T-Mobile Player of The Week: Chase Budinger

For now, Chase Budinger really only has one purpose: to shoot. Oh, and to dunk on the fast break whenever possible.

He did both of those quite well this past week, scoring in double digits in each of the Rockets' four games. Last night against New Orleans, Chase nearly matched a career high with 18 points on 7-11 shooting. Over the course of the week, he made 8 of 13 three point attempts, and also had two blocks against the Hornets.

It will be interesting to see what this new guard-oriented attack does to Chase's playing time, especially when Kyle Lowry comes back. Given Kevin Martin's penchant for subpar defense (I haven't seen quite enough to judge myself), Coach Adelman may be looking to leave Ariza or Battier on the floor with Martin as often as possible and leave Budinger to play between 10-15 minutes per game. Budinger has certainly made an effort to defend, but he's not there yet.

But anyhow, congratulations to Chase for winning the T-Mobile Player of the Week award!