When the Houston Rockets acquired recently troubled point guard Ty Lawson from the Denver Nuggets, it was all but assumed that he would slide right in to be the starting point guard for ‘Clutch City’.
Rockets coach Kevin McHale is already putting some doubts in everyone’s head as to who might be the starter when the Rockets season opens against – oddly enough – the Denver Nuggets.
Following from Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle.
“They’ll determine that,” McHale said before a Rockets event on Tuesday to unveil three new alternate uniforms. “We’ll find out. Can we play them together? Maybe. We’ll put them out there. We had 28 days of camp. We’ll decide who will get the lion’s share of the minutes. One will and one will be a backup.”
When he spoke to the crowd later, McHale praised Lawson, but said he has to return to his level of play prior to last season.
“Ty last year had a very average year in Denver compared to what he had done before,” McHale said. “(Former Nuggets coach) George Karl runs a little bit more of an open offense like we run here, get up and down, attack. We want Ty to do what he does best, get in the paint, make plays for others, scoring.
“Since we had (Goran) Dragic, he’ll probably be our best guy at getting in the paint and then throwing out from the paint. He can make all the passes. And he’s got to get back to playing better defense. He’s got to be the head of the snake defensively. He can. I’ve seen him.
“If he just does what he does well, he’ll be a fit for us.
Lawson should be the starter for the Rockets and setup one of the most dynamic scoring backcourts in the NBA. Houston with Lawson and James Harden would be hard to contain and if they want, they can get creative by bringing Patrick Beverley off the bench in a rotation with the two guards and give teams different looks whenever they want.
The issue with a Lawson-Harden backcourt would be on the defensive end. While they aren’t exactly turnstyles on defense, combined they don’t equal the kind of defender Beverley is. Pat is one of the best perimeter defenders in the NBA and loves to go up against the top point guards in the NBA.
McHale knows this and while it might be the politically correct answer to give going into training camp, it also is a legit thing to consider. Do you sacrifice offense for defense or do you try to get teams behind early and put away the game with Beverley coming off the bench to shut down the opposition’s best offensive option?
