ESPN's early look at the West/playoff contenders

Stupid, how do you feel about depth and do you have an approach you would love to recommend?

 

I love roster depth but don't get seduced by it. The name of the game is "quality" and not "quantity" on your roster.

Just get yourself 3 star type players and fill the roster full of role players and you are set. Role players can always be had via trade, draft and FA. Each year they are available to be signed. Star players are not as easily obtained.

I would rather have 3 really good players and little depth then a bunch of average players because in the long run when things matter the 3 good players will take over the game.

The Rockets right now have decent depth but I would like to parlay some of that depth (Cato, Rice, Mobley and perhaps Griffin depending on who we get) to get another good star player to go along with Yao and Francis. Then if we are a little thin in the depth department because of the trade we just sign some FA players and use draft picks to flush out the roster.

 

Did you watch their Finals run based around Camby and Sprewell going full court?

 

That backcourt rotation gives me the CREEPS!!!

If we can't improve over Moochie, that's one thing, but get a decent combo guard to cover the back-up two. Hawk hustles and plays good D, but on offense we're going 4 on 5. Cato has the same problem, so when those two play together: 3 - 5 on offense.

Get Jon Barry, Get Piatkowski, Get Tyronne Lue, GET SOMEBODY!!

 

Deuce, I see where you are coming from; however, our view of the existing talent is very different. First, Tmo is the ultimate role player and I cannot see how we could just non-chalantly put him out to pasture.

Second, I give Mobley alot more respect. In my opinion he is just below Allan Houston. In fact he does more for the team outside of scoring than Allan does and who is to say that Mobes does not flourish with JVG. He has averaged 20 pts/ game already in this league. The same goes for Taylor and Griffin. You would listen to the folks on this bbs and you would think that he is ready for the crap heap. Folks should go back and watch the second game last year against the Suns. In that game he ran the floor well, handled the ball, went in the low post twice, once again Amare. He has quite a few ways of scoring and as the 4th or 5th option on this team, you cannot do any better. I do not see how EG is not a star about to happen. Again JVG's system may just allow this boy to do wonders. We have to remember that Rudy T's system typically gets players to perform less than, instead of, more than their potential.

The Lakers did not use your approach. They had 2 all-stars and seem to have gone for depth rather than simply going for a 3rd all-star. This is going to be one of the deepest LA team ever. Based on the list below we are showing probably as much depth as LA but how well we do against them will still depend on the gap between Shaq/Kobe and Ming/Francis.
1. Shaq...........Ming
2. Malone........EG
3. George........Posey
4. Payton....... Francis
5. Kobe...........Mobley

6. Medve........Cato
7. Cook..........Taylor
8. Fox.............Rice
9. Fisher.........Moochie
10. Rush.........Hawk

 

for the first time, i agree with espn.

 

Eric, I do not agree on your assessment of Hawk. I believe he can hit the open j, like he did in the SL and he handles the ball very well and is a pretty good passer and setup man.

 

They didn't? Did I miss where they added an all star in Gary Payton and a near all star in Karl Malone????

Certainly they added depth via the draft but like I said, that is where you CAN add your role players.

Make no mistake about it, this offseason for the Lakers was all about adding another STAR player to the mix. They got one in Payton and Malone while not a star player at this stage of his career is at worst a super role player.

 

Because every year you describe depth as rotation. Look above: you did it again by saying JVG would never have an 8-man rotation, as if no one does it, then called Kevin Willis a rotation player.

Obviously, you are correct in saying the more vets you have on your bench the better, because it provides you with more flexibility. But don't describe that as a rotation...because huge rotations don't necessarily work very well, whereas a quality bench from 1-12 can...as long as no one outside the rotation complains for getting no minutes.

Last year you wanted to see TMo and Hawkins getting rotational playing time, as well as Boki. You can't play that many people every game....no one gets into the flow. It can hurt you. So, maybe you view this as semantics, but I view playing too many people each game a mistake....and that's what I see you describing every year.

I agree if you are merely saying that it's a good thing to have quality guys like Kevin Willis and Kerr to sit there collecting DNPs or <3mins.

 

Nike, I did some checking on that and they averaged 85 points in 20 playoff games that year. They failed to reach 80 in 9 of those games.

 

It is hard not to get in playoff with 48 wins. Has any team done that?

 

Right now I can't see Yao scoring 20pts a game. I can see him scoring around 17-18 pts, and all our outside players scoring 12+ ppg.

People are really expecting too much out of Yao right now. He will be in his second season as a NBA player, and already teams will be double and triple teaming him. With the help of Pat and Gumby, I can see Yao becoming very good at passing out of double teams. Last year he did horrible vs. double teams; which resulted in several turnovers.

With Yao creating open shots for Cat, Posey, and Rice, as well as creating lanes for Steve; we should become a very good half-court team under Gumby(Something that is a must for the playoffs.)

 

HP, you are right in the sense that I have sometimes mixed things up. However, I still cannot see why the team cannot have two players share 48 mins at each position and have able bodied replacements just in case one goes down. I have to think that it did not happen like that in the past because the talent-level across the league did not allow it. Some may not agree but I think the lalent level allows it now. There is a point of diminishing returns however if we take the projected Laker squad and go through the season with a ten-man rotation rather than eight, I believe the team with the longer rotation will be the stronger one.

The style of play that I wanted last year could not be done with an eight man rotation. Similarly the things I am hearing that JVG wants to do I cannot see how it can be done with less than 10 men playing regularly. The talent is there as I argued last year. To play pressure defense, run, run, run and stay healthy and fresh in these days of back to backs, you need to have a talent-laden team. The team that plays the closest to what I am thinking is Dallas and their defense is not even there. They play 10 players regularly.

 

The reason many teams do not play 10 guys (ie, two guys sharing each position) is because there is another proven philosophy regarding BBall...play your best players, and rotate their rest so you are never without a star on the court.

I most definitely agree that we don't have enough depth. It's a major problem. I also agree that it is wise to play your best players at a reasonable pace during the regular season. However, I also believe you must play your best players in the playoffs at increased minutes vs their regular season minutes. So, while I can understand Yao, Francis and Mobley getting 32, 35, and 30 mpg, respectively, during the season, I'd expect the numbers to go up 2-3mpg or more during the playoff season. This usually knocks someone off the rotation.

I also don't really believe in going 3 deep for the sole purpose of developing a youngin. The youngin's have to at least beat out the 2nd stringer, or you go get a vet like Kerr who doesn't need minutes to do veteran spot duty.

lastly, the Nolan Richardson style of 40minutes of hell, or Pitino's full court press requires a bunch of quality NBA defenders to begin with. Note that that stuff mainly works in college due to intimidation and the fact you can fluster many amateur ball-handlers. The NBA players can burn defenses that take too many chances. That is why it took a long time for Popovich to allow Ginobili to run wild on D. Popovich wouldn't allow just anyone to do that.

Also, just because you are theoretically fielding fresher legs doesn't make you a better defense and 10 vs 9 players isn't going to make that big of a difference to take out your best players.

 

Wait a minute. Let me see if I can boil down your post to its essence: you are paying Eddie Munster a compliment.

 

HP is a closet Ginobili fan.

 

HP's rash judgment on Gino is going to haunt him for the rest of his cc.net career.

 

Good response HP. I do need you to step out of the box a bit. I get the sense that you tend towards the tried and proven as opposed to seeking to attain another competitive advantage. If towards the end of last year Tmo started playing so well that he was playing slightly better than both EG and MoT at the 4. SO here you have 3 above average PF's. If the rotation is ten then Tmo gets to play but if it is 8, Tmo sits. You seem to be saying that the team would be better off, had they made the playoffs, with one of them having to sit.

Regarding the Nolan Richardson thing, I can appreciate that it would be tough to do that in the pros, however this style where the opposing pg is unopposed until he gets past half court is the extreme opposite. I tend to think that they do not pick up the guy earlier so that they can save their legs as opposed to a fear of being burnt. Similarly on offense, walking up the ball is a no no. Nash and Van Exel do not. Neither does Kidd. Again there is the concern about saving legs. If the depth was there saving legs would be a lesser concern. Do you know how the opposing pg felt when, after being run all over the place by Nash and Van Exel, in comes Avery Johnson to keep it going.

This team has speed but it is seldom used. As I review the games the ones we won were mostly those where we were very active and ran the ball. I dream of a team where we are getting better in the fourth Q because 1. we are not tired and 2. the opposition is fading.

 

if you bothered watching the games you would know that much of that was due to lack of coaching. players have to be moving....... weak side screens??? picks off the ball??? these are things that need to be done to help Yao. Players i.e. francis stood on the arc, not moving, yelling YAO! YAO! YAO! all the while getting double and triple teamed. moochie was the first to start running backdoor cuts with ming and later steve followed suit.

last year's rockets were poorly coached and hopefully something can be done about this!!!