I can understand why many people are a little upset with Cato. But is it best to get rid of him? He's only been in the league three years. He's been a back up most of that time. I'd like to give him at least one more year (even then I'd only expect to see improvement, not full potential reached). I looked at the salaries of some of the big men in the league. (I got all of them off nbatalk.com. I don't know if they're accurate, but they're probably at least in the ballpark.) Conclusion: Big men don't come cheap. V. Potapenko -- 6 years/$33 million Z. Ilkauskas -- 6/80 S. Kemp -- 7/107 R. Smits -- 2/20 M. Geiger -- 6/51 A. Davis -- 7/38 S. Bradley -- 8/44 E. Dampier -- 7/48 T. Gugliotta -- 6/58 V. Divac -- 6/62 V. Baker -- 7/86 H. Grant -- 5/50 G. Ostertag -- 6/39 B. Reeves -- 6/65 Some of those guys are better than Cato, some aren't. If we got rid of Cato, we'd have to bring in another big man. Who exactly would that be? I don't think I'd want to give up Cato for any of the guys above. And you don't find many "seven footers" in the bargain bin (not without cause). Who replaces Cato if we get rid of him? Perhaps we could pick up Olowokandi. But at this point, having Cato or Olowokandi is like having six of one kind or a half dozen of the other. As far as production is concerned, there's not much difference. The truth is, someone's willing to pay big guys money. I know there are teams who'd probably be willing to give Cato's 7 year/ $42 million dollar contract a chance. The NBA is hurting for big men. Like it or not, barring the unexpected (i.e., Duncan), were probably stuck overpaying for underproducing big men, regardless of whether or not we like it. I think we could do a lot worse than Cato and, with the lack of quality big men in the league, I say we could do worse than to pay him for his potential (at least for the time being). ------------------
While Cato is a player with potential, I don't think he is worthy of half his contract value. He should have been given the contract after proving he could develop into a good player. So far he has proved he can stand around under the hoop, sometimes catch the ball and dunk it. ------------------ 7 years 42 million mistakes.
Traj: While I knew that big men a;ways get overpaid, it was nice to see them all together. What you state is true. Some teams would give Cato 42 mil just for ~ 1.6 blocks per. Look at McIlvane. He could not even dream of averaging 8 ppg. Cato literally did that without trying too hard. We should keep him and hope the summer helps. Even 10ppg, 8rpg, 2bpg would be great and that is not a very big jump from this year. ------------------ rimbaud post-a-thon 2000
Can someone tell me what exactly Cato's contract is worth? ------------------ Really a member since March 1999.
RocketsFanFromLa, Checkout Francis3422 signature $6 M a year is not too much to pay for the player Cato will become. It might even be a bargain when it is all said and done. ------------------
