| 2009-10 Season Preview: Houston Rockets Authored by Andrew Perna - October 28, 2009 - 3:51 pm
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Last Season’s FIC Rank: +6.4, 10th
Key Additions: Trevor Ariza, Pops Mensah-Bonsu
Key Subtractions: Ron Artest, Brent Barry, Von Wafer
Key Rookies: Chase Budinger, David Anderson
Probable Starters: Aaron Brooks, Trevor Ariza, Shane Battier, Luis Scola, Chuck Hayes
Point Guard: The Rockets have a pair of talented, but undersized point guards in Aaron Brooks and Kyle Lowry. Tracy McGrady will be able to help with the play-making duties when he eventually returns, but they’ll be relying heavily on Brooks and Lowry for at least the first month of the season and likely longer.
Brooks has tremendous quickness and can finish around the basket despite his small frame, but bigger guards like Chauncey Billups, Deron Williams and Andre Miller are going to have a field day against him. He’s simply too small to defend many of the Western Conference’s larger point guards. Houston is lucky that he’s relentless and has a ton of energy, which allows him to at least tread water defensively.
He’s a good offensive player, which the Rockets will need with all of their injuries. He has range, which will force opponents to stay home defensively. He hit 36.6% of his three-point attempts (113 of 309) last season and he’ll attempt even more this season with T-Mac and Yao Ming on the sideline. I like him over Lowry in most situations and he proved during the playoffs that nothing fazes him. His numbers increased across the board in 13 postseason contests.
Lowry isn’t the exact opposite of Brooks, but he’s close. He’s a much better defender than his backcourt partner but lacks the shot that Brooks possesses. I was rough on him in my evaluation of the trade that sent him from Memphis to Houston last February, but he has carved a nice niche. His splits were remarkably similar in 2008-09 and he’ll get plenty of time as a defensive stopper and even paired with Brooks to form one of the league’s smallest guard tandems.
Swingmen: When healthy, Tracy McGrady gives the Rockets an unbelievable advantage on the wing. Unfortunately, he’s been bitten by the injury bug so often that you get the feeling Houston just expects to be without him. All the ailments he’s dealt with have robbed him of a portion of his trademark athleticism, but he’s still an elite option on offense.
With McGrady out to begin the season, newly-acquired Trevor Ariza will be asked to do more than he ever was by the Lakers. He has never averaged 25 minutes per game in his career, but should approach 35 minutes a night in the early going. Over the long haul, essentially swapping Ron Artest for Ariza might be a good move for the Rockets but the former is a better scorer, which is what this team needs with its two best players out.
Ariza is just 24, which means he still has time to refine his jumper and develop more of an offensive game. He has a great wingspan, which will allow coach Rick Adelman to play him at three different spots. His defense is solid. The combination of Ariza and Shane Battier will make for some long nights for opposing wing players, although I wouldn’t label Ariza as the type of guy that can lock in and shutdown an elite player like Artest can.
Battier has become someone even casual fans are aware of because of his intangibles. There are a host of players on Houston’s roster that are more talented than the former Blue Devil, but he plays smarter than almost anyone in the league. Because of that, Battier, like Ariza, can play three different positions for Adelman. We’ll see the pair together a lot this season, but where they’ll line up could vary on a nightly basis. He is one of the main reasons why the Rockets will compete every time they take the floor, even if they aren’t playoff-bound.
Chase Budinger, who wouldn’t have fallen to the Rockets had he left Arizona in 2008, will get plenty of minutes prior to McGrady’s return.
Frontcourt: Luis Scola is the only real blemish on the record of the Spurs this decade. After drafting him late in the second round of the 2002 draft, San Antonio shipped his rights to Houston in 2007. He signed soon after and has been a huge cog for the Rockets ever since.
He’s a very good complement to Yao Ming in the paint and can be an offensive force on his own this season. He isn’t the tallest or strongest player, but has great body control and can step away from the basket with some confidence when needed. It’ll be interesting to see if he can handle the double-teams he’ll face with Yao out, because he rarely saw them with the All-Star center on the court.
Carl Landry is Houston’s next-best post player, but he’s too small to be on the court alongside Scola for long periods of time. He plays bigger than 6’9” and is stronger than Scola. He came off the bench in Tuesday night’s opener and Adelman will likely continue to use him with the second unit because Chuck Hayes, while shorter, can handle playing center more effectively.
He had a points per 100 possessions of -4.6 last season, while the Rockets were +4.4 as a team. He doesn’t have the best hands, but he’s a good player and would play significant minutes even if the Rockets weren’t beat up.
Hayes is shorter than even Ariza, but he’s built well and has a very strong center of gravity. While I think he can handle a bunch of minutes in the frontcourt, rookie center David Anderson could begin to steal time away from the veteran. At 6’11”, he’s Houston’s tallest active player. Adelman is a great coach and he’ll be able to make a small-ball attack work, but size is still invaluable in the NBA.
Forecast: As I said above, the Rockets will compete, regardless of their competition, on a nightly basis. Adelman will have them prepared to play, despite the fact that their two best players are out in a star-driven league. The postseason appears out of the question, unless McGrady miraculously returns early and close to 100 percent, but they’ll be one of the better lottery clubs this year.
Andrew Perna is Deputy Editor of RealGM.com and co-host of RealGM's Radio Show. Please feel free to contact him with comments or questions via e-mail: Andrew.Perna@RealGM.com. You can also follow Andrew on Twitter: APerna7. |
