Was anyone else, like me, really actually looking forward to the new Heat team?
By: Paul McGuire
McGuire: As we work to pick up the fallout from the NBA trade deadline, we should first start by focusing on the two players Houston got - K.J. McDaniels and Pablo Prigioni. I want to start by focusing on Prigioni. What I have seen from Twitter focuses on the fact that he is a 41% three-point shooter for his career ( he is 37% for the season), but Prigioni is also a good passer, with a career assist-to-turnover ration of around 3 to 1. Harden has never played with a true pass-first point guard in Houston ( and I guess not in OKC as well). While one could argue that Harden must dominate the ball, I think Prigioni could be a nice change of pace for a team which does not really have good passers - there’s Harden, Smith ( and both of them turn the ball over far too often), Motiejunas to a degree, and that’s about it.
Felker: Bingo on the Prigioni analysis. He obviously doesn’t create out of the slash-and-kick, but like old Jason Kidd used to do for the Mavs, Pablo never misses the correct pass. Jason Terry’s veteran savvy aside, I still don’t fully understand why Isaiah Canaan couldn’t lock down the backup point guard role. I’ve always said that one of Kevin McHale biggest weaknesses is that he doesn’t take the time to season young players. Gregg Popovich would have definitely thrown Canaan to the wolves and let him figure it out. Canaan is soon-to-be elite at one of the most important skills in today’s NBA, and he’s only going to get better. Having said that….
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Walker: Can we talk about KJ McDaniels for a moment? Fantastic name aside (Not a lot of KJ’s out there, a bold two letter nickname), he’s hyper-athletic, shows a lot of promise on defense, and deserves rotation minutes right this second. The Rockets now have A Bench. Prigioni, McDaniels, Brewer, Jones and Smith are probably a better unit than some teams have starting. KJ is gonna get burn yesterday, and you don’t trade for Prigioni if you want him to sit on the bench, right? Of course, those minutes have to come from somewhere, and Jason Terry has to be looking over his shoulder right about now.
Felker: As I told Paul in an email shortly after the trade was announced, KJ McDaniels is Morey’s second go around at Gerald Green. He cut Green a few years ago, and rectified it by trading a solid prospect for McDaniels this time around. Lesson learned.
McGuire: Well, I am not sure whether a comparison to Gerald Green is supposed to be a good thing. Green is certainly better compared to when he was first drafted, but he is just as likely to shoot you out of a game as he is to help you.
Now as for McDaniels: Forrest is right in that those minutes have to come from somewhere, but I remain doubtful as to where. Harden-Ariza-Brewer are going to gobble up the vast majority of those 96 swingman minutes, especially so in the playoffs. McDaniels has potential and has been talked about more this afternoon than Prigioni, but he does not do much to fix Houston’s real weaknesses - and while I may disagree with Rahat’s statement that “The Rockets are the only team among the west’s top tier about whom you can say they have a very clear glaring weakness”, they have real flaws which will hold them back this year.
Li: We should also not forget to mention the most important statistic concerning either of these two players. Prigioni is 37 years old. He’s basically the Argentinean Jason Terry.
That being said, Prigioni’s three-point shooting is going to be the most important part of the Rockets’ trade haul. Yes, he shoots a career 41%, but his volume isn’t spectacular (6.2 3PA per 100 possessions). This season Jason Terry is shooting 39% on 10.0 3PA per 100 possessions. Of the two, the latter figure is more impressive since it indicates similar efficiency on presumably more difficult shot selection. Of course, Prigioni has been shooting on the Knicks, not exactly a free flowing offense that produces great three-point looks. The potential for Prigioni to find a nice comfortable role outside of the arc with the Rockets is definitely there.
Just to resurrect a horse that’s already been beaten to death, count me in on the “are we giving our players a fair shake?” bandwagon. Canaan, obviously. Rahat also mentioned how only injuries forced DMo into receiving playing time (remember he didn’t play a single minute in the playoffs last year). I’m also going to throw Robert Covington into the mix. This year he’s shooting 39% on 10.9 3PA per 100 possessions, WITH PHILADELPHIA! That’s great efficiency on incredible volume in a basketball desert. You’re telling me a 6’9” wing who can shoot like that and makes less than $1 million can’t find a role on the Rockets? Can you imagine a Smith-Jones-Ariza-Brewer-Covington lineup? They’re all 6’9”! They can switch onto whomever they want! But I digress, it’s just spilled milk now.
Walker: Eh, nothing good ever comes of looking at your ex’s Facebook page, and there’s little use in worrying about how traded players are doing. Covington wasn’t going anywhere in Houston, and apparently neither was Canaan (perhaps for different reasons). I would love to see Prigioni eat up all of Terry’s minutes and for McDaniels to help reduce the minutes load on the starters in general. It’s become increasingly evident that regular season minutes maintenance matters in playoff time, and the closer to 30 minutes a game for the starters the better. McDaniels may or may not get burn in the postseason, but he can save some burn now. The fresher and more energetic playoff Harden is, the better Houston’s chances of winning four games in a series, and the less injury done to my liquor cabinet.
McGuire: Maybe this is because I was one of the captains of the “Motiejunas is not very good” wagon, but I don’t agree with what Rahat said about Motiejunas and McHale at all. Motiejunas got playing time last year. He even started a few games. And he was a mess defensively who fouled far too often, the hook shots which are his bread and butter now were not going in, and he was a worse three-point shooter. I know quite a few people suggested that McHale should have thrown Motiejunas against Aldridge last year against Portland. I think that is Monday-morning quarterbacking at best, and downright lunacy at worst.
But to get back on topic, I do think Rahat is right to be concerned about this team’s postseason potential. Two of the other Western teams scare me to death ( Golden State and the underrated Clippers), I would rather not face Memphis, and Dallas is really the only team that I am confident that we can beat. I would not go so far as to agree with my friend Brandon Davis from House of Houston in his declaration that “The Rockets won’t make it to round 2”, but I will not say I am not worried.
Dover: My guess with Prigioni is that Morey looked at the team and decided that we needed someone who could genuinely be called a “point guard” to back up Beverley. We forget because of where he has played for us this year, but up until this season Terry was predominantly a shooting guard. And for all that Canaan showed promise, there’s a reason he is sometimes referred to as an ‘SG trapped in a PG’s body’.
Up until now that has led for a rather chaotic approach when the starters sit - the bench mob can be incredibly effective when they’re generating turnovers and getting out on the break, but often struggle in the half court. Prigioni has a career’s worth of experience in managing the game and getting his team into its sets. With him on the court you can have structure to your offense and trust that the players who should get the ball get the ball. You might actually see Motiejunas get some touches when he’s on court with the subs!
The other thing I like about Prigioni is that he’s explicitly not a ball-dominator. While I haven’t seen a ton of Knicks games, the times I have watched them he has been very willing to surrender control when it makes sense. He does not over-dribble, he does not look for his own shot at the expense of the rest of the team, and he is quite happy to let a teammate control the ball if need be (this was particularly obvious in New York where he played quite a bit with JR Smith). That skill set means that he will be a good fit if and when he is called on to play next to Harden, something that can’t be said about a lot of the PGs that were on the market.
I don’t really care that there’s not a big ‘move the needle’ acquisition coming in at the deadline. Morey got that work done early by adding Corey Brewer and Josh Smith to the team, and that’s the way I like it because it gives those guys a lot more time to come in and get acclimated. I’d be worried if we were counting on a game-changing player arriving today and being expected to fit in with no issues come playoff time. The reality is that getting the pieces to fit together takes time - just ask Cleveland! Now is the time for shoring up the fringes of the rotation to put the overall roster in good shape come April, not for doing something drastic that will mean the coaching staff and players spend the rest of the season trying to get on the same page.
