117 replies to this topic

[Mason Khamvilay]

I see Asik for Ryan Anderson and Stiemsa being a good trade for both sides, you can argue it's unlikely but it's definitely plausible. Monty Williams rarely played Davis and Anderson together last season, he seems intent on keeping Davis at PF so trading Anderson for an upgrade at Center makes sense. 

Edited by 2016Champions, 07 November 2013 - 06:06 PM.

[Mason Khamvilay]

Actually, here's a trade I like for both sides where salaries work:

 

HOU receive:

Anderson

Stiemsma

2015 2nd round pick 

 

NO receive:

Asik

Terrance Jones 

Greg Smith

[NorEastern]

It is early in the season, the rotations are new, and the coaching staff is experimenting. And the Rockets are 4-1 with (hopefully) a slam dunk of a win tonight against the Lakers. At this point everything is great in Rocketland. Except for the fans. But that is business as usual. I personally am biding my time before I make any judgements.

[rockets best fan]

all who have spoke in favor of continuing the Asik/Howard combo...........I hear you. Yes we are good defensively with that lineup, but offensively we stagnate. the rebounds are up, but a lot of them are offensive where we took a bad shot because the spacing was wrong. my point is Asik is not a good enough offensive player to make the defense respect his position on the floor when away from the basket. the opposing teams defense is using Asik's man to disrupt the flow of our offense. now on teams with two bigs we don't have this problem, but on teams that go with the smaller PF/shooter we are either being outran or caught slow footed in the rotation on the half court. this lineup is useful against teams like the Spurs, Grizzlies, Portland and a few others.

 

our problem with moving Asik is backup center. no matter who we bring in, that problem must be address. I would rather have Asik. however if he can not accept the role of being the backup center he should be moved for a player/players who help fill weaker areas of the team. we can not get caught up in trying to keep Asik happy to the detriment of the team. when we have the stretch four option going it's not like we fall off the planet defensively, but when we have the Asik/Howard combo sometimes we do fall off dramatically offensively. so far we have been able to simply out class teams on talent alone, but against teams with the players to exploit these weaknesses we will struggle. I don't want to come off as being against Asik........I really wish he would just accept the backup center role and that option would create the strongest team in my opinion, but trying to keep him and Howard out there together against anything except teams like the ones mentioned above is hurting us more than helping.

 

on a lighter note........you know we have arrived when we are nitpicking WINS

[rockets best fan]

after watching this Laker game tonight it has become even clearer to me we need to abandon our experiment. we are suffering to much on offense to overcome the defensive advantages. it's keeping the team from developing a rhythm. with Asik in the game the lane is clogged to much for us to take advantage of our driving ability. Morey needs to be on the phone right now if Asik will not accept a backup roll, because that's best for the TEAM. we have been able to overpower teams up to now, but this game tonight shows how easy this lineup is to exploit. when we look back on this season I hope this game isn't one we are pointing to asking ourselves why we didn't get the job done

[tombrokeoff]

i dont see how we can be considered good defensively (as a whole unit) with the asik howard pairing when we have little to no perimeter D.  cool, fine, awesome, we can defend inside and get rebounds, but none of it matters when opponents hit wide open 3 after wide open 3. and then the problem compounds itself on the other end when we cant keep up the scoring pace.

[tombrokeoff]

rockets wanna play the two of them 10-12 mins together a game?  how about none of those 10-12 are the first 6 minutes?? how much of this is just an attempt to keep asik happy?

[rockets best fan]

rockets wanna play the two of them 10-12 mins together a game?  how about none of those 10-12 are the first 6 minutes?? how much of this is just an attempt to keep asik happy?

clearly the Rocket are only doing this to keep Asik happy and at the same time showcase him for trade possibilities, but right now it's hurting the team

[MrLobble]

I am glad we lost this game. 

 

At first, I was disgusted and pissed... However, after some thought, it may be a pivotal loss that enables the long-term success of this team. This team is going to have to grow up, stop turning the ball over so much, learn to play at least average defense, and management is going to have to be proactive in determining a solution with this colossal pairing...

 

The two big guys together is horrendous... The lanes are clogged taking away from our perimeter advantages, and neither one of our clumsy big men can score... I couldn't help but laugh when James threw a pass to a cutting Omer, who then decided to throw an odd looking 4th grader chest pass off of Dwight's knee...

 

Everyone makes a big deal about Asik, and being Dwight's backup... For a measly 10-12 minutes a game, we have a few young guys that can definitely fill the role of a back-up center.  Greg Smith was decent backing up Asik last year and he's young with lots of promise. Let's not forget, we have two young and talented PF's that could actually gain game experience when management decides to do away with this colossal failure. 

[rockets best fan]

I am glad we lost this game. 

 

At first, I was disgusted and pissed... However, after some thought, it may be a pivotal loss that enables the long-term success of this team. This team is going to have to grow up, stop turning the ball over so much, learn to play at least average defense, and management is going to have to be proactive in determining a solution with this colossal pairing...

 

The two big guys together is horrendous... The lanes are clogged taking away from our perimeter advantages, and neither one of our clumsy big men can score... I couldn't help but laugh when James threw a pass to a cutting Omer, who then decided to throw an odd looking 4th grader chest pass off of Dwight's knee...

 

Everyone makes a big deal about Asik, and being Dwight's backup... For a measly 10-12 minutes a game, we have a few young guys that can definitely fill the role of a back-up center.  Greg Smith was decent backing up Asik last year and he's young with lots of promise. Let's not forget, we have two young and talented PF's that could actually gain game experience when management decides to do away with this colossal failure. 

totally agree.......even though I still rather we won. however this game exposed us, now what we do about it will determine if a lesson was learned

[Richards]

rockets wanna play the two of them 10-12 mins together a game?  how about none of those 10-12 are the first 6 minutes?? how much of this is just an attempt to keep asik happy?

 

clearly the Rocket are only doing this to keep Asik happy and at the same time showcase him for trade possibilities, but right now it's hurting the team

 

While they are trying to make Asik happy, D12 might end up very unhappy playing at PF and losing games.

[Drew in Abilene]

As a defender of the Asik-Howard pairing, here are my thoughts:

 

First off, man that game was ugly. Having the two bigs out there at the same time definitely did not work in this game. It was pretty dang terrible. I acknowledge that for this game, everything argued by posters against the Twin Towers happened. It cost us spacing, points, and ultimately the game.

 

However, I would toss out the phrase "sample size." The Rockets have played six regular season games with this pairing. There have been moments when this front court has looked abysmal. There have been moments when it looked phenomenal. I think it's fair to say that it's looked bad more often than not, but it has still only been six games. Considering that McHale did not have a full training camp with both players, and that this was Houston's fifth game in seven nights, I would argue that more time is needed before passing judgement. Last night's game is certainly a marker that the Howard-Asik pairing may not be viable. But some things that seem like they are set in stone change over the course of a season.

 

If these problems continue to persist, I will begrudgingly admit that the experiment did not work. But I still hold out some hope that this lineup can work for small stretches, and that Asik's defense when Howard sits is worth trying to fix the kinks. I will certainly remember how furious I was last night at losing to my least favorite team in all of sports. I'm still seething this morning that Houston fell so far behind to such an inferior team.

 

With that said, I don't feel like I can pass judgement this early in the season. I understand the desire to make quick decisions, but I will be withholding judgment until Houston is at least done with the first quarter of the season.

Edited by DrewinAbilene, 08 November 2013 - 03:54 PM.

[rocketrick]

As a defender of the Asik-Howard pairing, here are my thoughts:

 

First off, man that game was ugly. Having the two bigs out there at the same time definitely did not work in this game. It was pretty dang terrible. I acknowledge that for this game, everything argued by posters against the Twin Towers happened. It cost us spacing, points, and ultimately the game.

 

However, I would toss out the phrase "sample size." The Rockets have played six regular season games with this pairing. There have been moments when this front court has looked abysmal. There have been moments when it looked phenomenal. I think it's fair to say that it's looked bad more often than not, but it has still only been six games. Considering that McHale did not have a full training camp with both players, and that this was Houston's fifth game in seven nights, I would argue that more time is needed before passing judgement. Last night's game is certainly a marker that the Howard-Asik pairing may not be viable. But some things that seem like they are set in stone change over the course of a season.

 

If these problems continue to persist, I will begrudgingly admit that the experiment did not work. But I still hold out some hope that this lineup can work for small stretches, and that Asik's defense when Howard sits is worth trying to fix the kinks. I will certainly remember how furious I was last night at losing to my least favorite team in all of sports. I'm still seething this morning that Houston fell so far behind to such an inferior team.

 

With that said, I don't feel like I can pass judgement this early in the season. I understand the desire to make quick decisions, but I will be withholding judgment until Houston is at least done with the first quarter of the season.

 

Thanks for your well thought out post, Drewin Abilene,

 

By the way any good BBQ restaurants you could recommend their in your great city of Abilene?

 

The only thing I would like to add is the importance of looking at the big picture. By that I mean the D12/Asik pairing will become more important down the stretch run and into the playoffs.

 

Now is the time to try and work out the kinks and learn the good and bad with this rotation on the floor.

 

I mean, who the heck would want the Rockets to experiment with this in Game 5 of the first playoff series without prior efforts and video to learn from.

[Mason Khamvilay]

If Drew is a defender of the Howard-Asik pairing, I am a defender of our small ball style. Our 3's and lay-ups read and react offense is our identity, it's Rockets basketball, and Rockets basketball flows so much better when we have a guy at the 4 who can shoot and/or drive and kick. I'm not sure how many disgusting quarters we need to see before it's painfully obvious to everyone, but I'm pretty sure it was painfully obvious to Morey before it even begun, so if he Howard-Asik experiment doesn't end by the trade deadline I'm almost certain Morey will trade Asik. 

Edited by 2016Champions, 08 November 2013 - 04:21 PM.

[rocketrick]

If Drew is a defender of the Howard-Asik pairing, I am a defender of our small ball style. Our 3's and lay-ups read and react offense is our identity, it's Rockets basketball, and Rockets basketball flows so much better when we have a guy at the 4 who can shoot and/or drive and kick. I'm not sure how many disgusting quarters we need to see before it's painfully obvious to everyone, but I'm pretty sure it was painfully obvious to Morey before it even begun, so if he Howard-Asik experiment doesn't end by the trade deadline I'm almost certain Morey will trade Asik.

You could be correct but another way to look at the Rockets is the fact they have the rare ability of playing 2 completely different styles of basketball. It's just a matter of becoming more effective with both styles when they are being implemented during the game.

[Mason Khamvilay]

I think it's only a matter of time before Morey's analytics have a large enough sample size to convince McHale to change his line-ups and rotations. I remember McHale using questionable rotations last season that lost us some games, but by the end of the season his rotations improved significantly--I expect the same thing will happen this season.

 

If McHale doesn't fix his front-line rotations by the trade deadline, February 20th, I'm willing to bet Asik gets traded. 

Edited by 2016Champions, 08 November 2013 - 04:45 PM.

[rocketrick]

I think it's only a matter of time before Morey's analytics have a large enough sample size to convince McHale to change his line-ups and rotations. I remember McHale using questionable rotations last season that lost us some games, but by the end of the season his rotations improved significantly--I expect the same thing will happen this season.
 
If McHale doesn't fix his front-line rotations by the trade deadline, February 20th, I'm willing to bet Asik gets traded.

Coach McHale has to be given some credit for working with the extensive changes in the rotation since coming on board, too. This year's rotation is not close to the rotation he started with 13 months ago.

To be fair, a sample size requires a number of games to be played with no prior sample size for consideration other than individual statistics. Blend in line up changes and trades and free agent pickups during the past 13 months and it seems the Rockets have one consistent thing to hang a shingle on, that being a revolving door of players and rotation slots.

[rockets best fan]

If Drew is a defender of the Howard-Asik pairing, I am a defender of our small ball style. Our 3's and lay-ups read and react offense is our identity, it's Rockets basketball, and Rockets basketball flows so much better when we have a guy at the 4 who can shoot and/or drive and kick. I'm not sure how many disgusting quarters we need to see before it's painfully obvious to everyone, but I'm pretty sure it was painfully obvious to Morey before it even begun, so if he Howard-Asik experiment doesn't end by the trade deadline I'm almost certain Morey will trade Asik. 

consider me the attacker of the Asik/Howard combo. I agree with 2016 small ball creates flow within our offense that is absent otherwise. we can not continue to waste games playing with our new toy. we tried it...........it failed. it doesn't take me 20 games to figure out if something is working or not. if the Lakers can exploit the lineup as weak as they are ..........think how many other more talent latent teams will have a field day against it. we can not keep spotting teams 20 point leads before we see the light. do you realize if you look at the stats for the games we have played the evidence is pretty convincing. if a skier is sliding downhill I don't need to watch him all the way to the bottom the figure out which direction he is going. same concept with this failed experiment. we're sliding downhill...........how much more do you need to see?

[Drew in Abilene]

My perspective is that while there are teams that the Rockets should play predominantly small ball against, there are also teams that Houston should double down on low post defenders. Multiple strengths will allow them to dominate teams with radically different game plans. I know I've harped on this before, but I think it bears repeating. Teams like Indiana and Memphis are built to pound smaller teams inside.

 

The Heat were a better team than the Pacers on paper last season, but forcing their small lineups to defend larger players paid dividends over the course of the series. It took Battier a long time to regain his shooting stroke after being bullied down low trying to guard David West. Yes, the Pacers lost ground at times because they couldn't go small as well as Miami, but their strength pushed a better team to the limit. Memphis was able to take it to the Spurs in the first round a few years back because they were able to dominate them down low.

 

The Spurs took that as a wake up call, and built their team accordingly. The Spurs and the Thunder are a model I believe the Rockets can mimic and improve upon. In recent years, both teams have built a bruising defensive two-man post presence. Perkins-Ibaka and Duncan-Splitter have proven to be very solid defensively, though both Perkins and Splitter leave much to be desired offensively. Beyond this two person tandem, though, each team has grown even more skillful in playing small ball.

 

Both teams chewed through opponents during the past two regular seasons. Both were represented in the Western Conference Finals a year ago, and I have little doubt that both would have met again this past season were it not for Westbrook's injury. The Spurs were able to oust teams like the Grizzlies and the hobbled Lakers in a total of eight games, in part because they were able to negate the strengths of the Gasol-Howard and Gasol-Randolph front lines. But San Antonio was also able to dispatch the upstart Warriors' quick outside shooting squad through small ball. The Thunder wrecked the Lakers during the last Bynum-Gasol season. Both team were only defeated when they ran up against Miami, and LeBron is a crazy man who does unspeakable things on the basketball court.

 

If the Rockets are to reach the Finals and have a legitimate shot at a championship, I think it is imperative that Houston does not become a one-trick pony. Teams are getting better at learning the weaknesses of a team and exploiting them. Teams with two strong bigs get exploited from deep. Small ball teams get pounded down low. In my mind, it makes much more sense to be able to do both as opposed to all in on one strategy.

 

RBF ended his post with a question: How much more do I need to see?

 

In my head, there are four types of teams in the NBA right now. There are teams that are best when they go big, teams that excel when playing small, teams that can do both relatively well, and teams that just stink at everything.

 

I'm not super worried about that last group. I want to see multiple games against the Indiana/Memphis type big teams. I want to watch a few games against the Heat and Warriors' small ball sets. But most importantly, I want to observe what happens when the Rockets play against the Thunder and the Spurs. Those teams have been working towards the kind of dual approach that I think Houston has a chance to improve.

 

Maybe the experiment will fizzle out before I get a chance to see these games. Maybe Morey will receive an offer he deems worthy of shipping out Asik. Maybe Asik will stick around long enough to prove in these games that it won't work. But until I have seen the tandem fail against teams like Memphis, Indiana, San Antonio, and Oklahoma City or watch Asik shipped out, I will continue to optimistically believe there is hope.

[Mario Peña]

I completely agree with you Drew and couldn't write that any better. Outstanding post with a good view down the road and within the parameters of the league and the contenders. I understand fans want to form opinions quickly and be out front and heck maybe this roster doesn't work but my experience tells me there is much more data to compile on Morey's end and much more guidance to be given by McHale before these players can adjust to the roster's strengths and weaknesses as well as measuring themselves against elite opponents.