Has anybody been able to catch any of the action?

It sounds like Kevin Martin has been the best player on the team so far, being a prolific and efficient scorer we hoped he might be when we traded Carl Landry for him.

It sounds like Jared Jeffries is actually giving us a lot more than we expected -- he'sa lways been a good defensive player, but he's been contributing on offense.

Some people seem to be down on Patrick Patterson, particularly his offensive output. With Scola, Hill, Jeffries available at PF -- we don't NEED him to produce, but it'd be nice. I think Morey mentioned him as an option at 5 behind Yao and Miller.

I haven't heard much on Miller.

Yao from the clips I've seen looks pretty slow right now. He's always been slow, but he looks REALLY slow.

I'm interested to see what this team can do this year. I have a feeling we can be a lot like the Suns of last year. They were great offensively, OK defensively. Their starters weren't always that good, but their bench was much better than other team's benches and would keep them in a lot of games. This Rockets team goes 10-12 players deep, so I think we can do a lot by staying fresh, bringing in high energy players off the bench that can play, and be an efficient offense. I'm not sure that we'll be a good defensive team, but I think we can be with the right players on the floor... namely Lowry, Battier, Jeffries, Hayes, and Yao/Miller.

From what i've heard on the radio is that they all love Courtney Lee and think he is a much, MUCH better fit on this team than Ariza ever was, which is very promising.

I'd love to hear more also. Where I'm at all I get to see is effing spurs games, no love for my Rockets down here.

Obviously they're taking it super slow with Yao coming back, but does he at least have the resemblance of his former self? I'm glad to hear K-Mart is playing out like that, hopefully it will help Brooks become more of a true PG.

Any other updates from preseason?

go check out some of lee's and budinger's plays in the indiana game. they're both playing well this preseason and are pretty exciting to watch as well.

here's a link to a few of the plays i was talking about: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-YW5ifuU7k&feature=related

[This message has been edited by jackie childs (edited 10/19/2010 11:08a).]

and i haven't watched every game, but in what i've seen, here's my brief thoughts:

martin is playing VERY well. he's shooting the ball well and not taking dumb shots.

lee and budginer have been solid.

brooks looks like he did last year. he's still fast and can get in the lane and score, but his three-point shooting does not seem to have improved much.

hill has been up and down. one game, he'll look awesome. then he'll disappear in the next one. he needs to be more consistent.

there was a lot of talk about chuck working on his offense. it might've looked good in his workouts against a recovering yao, but from what i've seen, he's still (for the most part) going to be a non-factor on offense.

patterson has been kind of a disappointment, but i may have been expecting too much from him as a rookie. he's got a lot of learning to do and luckily, the rockets are deep enough that he probably won't be asked to do much.

yao looked rough in the first game i watched. he looked even slower than before. but then in the next two games i saw, he looked better, like he was getting more comfortable. i think he'll be fine.

overall, our defense still has to improve. sure, there are guys on the roster who can play defense, but when the lineup of brooks, martin, battier, scola and yao are out there, you're looking at an average (at best) defensive team.

didnt brook set the record for most three's made by a rocket...and his shot hasn't improved much???

quote:

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didnt brook set the record for most three's made by a rocket...and his shot hasn't improved much???

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i think so, but he took more than 6 three-pointers a game to get there. i guess what i meant to say is that his shot selection and shooting percentage don't appear to have improved much.

in the preseason, he's averaged less than 24 minutes a game and 3 3pt attempts. that's a higher clip than his attempts last season, plus he's shooting just 33%.

so yeah, i'd like that to improve.

whatever......... is melo coming here or not?????????

i doubt it...

if recent history is any indication, superstar players typically get their way and i really think melo wants to be a knick.

martin had another really good game last night. 21 pts on 8 shots (7-7 ft) in just 17 minutes.

He's ridiculously efficient.

This team has a very balanced offense. Everybody is getting in the mix and there are tons of assists.

the main unit looked very good last night against SA.

Not sure what to make of Jordan Hill's stat line: 9 points (4-7), 5 rebounds, 4 steals, 3 blocks, 4 turnovers in 30 minutes. I'd expect him to rebound more, and that's a pretty bad turnover to shot ratio.