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Artest is EXTREMELY underrated as an offensive player. Even Kings fans dont realize how big he was for our offense. The last 2 seasons he has made huge strides as an offensive player, check the stats. Im not even talking about the defensive end, just offense. The last 2 seasons Artest has been a COMPLETELY different offensive player than he has been in the past. His perimeter shot and post game has been at a different level these past 2 seasons than earlier in his career. When he first came to the Kings, he was a 38-40% FG player, and the last 2 years he's been a solid 45% player. The Kings had 2 legit offense options last year, Artest and Martin. And Martin is not the kind of player who you can just give the ball to and say make something happen, he needs plays ran for him, screens, a playmaker, etc. Artest was our only playmaker last year, a large part of our offense was basically give the ball to Ron in the post and have him create a shot for himself or draw a double team and make the play from there. Artest isn't lying when he says he was getting double and triple teamed last season, he was the center of attention of opposing defenses and despite that the Kings were still 8th in the league in PPG at over 102 points with Artest averaging 20.5 points on over 45% from the floor.

This is just something I wanted to point out to Rocket fans because I feel Artest does not get the credit he deserves especially from Kings fans. He was a headache for us this past season but IMO it was only because he wants to win and does not want to be in a rebuilding situation. GL this season and as a basketball fan I hope I get to see a lineup of Tmac/Barry/Battier/Artest/Yao on the floor.

Thanks a lot and I hope the kings succeed in becoming a western conference power someday.

Thanks a lot , good luck for the Kings in the future.
We will try to take down the Lakers for you guys.

ShaY wrote:Thanks a lot , good luck for the Kings in the future.
We will try to take down the Lakers for you guys.

Watch how you phrase "take down" the Lakers for you...

With Ron Artest on the squad that can take on a whole new meaning. Ron Artest has said, "I'm still Ghetto.."

That has serious urban guerrila warfare type implications.

"Take down" can mean a whole lot more now coming from a Rockets fan and team, then to defeat the Lakers for you which I assume you are implying.

Don't mean to nitpick.

But I'm just saying...

Thanks, nice to hear some good things about Artest from a fan of one of his former teams.

I hope we "take down" the lakers also, even though I don't feel like they are at the top. I feel like every team that made big trades, suns and mavs, mainly, will be a lot better next year. Then you have Oden back on the Blazers.

And yea, I hope Ron "takes down" Gasol and his scrawny ass and leaves him crying on the floor.

This is actually a bit of a problem. Artest operates the best as a big SF in the low post, but Yao, Scola, and McGrady are all more effective players when they operate out of the post than on the perimeter. In this way Ron's offense is actually a bit redundant; the Rockets don't need more post players, they need more perimeter creators.

Yeah, I noticed that too sackings, I saw that when we played the Kings this year, he's also very good at passing out of the double-triple teams. infact, interesting stat is with the 40gms he played with Adelman, he averaged 4apg. That team wasn't nearly as talented or skilled as this one, but didn't have the same playmakers.

I don't think Ronnie will get 20ppg, but I can see a legit 18/6/3.5 with Tracy getting 22/5/6 and Yao getting 23/10. But we all know Yao Ming is a huge mismatch, for obvious reasons, however Ron is quite possibly the biggest mismatch along with LeBron, Kobe and even Carmelo among perimeter players because of his size and ability to post up. One thing I like about Melo is his low post game, he can really work down there. As can Ron, and that gives us another legit post up option, and another great 1 on 1 player. Plus, on top of that, quite possibly a better defender than his offensive game.

Ron's probably, what, a top 5-6 two-way basketball player. There's garnett, there's Kobe, there's Duncan, then Ron at #4? In terms of D on one side and O on the other?

abcdef wrote:This is actually a bit of a problem. Artest operates the best as a big SF in the low post, but Yao, Scola, and McGrady are all more effective players when they operate out of the post than on the perimeter. In this way Ron's offense is actually a bit redundant; the Rockets don't need more post players, they need more perimeter creators.

For Yao this may be a problem, as we saw mentally he is incapable of stretching teams D out with a legit jumpshot. He has the J, but he's too scared about it. he needs to get over that and take some shots from there, it opens up our offense.

As for Scola, if he can find confidence back in his mid-range game it's fine. And Tracy would love to camp out there, he would definitely allow Ron to have room in there. It's really Yao whose our concern on that, and we know Rafer, Shane, and Brent will line up from the 3pt line.

jvg said the same thing, are you jvg my friend? we miss you

no doubt that artest is underrated in any way

people focus too much on the issues that should not be important, especially in case houston org and artest..i think its going to be a nice fit...the houston org/team is famous for getting the players under control...

Yeah, like Vernon Maxwell (stands, leave of absence), Barkley (window, mouth), Griffin (everything), Francis (passing, team involvement, shot selection), Lucas (speedballs), Cato (weight) ...

I had a guy at one point in my life chew me out regularly for looking at groups of individuals as cohesive entities. Things don't work that way.

besides Griffin, who can't be helped even by a psychiatrist, everything else is bball

I am talking here about team/org chemistry

the only team that has a better team/org chemistry would be SA

Thanks for the info Im even more excited for this upcoming season.