there is no true amount of minutes they can say that will guarantee no injury to Yao. The problem is all you have to do is watch Yao on the floor when Les is in the stands and you can see he is worried. Every timing Yao falls or gets a hard fould Les cringes in pain. The thought of losing his Golden Wall of CHina is more than he can bear. Can you blame him. He has a link into the China Market that very few can claim. He doesn't want to lose and he is being extremely over protective. In time Yao willl complain enough because Yao wants to help the team and he will force Les to allow him to play more. P.S. If I gave you the impression I thought Ilgauskas was better than Yao please understand that is not true. I watched Ilgauskus play last night and thought he was better than last year not better than Yao now. He is not better than Yao now and definitely will not be better than Yao by the season end. But I don't team he has he doesn't need to be. Wow thay are so talented I don't see anyone beating them!
