adonneus

When everyone around you toots your horn, there's no reason to do it yourself. James has people on teams all over the country calling him MVP. In that recent SI article, Dwight said that he has told James on many occasions that James is the leader of the team and Dwight is deferring to him.

 

During the summer before last year, James needed to exude a certain bravado, saying that he was the leader of the team and that he was the best player in the world. Now that those facts are obvious, there's no reason for him to say talk like that anymore. There's just nothing to be gained by it. If someone doesn't believe he's the leader, they're obviously not paying attention, and his saying it won't change his or her mind. However, if someone thinks that Dwight is going to play a smaller role after his injury and that the Rockets are worried about involving Dwight too much in their play after they did so well in his absence, James saying that Dwight is integral to their play can dispel those notions.

 

I think the weak thing for Harden to have said would be something like, "Yeah. Dwight is back, but let's not forget that I'm the leader." That would show that the Rockets aren't a solid team, that Dwight's return is a threat to stability, and that the Rockets might not be that great now that he's back. And these were notions that I have definitely been hearing in the media. But James came in a squashed that notion right out of the gate in front of the other players, the media, and the fans, like a true leader, in my opinion.

This was definitely the most important win of the season thus far, with tomorrow's soon to replace it.

A few recent thought's I've had about Smith...

 

During the OKC game last night, the TNT announcers said that McHale has been telling Smoove to shoot the threes if he's open. The thinking behind this would be that everyone else on our team outside of Dwight, Dorsey, and sometimes D-Mo is going to do the same, so it keeps the team consistent, causing defenders to spread out as we want them to.

 

I wonder if the thinking is not that it is efficient for him to take those shots from a points-per-Smith-3 perspective. If he hits one or two threes in a game, the defense will be more likely to spread out to cover him, opening up the lanes inside. A reason that McHale might not be content to keep Smith down low and allow the paint to stay clogged is to allow the Rockets to have some flexibility in their style.

 

We'll likely have at least one of Dwight/D-Mo/Smith out there at all times. If Dwight is out there, he'll be in the post. With D-Mo's post proficiency, we're going to want him down there a lot, too. If we restrict Smith to being solely down-low or driving, his defender is going to stay in or near the paint, meaning that we'll never have a line-up that truly leaves the paint open for our non-Harden drivers to get in there. If Smith's shooting 3s leads to the paint's being more open for Papa, Brewer, and Smith himself to drive, it may be worth the poor percentage.

 

Also, I think it was the article on Grantland about Harden and Morey being the future of the NBA that mentioned that we are trying to shoot shots that generate rebounds. JG said on the Orlando game thread that Brewer once passed to Smith, told him to shoot the 3, and quickly ran inside to get the rebound. If this is a focus when he shoots those 3s, it helps to decrease the negative impact of the misses.

 

Finally, a quote from McHale on Smith: "He’s been great for us. I only judge people on my experiences with them. He’s been fantastic."

 

It sounds like McHale is fully open to experimentation when it comes to Smith's role on the team. It has been said since the beginning of the season that, generally, seeding will not be important in the West, so I could see McHale willing to sacrifice a few games here and there in order to work on getting the right formula down once the playoffs come around.

 

Every bad loss and poor Josh Smith game is just another experiment that very likely will not get us kicked out of the playoffs. I think that in the past, McHale has always been willing to go back on experiments if they're not working (Dwight/Asik twin towers, Lin starting, Smith starting, any player being part of the rotation, bringing players up from the D-League).

 

"Test everything; hold fast to what is good." But as long as we make the playoffs, no reason to stop testing until March/April.

Josh Smith was a short-term, low-risk gamble. If you listen to the latest podcast from the Rockets website, in which you'll hear an interview with Morey, you'll be reminded of how much confidence Morey has in McHale to bring the best out in his players. Just like Morey gives McHale young, unproven talent to mold into great NBA players (Parsons, Beverley, D-Mo, to name just a few), Morey has decided to give McHale a shot a fixing a veteran up. It might work and it might not, but again, it's low-risk at the price.

 

One thing I don't understand about the pervasive lamentations concerning the Josh Smith signing is that everyone seems to think that, despite Morey/McHale's history of complete willingness to bench underperforming players, some people seem to think that, even if Smith completely ignores everything that Morey and McHale tell him to do, we'll still start him every game and pass him the ball on some blind hope that he'll get better.

 

There were a few games where they started Smith since allegedly, that was part of the deal. But when it wasn't working, they benched him. By benching Smith, the Rockets have shown already that they are very willing to knock him down a few notches if he doesn't  play his part on the team. I see absolutely no reason not to believe that they will continue to knock him down through the rotation if he doesn't shape up and take the right kinds of shots. That leaves us with a worst-case scenario of an extra couple million on the books and a pissed-off guy at the very end of our bench. If we had paid K-Pop and Ariza an extra million each, would anyone be saying the sky is faling? I don't think so, which is why I can't understand why you think that we "will be lucky to make it out of the first round."

It's looking more and more like Lin and Asik were addition by subtraction. Of course, I think Rockets fans knew this would be the case, but the truth is becoming clearer. I would guess that there were few players across the league who were as upset with their roles as Asik and Lin (not that Lin seemed that upset, but when you've got a legion of followers saying you're being wronged, I'm sure it's hard not to start believing it).

 

There has got to be an idiom for this situation. Morey is accused by the media of not caring about chemistry and focusing too much on stats. Then, Morey makes some moves that the media disparages, saying that the stats of the players show that Morey failed. In the end, however, it turns out that Morey cared about chemistry all along and just made a huge power move to improve it vastly overnight.

I've lurked here for long enough to know that I am much less knowledgeable about basketball than most people here, but I thought I'd give my two cents on my own experience of watching Lin on the Rockets.

 

I've realized that the reason I prefer other players to him almost always comes down to those possessions in which he jumps up with no plan and literally throws the ball away. If he ends up throwing it towards the hoop after looking around, it looks no different on the stat sheet than any other player missing a thought-out tough shot. However, it is just so much more frustrating to watch as a fan.

 

That said, I agree with Drew and think it's probably better for the Rockets for Lin to start over Canaan given the experience gap, but I'll probably be yelling at my TV a lot more than I would if Canaan started.