they signed Rafael Castro.<\/a> He probably won\u2019t play either. He\u2019s got nice defensive mobility, and he\u2019s efficient around the rim, but he\u2019s a slight-framed big with raw offensive tools. We\u2019ll see.<\/p>\nInterestingly, the Rockets are pursuing discount big men. It\u2019s smart. Steven Adams may be broken, and age-related decline officially hit Clint Capela last year. If the Rockets do commit to Alperen Sengun moving forward, they\u2019ll need to secure his long-term backup.<\/p>\n
But are any of these guys the ideal complement to Sengun?<\/p>\n
Rockets still missing key skill from any big men<\/p>\n
The white whale of NBA roster construction. For some time, they were the trend, but they disappeared faster than creepy clowns standing in empty parking lots in 2016 (please tell me you remember that).<\/p>\n
Not to say there are no stretch fives left. It\u2019s more so that now, they\u2019re seen as less of a prerequisite for NBA success. Some particularly high-brow pundits even think they\u2019re largely detrimental to NBA success.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s some merit in that position. If a guy is shooting, he\u2019s not in prime position for an offensive rebound or to finish a high-efficiency two-point attempt. It\u2019s almost a reverse-engineering process that gets us back to old-school NBA basketball – it\u2019s less that big men can\u2019t shoot, and more that shooting disables them from doing the stuff that being big helps you do.<\/p>\n
Sure. Here\u2019s the difficulty in Houston – Sengun can\u2019t shoot. Amen Thompson can\u2019t shoot. Perhaps stretch fives are suboptimal in a vacuum, but in the Rockets context, it feels like there would be a lot of optimization happening if they added one.<\/p>\n
Rockets need to keep playing the market<\/p>\n
Well, roughly 0.000038% of the global human population is seven feet tall or taller. So, the percentage of the population who are seven feet tall or taller men who can shoot 35% or better from the three-point range at the NBA level has to be what, 0.000000038%?<\/p>\n
Last year, eight centers shot 35% or better from long range. Most of them are unavailable. One of them is Brook Lopez, who\u2019s what, 60?<\/p>\n
Yes, 35% is a relatively arbitrary measure. Still, there has to be some breaking point where we\u2019d all concede that there\u2019s no point in having Jay Huff out there over Steven Adams just because he\u2019s willing to hit 31.9% of his three-point attempts.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s something to keep an eye on. The Rockets could look at floor-spacing big men in next year\u2019s draft. It does feel like, so long as they roster Thompson (let alone Sengun as well), they\u2019ll need to make up that three-point volume (and ease Thompson\u2019s driving lanes) by rostering a big man who can shoot threes:<\/p>\n
But for now, let\u2019s find some minutes for Oscar Tshiebwe, please?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Houston Rockets are starting a collection of fringe NBA big men. First, it was Oscar Tshiebwe. I…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":829078,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[64],"tags":[355,79540,99],"class_list":["post-829077","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-nba","tag-rockets-analysis","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829077","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=829077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/829077\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/829078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=829077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=829077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=829077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}