yea, good folks like dddakota just constantly mental masterbait about our beloved rockets...but hey nothing wrong with that.
Regardless of all the input, please remember we are dealing with "moneyball" principles. Moneyball, as it is proving, is great for getting mediocre players for mediocre money. Personally, I still dream about potential trades for tall, athletic players who can score and defend. Unfortunately, there aren't that many of them who are proven. That's why we have to take chances on some younger players. Von Wafer is a rare example for the Rockets. The coaches can teach him defense, but they can never teach Wafer's athleticism to others like Battier, who is 6-8 but plays 6-3. Sadly, we can't teach height and strength to our munchkins. Hence, we shouldn't complain. We praised Morey for his "moneyball." We should now be content with the resulting mediocrity.
i'm willing to do an artest-head for hinrich trade, if we don't anything better. he will be an upgrade over rafer, though not a huge upgrade. his contract ain't that terrible, either. don't be afraid to take back longer contracts at this point. our chances in 2010 probably ain't better than any other team anyway.
um, at the very least, you'll have to give up something of value to get value back. and you can't expect to give up your trash without getting some trash back. just a random trade idea, but this one has more legs (no pun intended) than yours: http://games.espn.go.com/nba/featur...s=3192~532~1981~356&teams=4~4~10~10&te=&cash=
i'm sorry, but this strikes me as completely wrong. many of Morey's "moneyball" players have been great this year. Scola? Wafer? Landry? you can argue whether artest is a "moneyball" guy or not, but bringing him in at his salary, knowing he is an expiring was a relatively low-risk, high-reward move. especially at the cost you paid to get him. the players that are most responsible for this year's bad play are the players that morey INHERITED. i.e. tracy and yao. so by this i mean that it's the guys that are NOT morey's guys that are leading this charge down the fecal waterslide. seriously. compare the performance of the Morey-era rockets with the performance of the CD-era rockets in terms of return on investment right now, and Morey's guys are absolutely killing it by comparison.
I understand your fascination for "moneyball." It looks good on paper but not so hot on the court. Oh, yes, I was shocked Morey got Artest at such a bargain. I still give him credit for that. However, Landry is too small for a power forward. He probably has more future, if his knee holds out, at small forward. He already is working on his range. Brooks (an Adleman choice) is quick but so small and light, he often gets abused by other PGs. Scola (who is one of my favorite players) is the best of Morey's acquisitions but he does have limitations on defense. Wafer (who has the athleticism we need) barely made the roster. The defensive skills he lacks can be learned because he has quick feet and hands. All of these guys were acquired at risk, but low risk. Battier was acquired by Morey at the cost of a #8 pick -- a budding star who could have replaced T-Mc inn exchange for a solid but mediocre player with the talent (and price) of Ime Udoke (or a similar player).
we dont have a single legit superstar on this team...not one! no wonder we cant pass first round cause our main guys have been pretenders all along
who is that "superstar" on the portland team? don't tell me roy qualifies as one. the pistons that won 2 titles?
You sound more and more PATHETIC by the day. The number of your completely idiotic comments you make on Yao warrants your account terminated. Get rid of everyone except scola. LOL. You know how to bash Yao without calling him out. Yao is the best post player in the league and if you bring a talented PG, sorround with shooters that is an elite team right there. Agn time to get rid of your screenie/account. Just remember, the whole board is laughing on you except racist ones who hate Yao for being chinese. Nothing can rationalise the hate on Yao, guys like you bring.
DD, I only brought up Mo Williams because he was there for a bag of doritos this summer. I remember having the thread about Mo and the responses were crazy. He's a ballhog,he's a gunner, rafer runs the offense better, yada,yada,yada. Everyone knew rafer is a terrible shooter from last yr. The 22 wins in a row was just air fresher on doo-doo. Now wer're complaining about rafer when that issue couldve been improved this summer. I've said it a million times, until they trade tracy or some miracle happens, he's the pg like it or not. The guy that needs to play with him in the backcourt needs to be a scorer/shooter who can guard pg's . Ben Gordon,Mo Williams, even Aaron Brooks fit that mold. I would take Gordon ahead of Hinrich even if for 1 yr. Now if they trade tracy and want to be more traditional, then I like hinrich. That pg needs to be like john paxson/bj armstrong type and that's ben gordon.
http://games.espn.go.com/nba/featur...ms=10~10~21~10~21~10~17~17~17~17~21&te=&cash= JUST TRADE TRACY !!!
i understand your frustration. but i guarantee you that if morey had the freedom to build the roster his way, it would not have the . . . lets say . . . limitations that the current roster does. the gm can only do so much. given the budget morey had to work with once you remove the combined salaries of tracy and yao from the rockets' cap number, he has done a phenomenal job of filling in the gaps. and don't forget that even though Battier has been terrible this year, he's still a very reasonable contract, and very tradeable. here's the litmus test for whether morey has done a good job. Look at the players he has brought in, and ask yourself how many of them are tradeable assets at their contract value. the answer to that is just about every single one. scola, brooks, landry, battier, wafer, artest, dorsey, barry, dikembe - they are all quite tradeable & very packageable. Some, like luis, brooks, and landry, are exceptional values at their current rates. These contracts offer the rockets a lot of flexibility in creating salary packages for matching purposes if need be. welcome to the era of fiscal responsibility in the NBA. where your team is a corporation, and the balance sheet has the final say.
Ahhh, but you forget that Rafer is a low-risk bargain PG considering his money and contract. Under "moneyball" there is no sense in getting an expensive PG when we have three superstars in T-Mc, Yao and Artest. Solid role players complete the team. Moneyball looks good on paper but doesn't look so good on the court.
The problem is that having bargain players means that obtaining star players/game changers is almost impossible without giving up most of your team. And bargain players sometimes don't have that much value elsewhere. I mean who is banging at the door to obtain scola, brooks, landry, battier, wafer, dorsey, barry, dikembe.
a LOT of teams would like those guys. ask yourself who wants Tracy though. he makes more than all those guys put together. and does a hell of a lot less.
Yao is the best post player in the league, which mind you doesn't say much these days, but his glaring weaknesses in basically every other facet of his game are cause for concern. I love the big guy, but I also can't count the number of times I get extremely frustrated at his inability to rebound effectively/consistently, control the ball, keep the ball up high, avoid having it stripped when he puts it on the floor, inability to adjust a shot outside of his robotic, pre-programmed repertoire, inability to be a target for an alley-oop, etc. Would I trade him? REALLY hard to say, it'd have to be someone I think would fit better, which the list is short.
First, Battier's trade value is very, very limited. We Rockets fans love him, but do other GMs? I don't think so. As far as the trade value of Scola, Brooks, Landry, Dorsey, Deke, and even Barry, their salaries are so small (relatively speaking) that you would have to package all of them to equal star money. Only Artest, Battier and maybe Rafer have contracts that are large enough to be usable. Personally, we need to keep Artest and jettison Battier unless Morey can achieve the impossible (Amare). Your point about fiscal responsibility is well made and well taken. There will be some very disappointed players in 2010 because the sweepstakes money probably won't be there -- cap space yes, money no.
I'm not saying that teams would not like these players, but who wants to trade for them and give us an impact player. Which team is going to give us a potential star/current star for the likes of these players. Usually teams dumping star players are looking for expirings not a bunch of role players that will take up cap room. Or they want a potential developing star for their current star. None of these players fit the bill. Maybe Battier might get you something if some team is sold on the idea that they need a glue guy. I am not including Artest among this group as he is a good deal and I believe has enough money to actually bring something back in a trade. Plus he is an expiring too.
