IMO, we should keep the last spot open for now. Christian Woods could show us something in TC, and given our potential issues with the apron, we can't be handing out vet minimum contracts like candy. Also, you never know who gets bought out/cut that may be willing to take the vet minimum on a championship caliber team.
We actually still have *some* flexibility. Woods and Hayes both have partially guaranteed contracts. Assuming Terry goes somewhere else and we sign Harrell, we could either keep Hayes/Woods or waive them and sign 2 other vets. Anyone know the full guarantee dates for Hayes and Wood?
1 TY 2 BEARD 3 TREV 4 T-MO 5 HOWWWWWWAAARRRRD 6 BEV 7 BREW 8 KJ 9 D-JO 10 CLINT 11 THORNTON 12 JET 13 MONTREZL (in the valley, sometimes in the 13) 14 DEKKER (in the valley, sometimes in the 13) 15 JOSHUA SMITH (in the valley, sometimes in the 13) Vipers: G Cummings G Livingston F Kazemi PF/C Walker PF/C Tyler We have puh-lenty of guards and small forwards. That 15 spot is going to a back up C. It was always going to be either 4 Sammich, Walker, or Tyler. Give it to Joshua Smith. 4 Sammich can move. He is Kung Fu Panda. Don't underestimate the athleticism of a quick big guy. Yeah Corey Brewer is fast, but he makes a broom look fat. What do you expect? It's often overlooked, but it's impressive when a big dude can move as fast as a regular bodied dude. That is in itself another freakish form of athleticism that deserves some credit. And I swear I feel like he is going to pop the ball when he grabs aholt of it. When he secures a board, no one is wrestling that sucker away from him. Gives us the tough hard fouls Dorsey was supposed to deliver. Doesn't have butter fingers like even some of our best ever bigs, and has a real nice soft shooting touch. Howard is in his prime and is in no way washed up. But hell, even AD has yet to play 70 games ever in a season in his 3 years in the NBA. Bigs get banged up. And D-Mo's back & robustness banging with 5s is a big question mark. (I'm trying to quickly recap what we all already know). So really it's just a 70% regular-season-playing Howard and Capela. Need that 3rd string C. Big Josh, you da man. Pick your head up & pop your shoulders back, kid, you're good.
You are funny with the "Brew makes a broom look fat". Lol BTW, good post, and I agree that skinny should make the 15th man roster.
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/sports/article/Rockets-Smith-doing-utmost-to-fill-big-man-shoes-6576686.php?t=954ad651d9438d9cbb&cmpid=twitter-premium Hahah gotta love McHale's honesty with the last quote.
This is the deepest 12 I have ever seen on the Rockets - throw any one of those in at anytime and be in good to dominating shape on the floor. If we played like GS's style then we could certainly keep up with them.
The only thing is that Howard probably isn't going to play b2b's, meaning our 'big man' supply will be down by one. This throws another big into that top 12 who wouldn't ordinarily be there. So, with Howard out of the lineup those days (and no telling how many others as well), it leaves us with a 'big man supply' of just D-Mo, Jones, and Capela out of that top 12. And since we know D-Mo is probably NOT going to be 100% for quite a while, this drops it down yet again. This means we are most likely going to be leaning more heavily on Harrell and maybe even Joshua than we would like. Clint is very young, and will probably be prone to foul troubles, and Jones is on a streak of freak accidents every year.. so I suspect we are going to be seeing way more of Smith and Harrell than we ever bargained for. Hopefully those guys can handle it, otherwise, a lot of teams are going to be running layup drill against us. No matter what, it should be interesting to see.. cannot wait for the season to start!!
Still think Morey makes a move for a proven 5. Smith was absolutely abused by Bogut. Slim is good for about 10 minutes a game, any more and his conditioning becomes a huge liability. With Dwight not playing back2backs, Capela is going to need another vet in case he gets in foul trouble or worse, gets nicked up.
smith will be #15. the surprise of the preseason, at least to me, is marcus thornton! he's ahead of dekker, terry, and KJ in my book... and he could end up stealing some minutes from pat and brew depending on the situation.
Smith has to be it. Especially since Dwight seems to be getting more fragile these days. Hell, all our bigs are smh.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Rockets announced today that the team has waived guards Will Cummings and Denzel Livingston, center Jeremy Tyler and forward Chris Walker.</p>— Houston Rockets (@HoustonRockets) <a href="https://twitter.com/HoustonRockets/status/657595154300141568">October 23, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Rockets still must make one cut, but could also look for a released veteran for that final spot.</p>— Jonathan Feigen (@Jonathan_Feigen) <a href="https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Feigen/status/657596397252833280">October 23, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
