Something I’ve been thinking about lately: the pogo stick big man breed has been around since when…the late 90′s? (I honestly can’t remember rail-thin big men from earlier in that decade; I guess since they filled in with 4 years of college; perhaps better nutritional habits…?) In any event, the prevalence of that body type is a recent innovation in our league’s history. The funny thing is, unless I’m forgetting someone, the Rockets have been burned every single time they put hope in one of these specimens.
There was first Eddie Griffin from the Francis era who showed flashes his rookie season before regressing his second year and then completely breaking down psychologically as the warning signs had indicated. There was Stromile Swift who signed a fat deal in ’06 and showed a total of ten minutes of productive basketball before being dealt as a negative asset. Now there are Jordan Hill and Hasheem Thabeet, the latter not yet really having gotten a chance with the former appearing more intellectually inept with each game. All this against the backdrop of productive undersized power forwards from Othella Harrington, to Kenny Thomas, to Scolandry and now Patrick Patterson. It really makes one wonder.
One of the public’s greatest criticisms of Moreyball is the apparent enamoration with undersized stubs. But can we really blame Morey? These guys, time and time again, validate their critics. The stubs will never be ‘elite’ but they almost always provide some production. On a 12-man roster where assets are scarce and invaluable, is it worth the risk to waste picks/spots on projects? I think obviously, if you have a top-3 pick and someone like Kevin Garnett is available, that’s a no-brainer. But if you’re up, and a 6’10 220 pounder with plus-athleticism but a low motor and low IQ is on the board, do you take a chance?
I ask because it’s become apparent that this team’s greatest need is size. I just don’t know where they are going to get it; Dwight Howard is not walking through that door. Some fliers pan out (see: DeAndre Jordan) but those are few and far between. I get the sense that this team will cast its lot with undersized hard-workers and hope that IQ and intensity can overbear the chance of a breakout in the aggregate. We’ll see if that works.
‘Huq’s Pen’ is a daily column of musings written by Red94 founder/editor Rahat Huq.
