‘Adults in the room’ are welcomed
MIAMI — Justin Holiday and Frank Kaminsky on Friday joined the team with the NBA's worst record. And they were thrilled to do it.
Traded by the Hawks, in the thick of the Eastern Conference playoff chase, to the Rockets, who are counting the days to the draft lottery, Holiday and Kaminsky saw a chance to play and lead. It is, they said, what they wanted.
While Danny Green, another player acquired at the trade deadline, ponders whether to seek a buyout or to be waived, with several contenders wanting to pick up his services, and John Wall soon to add to the paychecks the Rockets already send his way, Kaminsky and Holiday both described the move exactly the same way.
“I feel good about it,” both said a half hour apart.
If it were not already apparent how challenging the task at hand will be, Friday's loss, when the Rockets left Miami's Jimmy Butler alone at the rim to slam home a win with three-tenths of a second left, made that obvious.
The Rockets' newcomers will not be asked to transform their new team, though both might be able to contribute as shooters on the second-to-worst 3point shooting team in the league. They will, however, bring value as the sort of been-there, done-that veterans the Rockets do not have with the trade of Eric Gordon to the Clippers.
“Two veteran guys who have gone through things these guys will go through is important,” coach Stephen Silas said. “And they've both been productive on the floor, Frank as a pick-and-pop five man, Justin as a 3-and-D type guy. They both will contribute both ways, on the floor and off.”
Both hope to get on the floor much more regularly than they were with the Hawks. Holiday played in just two of his final 22 games, Kaminsky in just four of 16 games. But happy as Holiday and Kaminsky were to find themselves with a fresh start, they also knew that joining the Rockets would mean bringing the experience to a team so lacking in it.
Holiday, a 10-year NBA veteran, has been traded during more seasons than any Rockets player that played on Friday has been in the NBA. Kaminsky, in his eighth season, played as many seasons under Silas with Charlotte as any Rockets player has with the Rockets.
The roles with the Rockets are to be determined. Neither Kaminsky, a 7-foot center, nor Holiday, a 6-6 wing, will be confused for a point guard, where the roster is especially thin with Kevin Porter Jr. out. But Silas said, “Both will be integrated into what we're doing.”
“I feel good,” Kaminsky said. “I was, I don't want to say hoping something would change, but me and Justin both, we just want to play. Coming in, talking about being a veteran presence, being about to get some minutes and show guys here how things are done, playing the right way, all that stuff.
“They got a lot of young guys. We're kind of like adults in the room, now.”
Gordon gave the Rockets a role model veteran, but he is a leader of few words. Holiday is much chattier, though he said sometimes it is best to show rather than tell. Still, he said he will not hesitate to share his thoughts during games, practices or in between.
“I'm in a place with an opportunity to come and play,” he said. “I've been in this league for a while, so I know a lot. I'll be able to help in more ways than just being on the court for these young guys. The record doesn't show it, but this team is very, very talented. Getting the mental aspect and understanding of this game will help tremendously and hopefully I can help in doing so.
“I've done almost everything you can do as a professional basketball player. I've started. I've come off the bench. I played big minutes, played at the end of games, made big shots, won a championship before (in 2015 with the Warriors.) I have that experience a lot of these guys don't have.”
Holiday and Kaminsky can also bring range shooting to help open lanes for penetrating guards. Kaminsky has made 35 percent of his 3s in his career, 47.8 percent this season. Holiday is a career 36.4 percent 3-point shooter, who also has the family trait of defensive tenacity, as with his younger brothers Jrue and Aaron.
“We take that side of the ball very, very seriously,” Holiday said. “My dad raised us to be two-way players. We don't like getting scored on as much as we like to score on somebody else.”
Joining his 10th team, including two stints with the Hawks, Holiday could be considered a journeyman. Of the four times he has been traded during a season, three have been at the deadline. Few are as practiced at adjusting quickly.
“I've always gotten things quickly,” Holiday said. “I have a really good memory. As far as plays go, I can see them once or twice and I'll remember them. I've always had that part of my mental game, knowing what the other team wants to do. I'm 33.
I've been in the league for 10 years. Basketball is basketball at this point.”
Kaminsky, 29, arrives with greater familiarity with his new team, or at least its coaching staff. In addition to three seasons with Silas when he was an assistant in Charlotte and the Hornets made him the ninth pick of the 2015 draft, he was with Rockets assistant Rick Higgins for three seasons and Mike Batiste for two.
“It's my first time being traded but it's nice having familiar faces and not be something totally new,” Kaminsky said. “Once you get the concepts of what we call the plays, it's pretty easy. Everyone runs pretty similar actions. A lot of it is pretty familiar.”
Though his role is unclear with Alperen Sengun starting and Usman Garuba likely to continue to pick up playing time as the backup center, neither is primarily a floor spacer, a valuable quality for a team with penetrating guards. The Rockets average the seventh most drives per game, but are 22nd in made 3-pointers, and just traded two of their top range shooters, Gordon and Garrison Mathews.
“Guards that are that explosive and that good at getting downhill, they always need someone to space the floor for them, somebody that won't have a big hanging out to cut off their drives,” Kaminsky said. “That's kind of what I made a career out of, being able to space the floor and shoot the ball when I'm open. People have to respect me out there.”
That could help. On Friday, the need for “adults in the room” was as clear.