Random blogging about hoops so far

Okay, lets get the biased team out of the way first:

The Rockets continue to play bland and uninspiring basketball, mainly because of Jeff Van Gundy's Marty Schottenheimer-esque "attack". The Rockets have been 8th in Offensive Efficiency and 11th in Defensive EFficiency (but don't tell that to the writers! No, no! The Rockets problem is all offense! Walking the ball up court makes your defense better!). Another huge problem is their penchant for blowing early leads against good teams, as the Rockets squandered an 18 point lead against the Spurs in the third quarter and then almost did the same to the Bulls, narrowly holding on for a 1 point win.

Who are your culprits on this team? Basically everyone but Yao (who is 2nd in PER so far this year at 28.24, to only LeBron). McGrady has started to turn the corner, but he is shooting like Allen Iverson at practice, at only 41% from the floor despite plenty of open looks. Speaking of poor shooting, Rafer Alston has been an absolute abomination on this team asides from his near-triple double against the Mavericks. He's shooting poorly, settling for too many threes, and most importantly, he hasn't had a game with more than 6 assists since November 8th.

Injuries have also been key, as Chuck Hayes, Bonzi Wells, and now Kirk Snyder look to be out for awhile longer. This leads to ideas like "Scott Padgett playing more than 6 minutes", which is really horrific to watch.

Anyway, while I'm discouraged by the Rockets effort up to this point, at least they are winning, and at least they are doing well enough to make me think about what could be if they actually get healthy and McGrady stops shooting so poorly.

-Probably the most significant impact by a rookie has been felt in Portland; not by Brandon Roy, but by fellow first rounder LaMarcus Aldridge, owner of a 25.05 PER and a 69.7 expected Field Goal %. While Blazers coach Nate McMillian tries hard to make Martell Webster play real basketball, he has ignored Aldridge to his detriment, meaning the Blazers could actually be over .500 if he was giving him regular time. Zach Randolph and Jarrett Jack have both turned into players, and with Roy recovering from his injury and the Blazers hopefully giving Aldridge more playing time, don't be surprised if the Blazers make a run at the 7th or 8th seed in the West.

-The Chicago Bulls, recepients of the "Offseason Champs" award, have played terrific defense this year. The reason they are 3-7 is because they have no alpha dog who will get you 20 points a night. They are also pretty turnover prone and most importantly, have the worst free throw rate of any offensive team in the NBA. You have to wonder if the Ben Wallace signing was a quality addition to a team that already played good defense; it worked for the Pistons, but the Pistons also surrounded him with three quality offensive players and Tayshaun Prince, who developed into a reliable enough threat when left open. The Bulls have only a few players with the potential to be a great offensive player: Luol Deng and Ben Gordon. Either one of those two have to step up, or the Bulls have to find a package that will work for Kevin Garnett.

-I'm not ready to talk about the Jazz yet. I want to see how real this improvement from Deron Williams is, if it will last more than a few games. I was ready to write him off as a complete bust after Chris Paul whooped his tail last year, but all of the sudden he is playing like a terrific point guard. How he holds up will probably determine how far the Jazz go.