Why Houston should/would be a huge destination for FA this summer

Problem is... Yao is injury-prone.

 

I always thought it was because of the stripclubs and no state/local income tax....

Seriously, money won't be an issue so it will be about how they like the team that Morey has assembled. We should be a pretty attractive location so it may come down to what other teams will want from Morey and will Morey be willing to give that up?

 

lol. this is what i thought this thread was gonna be about

 

Yao-MartinBrooksScolaLowryHillArizaBudinger

 

you forgot that the team now has only players who are team oriented.

 

You cannot build your team around an "exceptional" center anymore. Those time are long gone.. however, a championship team must have above average center with exceptional post skills. Welcome to the age of guards!

But I do agree with Houston itself being an attractive choice.

 

Huh???

With the Rockets expected to be over the luxury tax threshold next year, let alone the salary cap, money is very much an issue.

Because of this, so long as it is just the Rockets and Team X involved in a sign-and-trade (and not a third, under-the-cap team), the Rockets MUST give up at least $13.1M in actual player salaries next year in exchange for any player who is re-signing for the max. Not a lot of teams are going to be interested in taking back that much salary, even if a future lottery pick is thrown in. Would the Rockets throw in ALL of their draft picks? I should hope not. Probably for Lebron, though.

 

Well, at least the $13.1 M won't be especially stinky contracts or especially stinky players.


BTW, the Mavs have a very nice partially guaranteed Dampier contract, which would be nice for a S&T for a star.


Battier accounts for about $7 mil more -- not a bad player and expiring. Not much use to a rebuilding team but a rebuilding team can probably deal him to a playoff team mid-season for some consideration. Jeffries is also expiring for the same amount. Andersen is also expiring at another $2.5 mil.

We are not exactly asking people to take back Gilbert Arenas' contracct, or a useless guy like Eddy Curry.

 

I agreed about your statement about a dominate center being a key to a championship. Houston elite years with Hakeem-Drexler(Hakeem-Thorpe), Shaq-Kobe years, Shaq-Wade, Gasol-Kobe years, Duncan-Parker etc.

The problem is all those centers are not as injury prone as Yao. We will see how Gasol pans out with injuries. Hopefully this surgery fixes Yao permanently. I like Yao cause he has heart, like last year he didn't want to come out Lakers series. Gained a lot of respect with me. He does play very soft for such a big man but that is his game.

I think every Rockets fan would like to see a Wade or a Lebron come here, but the chance are well slim to none. I see Morey getting a tough player that can run and play hard in the paint like Boozer or Johnson. This summer will be very interesting.

 

One could argue there are no exceptional centers in the league. Duncan and Shaq or past their prime and everyone else is one dimensional at best. Everyone wants to pass the hat but he is strictly a dunker/shotblocker. He could never take over a game the way Hakeem did. Oden was supposed to be the next real big man to dominate but we all know how that story turned out.

Yao was coming into his own as well and dominated the self proclaimed new big man/superman everytime. Yes the rules have changed. Yes it has never been easier for a guard to dominate offensively. But fortunately the game is played on both sides of the court. And since centers can still dominate on the defensive end they also can lead a team to a championship. If Yao can come back and continue to dominate has he did against Portland and LA before he got injured last playoffs then the Rockets are well on their way to competing for a championship.

 

I meant we will not be getting into a bidding war with another team (e.g. Bulls vs Knicks vs Heat for a Max Player). The first step will be Bosh or whoever asking to be traded to us instead of simply leaving for NY, Chicago or Miami. So when I said money won't be an issue I meant Morey won't be restricted by Les or challenged into a duel by another squad since Money will all be the same it's just does the player want to come here and does the other team want to deal with us.

Edit - Bidding war not monetarily but just convincing that their city will bring in the most advantages in each individual players case via a number of different avenues.

 

It is crazy how people forget overnight that just last year we took Lakers to 7 games with a mediocre team. We had a Yao who was out the last few critical games and only had a Ron Ron questionable star/role player? Who knows what would have happen if Yao was in those last 4 games. We had no Tmac, no real super star just a bunch of role playes with a lot of heart.

 

Rather than looking at Yao, stud free agents should look at Morey closely; surely they've noticed the abundance or role players the Rockets have piled lately. They should know that if they sign (n trade) here, they'd be sure to have plenty of help next to them.

 

lol Jordan's Bulls?

You don't necessarily need a great big man to win a championship. But there are only 5 players on the court and you probably need at least 2 to win a ship so there's a good chance one of the big men is one of them.

 

Gasol is more of a PF with size with A.Bynum playing the C position on the Lakers, but the speculation is spot on, we have a team that is rather appealing to free agents, via S&T. I just hope we don't give up too much to get someone. I'd be pretty content with the cast we have atm, plus M.Yao. We shouldn't be too bad considering we'd have

Brooks/Lowry
Martin/Budinger
Ariza/Battier
Scola/Hill/Jefferies
Yao/Andersen/Hayes

Pretty wicked line up if we're able to develop Hill some more. we'd have size/speed/athleticism (of course if we were able to stay healthy).

If we were to trade anyone, I would hope we would be able to swing out Scola/Battier/(Draft pick) for a possible FA but we'll see how this turns out.

 

Ahhh...There was this team called the Chicago Bulls that won 6 championships. They never had a great center/power forward. The closest guy to great was Dennis Rodman the last 3 years and his main contribution(some would say only) was rebounding. They had 2 of the best of the best players ever at SG and SF. And their other 3 starters could of almost been anybody else that was in the NBA. So please don't say please don't make a blanket statement like "Championship teams had always a great center/power forward among them"

 

They also had the greatest player of ALL TIME lol...

Lakers - Jabbar/O'Neal/Bynum
Celtics - Parrish
Rockets - Olajuwon
Spurs - Robinson/Duncan
Heat - O'Neal

The best case for not having an all time great Center/PF and winning is Detroit but even so they had above avg guys in Bill Laimbeer and Ben Wallace(Defensive POY).

 

Jordan = Freak of Nature

But he had his right-hand man Pippen. I think a huge part of winning a championship is have a dominate big guy plus one star. Doesn't mean a team can't win a championship without a big. If there is not a dominate big then most championship teams had at least one superstar and a star player plus a bunch of good role players.

 

Grant was a top 10 PF during their first championship run.