Doesn't it seem like we have a lot of either offensive or defensive specialists?  I imagine it has to be an effect of Dork Elvis (of whom I'm a loyal follower) finding individuals with undervalued skill sets and accumulating them onto a dynamic roster.

A couple of things got me thinking about this...

1.  On DraftExpress twitter (which you can see on their main webpage), they report Chase Budinger as among the worst one on one defenders (judged by performance against an iso set) in the league.

2.  The potential Martin/Brooks starting backcourt might be one of the most offensively charged and defensively anemic in the league (as evidenced over the last few nights).  Too lazy to seek out stats, just from observation.

3.  Jared Jeffries CANNOT shoot, and he really finishes surprisingly poorly considering his size and length.

But you could easily classify a lot of our rotation players into one of two categories:

Offensive "Specialists": K Money, Aaron Brooks, David Anderson, Chase Budinger

Defensive "Specialists":  Chuck Hayes, Shane Battier, Trevor Ariza, Jared Jeffries,

That's EIGHT rotation players who are markedly better on one end of the court than the other.

I understand the concept of mixing and matching around Yao and playing match ups on the wing.  But, I do have some concerns about being able to put out a consistent rotation that can play solid two way ball next year.  I know how much better we get defensively with Yao on the court, but will that alone propel us to a top 10 defensive team (something that Morey has implied as an important bullet to check off if you want to be a championship caliber team)?  I'm not sure, but it looks it'll be up to Sleepy to get creative for that to happen.

Some notes: I realize the term 'specialist' is a gross over simplification concerning something as dynamic as an NBA basketball player's skillset.  For example, I know Shane has value on offense with his ability to space the floor and competent passing; and Chuck is an elite high post passer.   I'm just trying to express a concern about a roster of which I am (despite the tone of this post) a huge fan.

PS. A little off topic but... we need a low post defender ASAP.  Early returns on Hilton and Jeffries don't look promising.  I mean, Jeffries had trouble stopping Reggie Evans on the block tonight.  Since when was this guy a low post threat?

I'm coming up from Galveston tonight and was wondering about the state of viewing parties around the city.  Is there an official one?  I'm just trying to find the place to be tonight. ;)

And, since I need 40 more words, I'll just say to check out TrueHoops analysis (actually its from someone else, but its on the blog) about Houston's opportunities as far as getting Yao the ball that we didn't take advantage of.  I'm willing to bet that the outcome of this game will depend on how committed the Rockets are to feeding Yao down low, or even up high.