The Dream Links: Summer League Edition - July 12th, 2009

and one of the things I liked was that it gave a pretty big insight into the Rockets’ organizational philosophy, as well as into who they think is undervalued by the NBA:

Charles Gaines
Hinkie had said that, as a general rule, the younger the player, the better in Summer League. Given that Gaines will be 28 before the year is up, I asked him why the team made an allowance in Gaines’ case.

Hinkie: “He earned his way. He played really well in Europe. He came in a make-good Summer League situation. Even though we have a roster of guys with his sorts of skills, he’s the kind of player we love — rebounds his tail off, plays hard, is undersized and doesn’t care.”

Hinkie’s answer sounded uncharacteristically sentimental for a Rockets’ organization that bases every decision on empirical fact. I asked him if, in Gaines’ case, the team bowed to their love of his grit.

“The only sentimentality to Gaines is that he does the things we know are empirically valuable,” Hinkie responded. “He just rolls hard. He just sets good screens. He just bodies guys at the elbow when they come down. He just tries to get every single rebound.”

Hinkie draws a comparison between Chuck Hayes and Gaines. Like Hayes, Gaines knows his offensive limitations, so he resists shooting, making him a more efficient player.

“Gaines is a Houston Rocket,” Hinkie concluded. " We might not have room for him, but he’s earned his way."

It seems – given all the interviews given over the past few years – that one of the things the Rockets look for in players is an ability to do the non-scoring parts of basketball well. That makes sense, as players who can score well and do little else (Ben Gordon and Von Wafer come to mind) tend to be overvalued by the NBA establishment. Players who – as Hinke says – set screens well, rebound well, and play good defense tend to be ignored.

I also liked the “undersized and doesn’t care” comment. That summarizes a lot of the current Rockets (Scola, Landry, Hayes, Dorsey, Brooks, Lowry – basically everyone but the wings and Yao) very well. As Morey has pointed out in the past, the Rockets are undersized and yet tend to out-rebound their opponents in almost all of their games.

does game start tonite? link to boxscore?

the rockets playing now and about to win… nothing big points wise…budinger shooting well, dorsey has grabbed 16 boards…

(I saw the last four minutes or so), but Dorsey continues to dominate the boards. With just two games left on the Rockets’ schedule (they don’t play again until Wednesday), he’s still leading the league in rebounds per game. That’s great, especially considering that that was his stated goal coming into the summer. And he’s #3 in blocked shots, too.