I have grown tired of Tari's terrible play. He had one burst of energy rebounding last night, but besides that was pretty terrible. I'd bring him off the bench until further notice.
Maybe unpopular opinion, but I'm still rooting for him. Hopefully he can get out of his funk. This team needs all the positive contribution it can.
And he was soooo on the money for the first few months of the season. Tari's just fallen apart lately. Maybe he was offended that GetOffMyDickerson never mentioned him.
A question is why do our players mechanics get worse during season with our coaching staff vs the coaches they work with during offseason
Tari has no business starting. I don't know why teams guard his outside shot anymore. Make him make ONE before you give him any respect. Either something is physically wrong or he's an extremely mentally weak player. Sorry mama Eason, your boy stinks.
It’s a shame that Ime studied under Pop but doesn’t hold players accountable like Pop did. He would sit all the starters if they weren’t playing well. He didn’t care who the player was.
The weird thing is Ime will bench guys, but he's so inconsistent about it. Fred had plenty of awful performances last year, but the only time I recall him getting pulled was at Utah late in the season when he was so bad that he damn near cost them the game. Jalen wound up taking over playmaking duties and the team pulled away and won. And speaking of Jalen, we know Ime never had any hesitation to bench him. Obviously this year, he's more than happy to do it with Reed when he struggles. And Josh sadly has gotten the shaft in favor of DFS. But otherwise the rest of the guys usually get a pass. KD and Alpi did get benched in that blowout loss at the Clippers, but that's about it for them. Jabari never got pulled even in January when he was horrible. Amen got benched one time this year and that was in Orlando when Reed helped lead that 19-point comeback. And Tari's only time getting benched that I can recall was last week vs the Pelicans.
my favorite play from the other night was when he rebounded the ball with 40 seconds left and down by 6, decided to hoist a contested 2 with reed sheppard wide open right behind him.
I actually went and crunched the numbers comparing Tari's recent play to Reed's and Josh's. It's a borderline fireable offense that Ime is still starting Tari when you look at the stats. Let's start from 2/10 in that first home game vs the Clippers right before the break. That's when Tari's horrible slump began. In the 16 games since then: Tari has started all 16 of them. The team is 9-7 in those games. Reed has started 4 of them. The team is 3-1 in those games. Josh has started none of them. He's played in 13 of the games and has 3 DNPs in the rest. Tari has averaged just under 29 minutes in his 16 games. Reed has averaged 31 1/2 minutes in his 16 games. Josh has averaged just over 15 minutes in his 13 games. Tari is shooting 33.1% from the field and 16.9% from 3. Reed is shooting 44.7% from the field and 40.7% from 3. Josh is shooting 41.5% from the field and 45.8% from 3. There is ZERO justification to keep running Tari out there with the rest of the starters. Even Ime's hatred of Reed isn't a valid excuse because he could easily plug in Josh who's actually shooting better than Reed from downtown over the past 5 weeks. And I'll throw in another comparison just so I can't be accused of cherry picking the games since mid-February. The team's records for each player as a starter this season are: Tari - 19-12 Reed - 8-2 Josh - 20-9 Again, the numbers speak for themselves. Tari even when he was playing well wasn't good enough to warrant starting over Josh or Reed. Now with him looking like he doesn't even belong in the G-League, there's really no excuse.
Right now, Tari does not look like an NBA rotation player. Considering that Tari has been absolutely dreadful for a while, it is amazing that the Rockets still perform better than they normally do with Tari as a starter. If one takes your non-cherry picked stats at face value, your non-cherrypicked stat suggests the Rockets are better with Tari starting than Amen, Durant, and JSJ. Tari is incredibly impactful when he is on, and the Rockets looked really good with him starting prior to his last injury. Tari is incredibly impactful when he is off, and the Rockets have been suffering because of it since he's come back. Not sure if Tari should be playing right now much less starting. To me, Tari looks good when healthy, but his health this season has been very concerning as he's been getting worse the further he's away from his surgery than better.
Obviously the Rockets were winning more often earlier in the season in Tari's starts when he was hitting 50% from 3 vs lately when he's hovered in the teens. They're 9-7 in his starts since 2/10 when his awful slump began. They were 10-5 in his previous starts this season. And they were 12-4 last season when he started. BTW, that last stat actually UNDERSELLS how good they were with him starting last season cuz at least a couple of those games were when Ime was resting other starters for load management. My bigger issue is that Ime insists on starting Tari alongside Alpi, Amen, Jabari, and KD. THAT is what's really hurting the team. That particular starting five simply doesn't work. We have no PGs on the floor, 2 non-shooters in Alpi and Amen, and with Tari now slumping, it's more like having 3 non-shooters. It's why even when the G-League Warriors come to town, the Rockets find themselves down 22-11 nearly 8 minutes into the first quarter. Ime has got to get over this obsession he has with playing as many wings as possible because it's killing the team offensively.
I'm only pointing out that using the win-loss record for starters can only be used in a small sample to show the Rockets struggle with Tari. Tari's problem as a starter is he's not playing well along with the Rockets having a lot of starters being wings. I think Tari's biggest issue starting is he's not healthy enough. On his successes as a starter prior to his last injury, he was hitting 3s at a rate closer to his career average than 50%. Tari's flirting with 50% was based on a hot streak as a backup. On the two many wings, that is more on Stone and Ime than Tari. The season Tari minutes have been great with Amen and JSJ off the floor. I don't know what the Rockets do with Tari the way he's playing. At some point, he'll play better whether this year or next. Or maybe he won't. Tari, when he's heathy, looks so good. When Tari's not playing good, the Rockets just don't have enough players playing well and healthy.
