No personnel changes are needed...yet As with all threads, this is just my opinion, but I don't think a personnel change is needed. MAYBE, trading away some of your secondary role (I say secondary b/c Yao and Tracy also have roles) players for better shooters, but that's it. I love T-Mac and I love Yao on our team. I do, however, after watching last night's game (I know, only one game) that maybe T-Mac needs to defer even more. Trust in his teammates even more. We seriously didn't run the offense any differently last night. With Tracy last night, we probably would have won actually. Just let the ball handlers handle the ball. He doesn't have to get the ball right after it crosses half-court. We are still making him create the offense like last year still. I guess what I'm ultimately saying is, the last couple of games, although losses, actually have me not as worried. I feel like we *might* be turning the corner. RickA is up and looks actively involved in coaching the game now. Rafer is making, oh my gosh! Our top problems: NO, not Tracy, NO not Yao... 1.) Turnovers 2.) Poor shooting 3.) Free-throw shooting If you fix at least 1 or two of those we are actually in decent shape. If you can fix all three to an acceptable level, we are a very, very good team. Anyway, thanks for reading. I didn't want to read the other threads just reading titles and rolling over the preview. I'm trying to stay positive this season, because I'm in the school of thought that our team needs our support. We support them through thick and thin. Holla, T
I think we have shown flashes of being a really good team with our present roster. Beating Utah and Phoenix on the road shows this. We just haven't been consistent. In my opinion, our biggest problem is our shooting. We fix that and we're a much better team. The FTs hurt too, as do the TOs, but I put shooting as our biggest problem. If we could hit our 3's as well as we did last season then we'd be fine. Like you said, a small trade could help some. The idea of trading Tracy is pretty silly to me as we won't get any value in return and we need his scoring on this team. I'd like to trade James, Francis, Head, Snyder, or even Battier or Scola for a steady offensive contributor who can play good D. I don't know if such a player exists that we have a shot at.
I agree with you. I didn't list the problems in any particular order. They are all equally important to me. If you turn it over, you don't even get a shot. If you miss FTs, you are just giving away points and possessions. And of course, if you can't make open shots at a decent percentage, you should find a new sport to play. Head showed some good things last night. As I've always said, he'll still make about 2 really bad plays a game, but he really is a positive for us on the floor. Mike James REALLY needs to get out of that HORRIBLE funk he's in. Bonzi is playing much much better. Scola needs more confidence out there. He needs to know we expect much from him. More than he's giving at this point. Rafer is playing well. Battier could up his 3pt% a little. I believe I share the same sentiment as Mac. It's not time to panic yet, but if we don't see continuing signs of improvement over the next 5-10 games. It might be time to start thinking the season is shot.
You know what...I agree with everything. I've yet to hop on the bandwagon of thinking we need to blow it up because I do think the pieces are there; we've just lacked a full commitment, probably for a number of reasons. It's amazing what one game chalk full of effort can do. That was a great game last night. I absolutely loved the intensity and the resiliance, which is obviously what we've been needing and lacking. And Rick, finally doing his job! Wow...I was a happy fan last night, for the first time in a long time this season. I think this could really be a make or break road trip for this team this season. And last night showed that somewhere inside all of them there is some pride. So I hope they use this time without McGrady to gain that confidence, to learn that they CAN play without him when he does what he does...so hopefully when he does make a healthy return, we do't have to rely on McGrady as much to do everything. Take this time and build on it. Let's make it a turning point. You had every excuse in the world to pack it in last night and didn't. So I really hope the effort keeps on carrying over from here on out. Everything else will take care of itself.
posted this in the wrong thread earlier. In theory, you are absolutely correct. We won't get equal value for him and trading him away starts us over. I am sick and tired of Tmac's play, but I am all for making a subsidiary trade and giving it another shot. However, if we were to pick up a third scorer, ala Magette, and by the end of the year it's the same results. Don't let the door hit you in the ass Tmac. You know, it's somewhat ironic. In the Alanis Morisette kinda way. He begs to get traded to the team he wants and then.....
Hey, it's good to know others feel the same sentiments, even if you have your gripes which we are all entitled to. It's just that there *are* positives within the mess that we see so far. We've been in this situation before. As you said, they need to trust in themselves with McGrady out. So he can just feed off them sometimes too. Your siggy is funny. You are making an assumption he plays all 82 games
yeah, way ahead of you...but I didn't know how to accurately judge how many games a season he plays...guess i could just average it out over his time with the rockets or something. i certainly have a lot of gripes, but they all stem from the inconsistent effort and passion that we've seen from them this season. i've said all along that as long as i see the intensity, i'll be a happy camper. and any game that we play as hard as last night, we'll have a chance to win...no matter who's in the lineup. one other thing i really liked was the zone experiment. looked like they tried a 2-3 a couple possessions and then switched into a 1-2-2. it killed our rebounding, but if we can figure that out i'd really like to see more of it because our guards haven't been that great with on the ball defense. and aaron brooks...it shouldn't take that long before this kid's a regular in the rotation. i wouldn't have played him down the stretch either, but i really think he's close. yao too...i want so bad for him to succeed, and he alone deserved that win last night. but hey, if there's such a thing as a good loss (i usually don't buy those arguments), this was definitely it. just gotta learn how to win without your best player...and as long as they play that hard, it's not that far off.
head....meet sand. Sorry, but I think this basic group of guys classifies under good, but not good enough. League history is scattered with these teams: Stockton/Malone, Barkley Sixers and Suns, Drexler Blazers, Webber Kings, Cuban Mavs, Run TMC, Pippen/Sheed Blazers, Price/Daugherty Cavs, Kemp Sonics, Shaq Magic, Miller Pacers, Kidd Nets, Cassell or Moncrief Bucks, etc. We haven't shown we're not even CLOSE to being contenders, and we're supposed to keep riding this out? This sounds pessimistic, and maybe it is, but I think you have to question whether we're holding on too tight to something that just isn't taking us anywhere. It would be pretty unpopular, but were I GM right now, I'd be looking into selling off everyone other than Yao, Scola, and Brooks, pushing for draft picks and future (say summer 2009) cap relief. Evan
You are absolutely entitled to your stance. I respect it, b/c I can defintely see where you are coming from. I guess my thoughts are, if I were given just two months to prove myself at my job before I got fired that's a tough bill to fill. I think, all things given, we as real fans of this team have to find a way to be patient and wait it out juuuust a bit long to see if this team will continue to show improvement. If it just looks Knick-ish over the next 5-10 games, then I'll be the first to suggest trying something different. At that point, we would have been under RickA and new team for about 3 months. If there are no signs of life there, you annouce time of death. Until then, I'm holding on to the hope that there is still life and fight within this squad and team. Rick needs to find out what's wrong with this team. They might be coming around, or they might be crashing bad. "It's not Lupus." - Gregory House M.D.
They have (even with McGrady) the slowest team in the NBA....dead last in fastbreak points. All of the top teams including the Spurs are averaging ~100 ppg..... They have a potentially dominant Center who can be taken out of the game by average athletes using a double team (NBA zone) because outside of Wells and James and maybe Brooks...not one role player can create their own shot... And the Rockets don't need any personnel changes? Shakes head and walks away....
Our biggest problem is sustaining intensity... on both ends of the court. This team seems to a.) tend to coast too much, and b.) gets its energy sapped quickly when things start to go south. Both of these things are unacceptable if you're an NBA team (especially since, history shows that no matter how much talent you have... if you play hard, you can win games). The problem is, they only tend to play hard when they feel like they have something to prove (T-mac is out, on national TV, or against a big-name team).
That will always be the case as long as Yao is on this team. They will always be a half-court team first, and their offense will always have to feature shooters to combat the Yao double-team.
It is not silly to trade T-Mac. The thinking that you can get value in the trade is also silly. The guy just doesn't have the leadership and passion to all out win. He also gets injured too many times. Rockets just need to move on without T-Mac.
Right on. But hey, they did play hard last night. And they showed great resiliancy...so let's keep it going.
From the comment...before your time...suggest googling "Kareem Jabbar" and "Showtime Lakers". Get back to us later.
Wrong. When the Lakers were great in the mid-80s, Kareem was NOT the focus of the offense. He was basically a decoy a large part of the time. The days of "let's dump it into Kareem and let him go to work," were long gone when the Lakers were winning those titles in the 80s.
I agree with that, so I'm not going to bash Adelman, Scola, or Brooks. But we've been watching the McGrady-Yao tandem for several years now and it's getting harder and harder for me to envision a sudden leap into the Finals. In the modern NBA, championship teams have pretty much been lightning in the bottle instant leaps: Heat, Brown/Sheed Pistons, Duncan Spurs, Phil Jackson joining the Lakers, etc. The days of teams slowly gelling themselves into champions doesn't really exist. I do believe that provided the perfect coach (Jackson or Popovich), this squad would leap - but not under easy does it Rick. I don't believe we could bring such a coach in, no matter what money we were offering. I believe the Rockets could contend with Rick - but not with la de da McGrady. I believe that a contending roster built around Yao could happen and is much more realistic move. All opinion, of course. Evan
We are 12-14 right now and everyone is saying that the sky is falling. Would anyone believe that the Eastern Conference Champion Cavaliers have an even worse record with the same team? The Cavs are now 12-15. I'd still put money on the Cav's to make the playoffs. Just like I'd put money on the Rockets to make the playoffs.
Mostly true. He was a minor player with the back-to-back championships, but was still ringing up over 20 ppg as late as 85-86.
Kareem was also a lot quicker than Yao was, even as he got into his late 50's I think that the problem is that our rotations are not set. I like AB coming off the bench for some penetration and dishes. Also, if Scola can turn it around that would be huge. It's tough when you have Shane/Rafer/Hayes out there b/c none of them can really ever create their own shot. Rafer can penetrate but cannot finish Last night was a good sign...we can still turn this thing around with a healthy TMac.
