Houston Rockets @ Washington Wizards 6pm CT 11/10

[aznkillabeezZz]

Why did Hill get barely playing time? WTH? He is our best defensive player right now.

Hardly the best, the guy has very low bball IQ, thats why rick doesnt believe in him. But hes the most athletic tall big guy we have, Chuck hasnt been the same, he gave Wizard forwards like 2 big offensive rebounds over him and missed layups. Patterson is a better choice at this point at PF. Develop the youngsters.

I don't get it. Hill isn't a youngster? He's not worth developing?

He is. I'd rather develop him and play him over hayes at this point, especially yesterday. But he's hardly the best defensive player for rockets because he's still very raw, inconsistent. I'd expected more improvement from him at this point. But bball IQ isn't there. But i agree he should be played out there more over tortoise miller and atkins diet hayes.

[aznkillabeezZz]

You guys are acting as if you're being forced to watch Rocket games. No one is stopping you from hopping on some other team's wagon if you can't take a losing season.

@aznkillabeezZz
You were getting bitched at because you had an obsessive man-crush on Ariza (which you still have). You really think that no one was annoyed at how you kept moaning about getting Ariza back? No one could've predicted Battier's drastic drop off from his 08-09 season. Of course looking back now, keeping Ariza would've been a better decision but we didn't know what we know now.

You mean your obsessive man crush over Daryl Morey.

Your statement about Battier is inaccurate. Speak for yourself, alot of people knew Battier's form has dropped even in 08-09 season. Even after the Ariza trade, I questioned the decision just because I knew Battier played better off the bench with his age and inconsistencies, injuries. I don't think you watched many Rocket games. i watched almost every rocket game last season, and Battier's form wasn't as great as the season before. The commentators (Bullard) said he was playing with a niggling injury all of last season. Which is a sign of aging because even the season before that he was also playing with injuries, but he was more physical every game. Last season he was less physical, especially after coming back from injury. But that did not matter because Ariza played large minutes and could fill that need at SF for us.

[tisbee]

Let's not get too revisionist here.
The Rockets were barely a .500 team w/Ariza,not some serios Championship threat.
Ariza showed pretty conclusively he isn't a SG. W/Bud playing so well last yr the team was going to look at getting him 15+ minutes,and Battier is the leader of the team and still the best wing defender on the team,so he'd get 15-20 minutes. Martin was going to get 30-35 minutes. And if Lowry or Taylor were going to get 5-10 minutes at SG,that didn't leave very many minutes for Ariza. See how few Lee is getting now.(Yes,Ariza would be getting more,but not not 30+ minutes.)
The solution would have been to trade Battier,but the team didn't find one it liked. And that would have opened up a whole can of worms by removing a strong locker-room voice and leaving Brooks and Ariza having problems w/each other. Bluntly speaking,it looks like it was heading to Brooks or Ariza,and w/Lowry a restricted FA and no other PGs on team....
So when the team was approached about the deal,they jumped on it.

[aznkillabeezZz]

Let's not get too revisionist here.
The Rockets were barely a .500 team w/Ariza,not some serios Championship threat.
Ariza showed pretty conclusively he isn't a SG. W/Bud playing so well last yr the team was going to look at getting him 15+ minutes,and Battier is the leader of the team and still the best wing defender on the team,so he'd get 15-20 minutes. Martin was going to get 30-35 minutes. And if Lowry or Taylor were going to get 5-10 minutes at SG,that didn't leave very many minutes for Ariza. See how few Lee is getting now.(Yes,Ariza would be getting more,but not not 30+ minutes.)
The solution would have been to trade Battier,but the team didn't find one it liked. And that would have opened up a whole can of worms by removing a strong locker-room voice and leaving Brooks and Ariza having problems w/each other. Bluntly speaking,it looks like it was heading to Brooks or Ariza,and w/Lowry a restricted FA and no other PGs on team....
So when the team was approached about the deal,they jumped on it.

U know that Ariza and lowry missed some number of games, and we started losing right? And we had no Kmart for half season and Yao either. So 42-40 is a good record for the lineup we had. And without injuries with Lowry and Ariza, we would've easily won 5 more games. We beat alot of good teams, we still had our defensive identity with Ariza, and he clearly was a better SF starter, than Battier. No one expected them to be a championship threat last season lol wth? WIth Yao coming back, Ariza would've fit right in, especially with the SF's we have now.

[moofs]

aznkillabeezZz, you know I don't agree with you too often. Both you and tisbee have very good points here. I think the debateability of this topic points to the fact that the decision was neither simple, nor (doubtless) lightly considered. That makes its outcome entirely defensible, if less than palatable. To you, it was an obvious bad move, and had an obvious bad outcome. Tisbee's argument is a perfectly valid counter, though.

[aznkillabeezZz]

aznkillabeezZz, you know I don't agree with you too often. Both you and tisbee have very good points here. I think the debateability of this topic points to the fact that the decision was neither simple, nor (doubtless) lightly considered. That makes its outcome entirely defensible, if less than palatable. To you, it was an obvious bad move, and had an obvious bad outcome. Tisbee's argument is a perfectly valid counter, though.

okay most what he said were fair arguments except.

"The Rockets were barely a .500 team w/Ariza,not some serios Championship threat."

Everyone knew this team wouldn't be a championship threat without Yao last season. Doesn't mean anything.We had less players and minus Ariza+ Lowry during late season. Whats funny is, when Battier was out, we still won our games w/Ariza. When Ariza+Lowry were out, as far as i remembered, we didn't have a great record. But I think it's fair to say we exceeded everyone's expectations last season...