This story is about doors creaking shut and windows shooting open. It’s about the ever revolving door that is professional sports, and the inevitable knockout blow father time delivers to athletes, you, and me. It’s about space for improvement, a willingness to seek every square inch of that space out and claim it as your own, and reluctant denial in accepting when all that space has already been discovered. For some it’s like an elastic band stretching to the point of a split second tear. For others, it’s a drop of water slowly making its way through a dry paper towel. Once the band breaks or the towel is wet, there’s no going back. The only option is getting another one.
“We think he is a very talented power forward, scorer. He’s tough inside and can score close to the basket and can take you outside,” said Rockets director of global scouting Arturas Karnisovas. “He’s just tough—a tough player that can also defend.”
That quote was delivered by Rockets director of global scouting, Arturas Karnisovas. Who do you think it’s describing? Several players come to mind, but none more so than one in particular. These three sentences are peppered with words Luis Scola embodies: Talented, scorer, tough, tough, and tough. Karnisovas is probably just offering some kind, casual reassurance about Houston’s most valuable player. A tad unnecessary, as we’re hearing a scouting report in its most obvious form, but still, Scola’s the subject, right? Wrong.
When the Rockets picked Marcus Morris, the best case scenario was a supplemental selection—a talented collegian who barely squeaked into the lottery in a draft deemed by many to be a bone dry pool of poor 6th Man of the Year candidates. But maybe that best case scenario sold him a wee bit short.
There’s talk of Morris playing the three (like this guy?), using his size to post up more diminutive forwards and his toughness to stabilize quicker players on the defensive end, and that’s all well and dandy, but he’s the same size as Scola and might be able to fill the Argentinean’s shoes sooner rather than later. Here’s what highly reputed trainer/scout/coach/ESPN writer David Thorpe had to say upon hearing Houston drafted Marcus Morris:
He’s a very tough minded kid. The thing I liked about him was his ambition to be great. This is a guy who wants to be great. I would not say that about a lot of guys I’ve trained. A lot of guys want to get drafted. Marcus wants to be the best player on his team. I think he has the potential to be close.
And what I thought to be the most interesting point:
He has a fantastic looking 3-point shot. As he shoots more and more of it, he’ll be a strong player in that regard. I think he will be a 38 to 42 percent 3-point shooter. He’s very good coming off pin downs, very good coming off flares and other cross screens on the perimeter. At 6-8, he’s not an easy guy to close out on. And he’s very good at shot-fake attacking you when you do. He gets his hips down. He needs to get his hips down lower, but he can fake and get by people.
With Jordan Hill, Patrick Patterson, Morris, and Scola, the Rockets are overloaded at the power forward position. Someone has to go, and being that he re-signed to the tune of five years, $47 million last July, Scola doesn’t seem like a marked option. Or does he? Each and every year since entering the NBA as a 27-year-old rookie in 2007, Scola has raised his production in all phases of the game. His responsibilities increased (in 2008-09, his first season as a full-time starter, his usage rate was 19.3. Last season it spiked to 25.7 in only two more minutes per game) and so did his drawn attention.
He’s 31, and after surprising a few people in his first few years, is now firmly entrenched as a respected offensive weapon, the focus of many a defensive game plan. At that age, and with no element of surprise to cling to, how can Scola improve on what he’s already managed to mold himself into?
To some, Luis Scola remains “underrated” in a relative sense, but just how accurate is that assessment? The question we must ask moving forward is how much better can he actually get? And if he’s not getting better, is he getting worse? These questions can’t properly be answered until we’re given a decent sample size of Scola in action next season, but smart money would be on him declining more in the next four years than improving. He’s reputed as a solid double-double guy who’s tough, gutsy, and a quality leader in the frontcourt, but in reality his rebounding numbers don’t support that as an accurate reflection. Last year he registered over four offensive rebounds in a game just five times in 74 starts, which is pretty bad when looking at the lack of competition his own undersized teammates create. The Rockets’ poor defensive numbers rule out transitioning back as a possible excuse. Another reason for this might be that when Houston shoots the ball, there simply aren’t a lot of rebounding opportunities to be had, but the Rockets shot 45% from the field, good for 21st in the league (owning the 11th highest offensive rebound rate in the league doesn’t exactly help the argument.) They also posted the seventh highest pace (97.1 possessions per game), so shots were plentiful. Scola just wasn’t as great as his reputation precedes when it comes to keeping his team’s possessions alive. That’s a fact.
Because Luis Scola is such an admirable competitor, this is tough to write. Watching him play the game of basketball against guys who clearly possess superior athleticism in a way that’s continuously one step ahead of his opponent is just awesome. For a 27-year-old to bump his points per game average up six points three years later is remarkable and a testament to his fluid ability to adjust. Moving Scola now—and in the process receiving great value for a really good player—to make room for someone like Morris who some think could be an impact player, is smart business, and I’m sure Morey has placed his best player on the league’s proverbial scale just to see how much he weighs in the eyes of other general managers.
