Houston Rockets: Milos Teodosic should be a target as insurance for Chris Paul
By Zamir Bueno
The Houston Rockets should pursue Milos Teodosic via trade to have him as insurance for their injury riddled point guard Chris Paul
American author and motivational speaker, Zig Ziglar once said:
"” Ability is important in our quest for success, but dependability is critical.”"
This is the story Houston Rockets point guard Chris Paul who is considered to be one of the greatest players at his position. Unfortunately, Paul’s injury history has often put his dependability in question as he’s missed 103 out of a possible 596 regular season games in the past 7-plus years due to various injuries.
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A prime example of Paul’s injury history has been this season as he hasn’t played in 13 games with recurring hamstring injures. Paul’s unavailability has forced James Harden to take on more ball handling duties as in the last eight games without Chris, he has averaged 104.3 touches per game.
This is a dramatic increase from the previous 11 games with Paul as he averaged 19.8 fewer touches per game.
Therefore the Rockets should pursue Milos Teodosic via trade to have him as insurance if Chris is unavailable. Teodosic gained the reputation of continually using screens to dissect the opposing team during his professional career overseas. According to Draft Express:
"Milos used “plenty of picks to create mismatches, to unbalance the opponent’s defense, to feed the rolling man, to slash towards the basket or to shoot the ball if they leave him open.”"
Consequently, he would fit right in with the Houston Rockets because their head coach Mike D’Antoni uses a lot of screens in his offensive system. One example of this was during a road game against the Dallas Mavericks when James Harden dribbled the ball to the 3-point line.
Once this happened, Nene came up to set the screen which created a temporary wall between Harden and his defender Wesley Matthews. The temporary wall left Dirk Nowitzki as the last line of the defense between James and the basket. James Harden knew Dirk didn’t possess the lateral quickness to stop him from getting to the rim.
Therefore, he drove straight down the middle of the paint and scored with a layup.
The possible presence of Milos Teodosic would allow Mike D’Antoni to bring James Harden’s touches back to normal. Not only would Milos help James with ball handling duties but he can excel as a floor spacer when Harden has the basketball. He has a career shooting percentage of 40.5 percent (44.2 +36.8/2) on catch and shoot 3’s.
As a consequence, the opposing team can’t afford to leave him open because he’ll make 0.9 3’s (1.3 + 0.5/2) in 2.1 attempts (2.9 + 1.3/2).
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Not only would Milos be an excellent on-court asset but the team won’t have to surrender many assets to acquire him as he is the third-string point guard on the Clippers roster. Consequently, they could acquire him by giving up a protected first round pick or a couple of seconds plus the contracts of Marquese Chriss, Isaiah Hartenstein and Carmelo Anthony.