ariza bulking up in the offseason and moving to starting pf deserves its own thread. perfect way to salvage w/e is left o fhim and use it to be a starter instead of a backup forward.. he's already a good rebonder for a sf. good defense, two things you want from your starting 4 or 5. 3pt shooting and decent handling/passing make him really good choice. i can see him avg 7-8 rebounds next to capela. extend his contract for 2-3 more years at a higher price cuz he deserves it. am i forgetting anything? oh yeah...DONT PLAY HIM 35-40MPG! HE'S NOT A ****IN SUPERSTAR HE'S A ROLE PLAYER! high 20s wouldl be perfect. pipe dream but realisitc pipe dream.
anybody up for a couple more "who do you want to face in the first round" threads? . . . you can still count the existing ones on just one hand
I want this thread to be our first round matchup. Salacious B. Crumb can't stay in front of Harden, and would get blasted in a pick'n roll situation. James Cordon can't box out Nene. and the media conspiracy can't knock down clutch shots, they're to fidgety.
deserves its own thread. New York Times picks the Rockets to win in four. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/13/sports/nba-playoffs-schedule-preview.html permalink: https://nyti.ms/2pak8UU No. 3 Houston Rockets (55-27) vs. No. 6 Oklahoma City Thunder (47-35) Game 1: 9 p.m. Eastern, Sunday on TNT The story lines between James Harden and Russell Westbrook are endless. A pair of reckless and talented guards, linked forever through their shared time in Oklahoma City, and pitted against each other in a hectic race for M.V.P., they are perhaps the two players in the N.B.A. most vital to their teams’ success and they will undoubtedly put on a show in this series since neither will bother playing much defense. With the stars canceling each other out, this series comes down to teammates and coaching, and that gives a distinct advantage to the Rockets, a squad reworked into something beautiful by Coach Mike D’Antoni. Free of the headaches of New York and Los Angeles, D’Antoni got back to what he does best: Crafting thrilling offenses out of versatile players and allowing for almost unfathomable risk to set his team up for maximum reward. If Houston’s shooters go cold this could be a series, but that is a rather huge if. Pick: Rockets in four
Maybe deserves it's own thread but probably not; Mike D'Antoni on Mike & Mike this morning. Summing up your season in totality? No doubt management & ownership wanted uptempo & threes. That's the way I like to coach. It all goes back to the players. They've accepted what we're doing, changed their game a little bit, starting with James. No resistance. He went way above my imagination. He did it to perfection. Pat going to the two, Eric sixth man, every guy did something that made the team as good as we are. Initial conversation with James? It went really well. I kinda compared him & show him how he could be Steve Nash & do things even Nash couldn't do because he's 6'5 & really strong. To be honest, I said during my interview "James should be PG." I'm sure they passed that by him before they agreed to hire me. He's done things this year that I'm amazed. James does things every night, nearly a triple-double, the way he's able to get everyone involved & score. He's been terrific. MVP case for Harden? Tough for a coach. I'm biased, I love James. He's had an incredible year. I'm sure if I'm coaching Westbrook & Kawhi, I'm saying the same thing. I'm happy we had James. I'm happy it's a team thing. MVP, team wins it. ... I hate all the individual awards anyways. MVP is the Houston Rockets. That's where I'm at. Game plan against Russ? He can win games by himself. Starts in transition. Can't turn the ball over. Whole team has to get back. Can't foul him. Make him a jump shooter & even then that might not work. Play off guys who aren't as good as him. Clog the lane. Then we have to make shots. It all ties in together. We'll see if we perform at a higher level than they can. We can because we have more depth & shooters. If we're able to do that, we'll beat them. If not, they'll win. Phoenix teams, the way the game is being played now, ever sit back & say I tried to tell you guys this 20 years ago & you made fun of me? So you think I'm sitting around being petty? Of course I do! I have a whole list of names. It does make you feel good. I didn't think we were totally crazy in Phoenix and now I regret we didn't push the envelope further. I blinked as years went by & we couldn't get by SA & then went away from it when we should have doubled-down. We didn't realize this is the way you could do it until GS pulled through. I hold myself responsible. Just really running out of confidence in what we were doing. If a guy has a shot at a three, takes an extra dribble in & takes a two, do you bench him? Oh yeah, he'll never play again. We let them do what they do. We set everything up around 3pt shots or layups. We won't fun of them too much. We don't ever say don't take a two. If you're taking a contested two, it's a bad shot. If it's open two, it's an okay shot, depending on who shoots it. We have to stay away from bad shots. A contested two is 35%. Contested 3 is 27%. Contested 3 > contested 2. Wide open 2 is 45%. That's league average. If you have guys who can't shoot 45%, which I've had many through the years, then it doesn't make sense. It's mathematically not right. You try to stay away but I don't try to limit players. If that's what your game is & you're good enough, fine. We may have to try & find better players.
Glad this thread is back. It always deserves to be bumped to the top because every post deserves its own thread
Anyone have quotes of what shannon and skip are saying? Ill bet skip is picking the thunder even though he says rockets have a way better team
Interesting but I disagree. We have ryan to play the 4 ... but I do want ariza to play less mins I think when you get older its better to take weight OFF vs put it on. My ideal solution for Trevor is to move him to backup 3 and then depending on how dekker does throughout the season maybe move him back to the starting lineup as you get closer to the playoffs. Dekker gets more minutes and experience ( only if he proves he can shoot ) and has a higher upside at this point than trevor. Trevor can play 20-5 mpg and go harder because of it , making him much better. They can play together too vs some lineups. If Dekker isn't looking great then you move Trev back into the starting lineup only now... hes rested.
it is better take waeight off when u get old but there cna be exceptions and this is one of them. he'd be at around 26-29mpg if not that then they should keep him as a starter but way less minutes. i dont think dekker will outplay ariza for a whole season anytime soon
