The Rockets Daily – August 12, 2013

Aced ItThe Point Forward’s Rob Mahoney gave Houston an A+ for the offseason. The grade comes mainly on the strength of Dwight Howard’s broad shoulders, but the signings of a few of the complimentary guys–Garcia, Casspi, Brooks–also helps Houston’s case.

Several of those players look to be quality rotation contributors, and if the Rockets hit on a few more they could soon have a deep bench of shooters with which to complement Howard’s post-ups and Harden’s pick-and-roll work.

Moreover, with such a group in place, Houston is flexible both on the court and on the books, giving Morey and coach Kevin McHale the freedom to go about maximizing the potential of this roster. Power forward is still a question (second-year player Donatas Motiejunas could end up being the best option to start alongside Howard) and how Houston executes its team defense remains to be seen, but the presence of Howard and Harden alone will open up so much for the Rockets and allow them to compete at a high level.

WARPedBrad Doolittle’s WARP (Wins Above Replacement Player) projections on ESPN Insider have made it to the center spot. Guess who’s on top?

1. Dwight Howard, Houston Rockets

Projected 2013-14 WARP: 13.2

Howard is coming off his worst season since his rookie year, and ATH has him bouncing back to a level roughly equivalent to his third season. Because of his history of back trouble, you can’t dismiss last year’s dip in rebound rate as a fluke. However, his block rate was higher, so not all the athletic indicators were down. Howard’s foul-drawing rate is always hard to read because of how often he is intentionally fouled, but it was strong last year as well. In his last fully healthy season, Howard put up 20.5 WARP, and that’s the championship-caliber center the Rockets hoped they signed this summer.

A few notes here. First, this projection has Howard as the fourth-best player in the NBA next season behind LeBron, Durant and Chris Paul, which basically jives with the conventional wisdom about the league’s best players right now. Second, Howard’s “fully healthy” WARP would place him solidly at second in the league behind LeBron. Third, WARP doesn’t do much to measure defensive impact, so if Howard can approach Durant’s level of production from a WARP standpoint next year, you could easily argue that the Rockets will have the best non-LeBron player in the league.

Poor Chandler ParsonsZach Lowe’s latest Grantland column about the Collective Bargaining Agreement features Ricky Ledo in the headline, but revolves around The Hair’s extremely team-friendly contract.

The handsome personage of Chandler Parsons hovered around the Ledo talks and many other second-round negotiations. The Rockets drafted Parsons with the 38th pick in 2011 and signed him to a four-year that guaranteed Houston could keep him with a salary under $1 million in each of those four seasons. It wasn’t the first four-year deal for a second-round pick, but as Parsons emerged into a well-rounded NBA starter, it quickly became the most famous-slash-infamous of such deals. Cap experts and union officials estimate that about a half-dozen second-round picks have received four-year deals in the last half-decade, and Houston helped pioneer the process before Parsons in deals for Chase Budinger, Joey Dorsey, and Jermaine Taylor. (The Spurs also did this with DeJuan Blair, as did the Kings with Hassan Whiteside.)

Those contracts give teams control over cheap second-rounders for an unusually long time.

Lowe also gives some hints on how to read the tea leaves about Parsons’ future this season.

The three-year structure cuts off the contract a year earlier than the Parsons Plan, but it also carries a benefit for teams: players can become restricted free agents after Year 3, but if they play through Year 4 under the terms of their original contracts, they become unrestricted free agents — unfettered in the marketplace, their incumbent teams left without matching rights. This is one reason the Rockets traded Budinger before the fourth season of his Parsons Plan deal; they knew he was headed to unrestricted free agency after Year 4, and decided to flip him for a first-round pick rather than dealing with that.

But here’s the trick: Houston could have made Budinger a restricted free agent after that third season by declining their team option on Budinger’s fourth season, per Daryl Morey, the Houston GM, and several cap experts. But Houston was set to be well under the cap that offseason, and concluded there was more value in picking up Budinger’s $885,000 option and using him as a trade chip. With Houston likely set to be over the cap going forward, look for them to decline Parsons’s fourth-year option and morph Parsons into a restricted free agent next summer. (If they take the opposite route, it may be a sign of their interest in trading Parsons at some point.)

Dissension and StrifeESPN’s 5-on-5 about centers was a perfect example of why Dwight Howard is an amazing subject for debate. Why? Because two of the three writers chose players other than Dwight Howard (Marc Gasol and Tim Duncan) as the league’s best center while Israel Gutierrez was writing this:

Dwight Howard. There’s almost no arguing this one. In his worst season since he was an NBA infant, Howard still led the league in rebounding and blocked 2.4 shots a game, shot 58 percent and averaged 17 points in a Lakers offense where he was almost an afterthought. And he did it all while dealing with significant back and shoulder issues. If that’s a down year, Houston can expect great things.

Dwight vs. The Field is the new LeBron vs. Kobe debate. For folks who think Dwight is the best, it’s not even close. No other center even sniffs his level of production–just like pre-championship LeBron. But until he is wearing a ring, he will be compared to inferior players on better teams with more playoff wins or championships.

Lin-umentary - Robert Silverman reviews the upcoming “Linsanity” documentary for ESPN.com, and notes that the move to Houston doesn’t make it to the screen.

Of course, the film doesn’t detail what transpired after Linsanity ended. The injuries that cut his season short are omitted entirely as is any unpacking of the circumstances regarding the contract he signed with Houston. It’s understandable, from the filmmaker’s perspective, partly because it takes a long time to complete and edit a feature and partly because it’s a myth, of a sort. Ending the film with a more human, mundane coda is not how one recounts the heroic exploits of legends.

The review of the film is positive. Regardless of the fact that it doesn’t end with “and Jeremy lived happily ever as a Houston Rocket,” I can’t wait to see it.

Your Moment of ZenVia The Basketball Jones, here’s Dwight Howard dancing with your grandma.

Got any sweet links or suggestions? Email them to [email protected] or message @EbyNews on Twitter.

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Total comments: 16
  • Sir Thursday says 6 months ago

    I have no disdain for Lin. I don't know the guy, and from what I have read and heard seems to be a good person. I do have disdain for the ideological zealots whose emotions won't allow them to have a honest debate about their hero without personal attacks being hurled. Lin can be a serviceable PG in a system where he dominates the basketball. Unfortuantely for him and us, that will never be Houston do to the skill set of James Harden. If Jeremy Lin was the backup to Harden and only played when Harden was taking a breather, then his full abilities would be reached. But do you really wanna pay someone $20M over 2 years costing $8.3M against the cap for both seasons to play 12 minutes a game? I don't.

    And that position is reasonable. But as far as I can see there is nothing on this thread that relates in any way whatsoever to Lin's play and/or value as a member of the Houston Rockets. So this is not a good reason to be disparaging of the Linsanity phenomenon. There is no contradiction between the viewpoints that [a> Lin's play in New York was extraordinary and worthy of remembrance/canonisation; and Lin is overpaid as a member of the Rockets - it's perfectly valid to think both.

    ST

  • Steven says 6 months ago

    You act like you have a vendetta against lin, you really do. I have never heard someone with such disdain for a player, truly amazing.

    I have no disdain for Lin. I don't know the guy, and from what I have read and heard seems to be a good person. I do have disdain for the ideological zealots whose emotions won't allow them to have a honest debate about their hero without personal attacks being hurled. Lin can be a serviceable PG in a system where he dominates the basketball. Unfortuantely for him and us, that will never be Houston do to the skill set of James Harden. If Jeremy Lin was the backup to Harden and only played when Harden was taking a breather, then his full abilities would be reached. But do you really wanna pay someone $20M over 2 years costing $8.3M against the cap for both seasons to play 12 minutes a game? I don't.
  • timetodienow1234567 says 6 months ago Jealousy is a destructive force
  • Buckko says 6 months ago

    But Kurt released albums, not a single. Lin is more like the New Radicals, you get what you give.

    You act like you have a vendetta against lin, you really do. I have never heard someone with such disdain for a player, truly amazing.

  • Steven says 6 months ago But Kurt released albums, not a single. Lin is more like the New Radicals, you get what you give.
  • Jeby says 6 months ago

    I'm not getting defensive. I was wondering the man's sanity.

    You have to put the rating of Linsanity as "legendary" in the perspective of a New Yorker. Walk with me...

    Legendary athletes and musicians generally fall into two categories: those who were indisputably great for a long period of time, and those who showed flashes of brilliance before their careers were cut short by tragedy.

    To a Knicks fan, having a player leave The City falls into the second category along with blown ACL's and drug overdoses. Jeremy Lin may play for ten more years and make a couple All-Star teams, but if he doesn't do it in New York, Knicks fans will talk about Lin's departure for Houston like Nirvana fans talk about Kurt Cobain's death.

    In other words, Jeremy Lin will always be a legend in New York City.

  • thejohnnygold says 6 months ago

    To us today. But ask a teenager who Bo Jackson is, they might know the 5-hour energy spots, but won't know the athlete he was. While Emmitt Smith will always be the NFL rushing leader.

    Hence the need to tell the legend of Bo :D

  • Steven says 6 months ago


    Not to stray too far off topic, but Bo Jackson is way more legendary than Emmitt Smith. Bo knows.


    To us today. But ask a teenager who Bo Jackson is, they might know the 5-hour energy spots, but won't know the athlete he was. While Emmitt Smith will always be the NFL rushing leader.
  • thejohnnygold says 6 months ago

    Not to stray too far off topic, but Bo Jackson is way more legendary than Emmitt Smith. Bo knows.

  • Steven says 6 months ago I'm not getting defensive. I was wondering the man's sanity.
  • timetodienow1234567 says 6 months ago

    Here are some definitions of the word legend.

    a:a story coming down from the past;especially:one popularly regarded as historical although not verifiable

    b:a body of such storieslegendof the frontier>

    c:a popular myth of recent origin

    d:a person or thing that inspireslegends

    e:the subject of a legendlegendeven in its own time — William Broyles Jr.>

    Also, here is an excerpt from an encyclopedia.

    Traditional story or group of stories told about a particular person or place. Formerly the term referred to a tale about a saint. Legends resemble folktales in content; they may include supernatural beings, elements of mythology, or explanations of natural phenomena, but they are associated with a particular locality or person. They are handed down from the past and are popularly regarded as historical though they are not entirely verifiable.

    Steven, it seems like you're being intentionally obtuse. Nobody's saying he's a hall of fame player. Stop getting so irrationally defensive over everything Lin related.

  • Sir Thursday says 6 months ago

    So Vertical Horizon is a legendary band for having one hit? How about Sisqo? A flash in the pan is not a legend. Kobe Shaq Jordan Hakeem, them are legends. How will Bo Jackson be remembered? No where near how Emmitt Smith will be 40 years from now.

    Can you construct a compelling narrative around the emergence of Sisqo and the meaningfulness of his message to a large segment of the population? I'm sure there are some people are profoundly touched by his lyrical devotion to undergarments, but I would contend they are few ;).

    People use 'legendary' to mean 'among the best of all time' a lot these days, as you do here. And I would never argue that Lin belongs with the other players you mention. But the other sense of the word is 'worthy of legends being told of it'. And that is a category that Lin's play in the 2011/12 season definitely fits into. There were several "I'll always remember when..." moments and it fit perfectly into a well worn classic narrative that has been around since...well since the original Greek legends. Many stories will be told of it and it will live long in the memory of a segment of the population. It might be that the media cycle and the avid basketball-watching community have buried and forgotten it, but for the people who don't have the same obsession with basketball in the moment as we do, it still lives on. For them, it is legendary.

    ST

  • Steven says 6 months ago So Vertical Horizon is a legendary band for having one hit? How about Sisqo? A flash in the pan is not a legend. Kobe Shaq Jordan Hakeem, them are legends. How will Bo Jackson be remembered? No where near how Emmitt Smith will be 40 years from now.
  • Sir Thursday says 6 months ago

    Did the documentary creator really just say Jeremy Lin is a legend?

    Seems valid to me. Whatever you think of the quality of his play in Houston, Linsanity as a phenomenon was more than momentous enough to qualify as legendary. And as John's quote points out, the film doesn't cover anything after his season-ending injuries that year.

    ST

  • Steven says 6 months ago Did the documentary creator really just say Jeremy Lin is a legend?
  • 2016Champions says 6 months ago

    WARP doesn't do much to measure defensive impact,so if Howard can approach Durant's level of production from a WARP standpoint next year, you could easily argue that the Rockets will have the best non-LeBron player in the league.

    Yep, according to RAPM he was the best non-Lebron player in the league from 2009-2012.