Houston, you guys are up and coming, I'm only 26 and this is the best team available for me to be then main piece of a championship team. Where do I sign that extension - melo Ps. I talked to my big man nene and he is on board too.
In the event we acquire him, what are the chances the Rockets could do a sign&trade if he doesn't resign with us?
My guess it's more likely going to be an "extend and trade" (which would happen before 7/1/11) rather than a "sign and trade" after Melo actually becomes an FA (which would be after 7/1/11 and after any lockout period). If Melo wants to get the full money, and not risk what happens in the new CBA, it would make more sense to do the "extend and trade" after the season ends.
probably 99%. He would want more money and we wouldn't want to be empty handed. Even bitter Cleveland S&T with Miami for LeBron.
I agree with your assessment of the situation and I think Melo might feel differently if Yao was still playing ball. But since that probably won't happen, and the team is stuck without a legit center, I can't see him wanting to sign with a team long term when there's little chance he'll get a ring in H-town. The reality is, the Rockets would have to trade away some key players to get Melo and without those players the Rockets wouldn't be nearly good enough to get a championship. Enough said!
i wouldnt too, considering his team got blown out by 20. i mean his quote is what it is: houston aint new york, but its better than denver - i think its clear that we wanna do more to win than denver, but just dont have the glamour appeal that ny does obviously. he also knows den would be stupid to trade him within conference. that being said, all i want for the deadline is a 7ft defensive center.
If Melo makes a decision #2 like Lebron did, it would surprise me about as much as Lebron pussying out and picking to play w/ Wade and Bosh surprised me.
I hate to repeat myself but, why are people so surprised about this??? Haven´t you asked yourself why DM is still trying to bring Melo to Houston??? There is no need to talk about an "extend and trade" scenario in this Melo situation, he will sign an extension with the team he get´s traded to, because at the end of the day: Money + Houston (or other team) + DM (or other GM) desire to get Melo >>>>>> Whatever NY value is. Another question, if Melo REALLY REALLY wanted to go to NY, why did he went public about it??? By going public, the probabilities of the Knicks doing a fair offer to Denver decreased, because they will not give up huge amount of assets, when they can sign him for free in FA. If Melo only wanted NY, he would tell Denver´s GM to trade him to the Knicks. And Denver would gladly work a deal with them, having leverage to demand good young players in return (leverage that they don´t have right now) Until the fans and the media understand that the fact that Houston is the only team with the balls to trade for Melo without a "GUARANTEED" extension makes us almost front runners for Melo, because the Knicks will not give up Galo, Chandler, and Fields. If some of you are surprised, wait until the 24th....... PeAcE
NY do not hold any trade exceptions. This means they are more or too reliant on third parties to help Denver achieve getting under luxury tax. Denver reduces their team salary by $8,168,311 Payroll now at $75,310,445 A further $5.004M needs to be cut to get under LT Possibly include a third team under the cap to take on JR Smith's expiring $6.7M + $3M cash (HOU) & rights to Eliyahu? Basically the third team would get two player for "free" depending on the pro-rated value of Smith's remaining contract. Nuggets would now be $1,754,406 under the tax On the flipside the Rockets are taking on c.$16M factoring in LT. Does the insurance money coming from Yao's contract allow the Rockets to take this much on? Yao's contract is actually an asset better kept for rest of season? Lowry, Smith Martin, Budinger, Williams Melo, Battier, Jeffries Scola, Harrington Hayes, Miller, Yao
I think we can move scola and martin to land melo if he agrees to extend with the rockets. I know Scola and Martin are good players, but I dont think they are starters on championship teams. They aren't good enough defensively. Scola has decent rebounding numbers, but he is not a great defensive rebounder. He consistently gets out rebounded by his opponent. If we trade for a starting Center with defensive ability our rotation would have better balance. We would improve our size and rebounding while maintaining our scoring. If we can't find a center at the deadline, i think we will make it a priority in the offseason. The goal is to contend and i these moves will put us back in contention quickly. PG Lowry(40 minutes) Brooks(8 minutes) SG Battier(30 minutes) Brooks(10 minutes )Budd(8 minutes) SF Melo(30 minutes)Buddinger(10 minutes)Battier(8 minutes) PF Hayes(30 minutes)(Melo 10 minutes)Patterson(8 minutes) C Player acquired via trade/offseason(30 minutes) Hill(10 minutes)Miller(8 minutes) Starters: Lowry Battier Melo Hayes Starting C(30 mins) Unit 2: Lowry Brooks Budd Melo Hill(10 mins) Unit 3: Brooks Budd Battier Patterson Miller(8 mins) The starting 5 is very strong defensively and can lean on Melo's scoring ability and Lowry's penetration. Second Unit is small but can really run the floor and spread it out in half court with good shooting and isolation players. Third Unit can rebound, run, and spread the floor with shooters. I think we somehow need to rediscover our defensive identity. Starting Hayes at the PF position and adding a starting C while keeping Battier in the lineup will make us tougher to score on. Carmelo gives us size at the 3 and he will improve our rebounding. I think Melo and the small lineup will be able to put up enough points to make up for the losses of Martin and Scola. We will also be much improved at closing out games. We can finish a game with our starters who can get stops and finish off those stops with rebounds. Melo solves our main problem by giving us one of the great closers in the game. This plan only works if we somehow acquire a defensive center who can play 30 solid minutes. Just adding Melo wont be enough. If Yao ever gets healthy he would fit in perfectly at that spot, but thats wishful thinking of course. Even without Yao i think by next season we should be able to add a defensive center with our free cap space. Again, giving up two great players like Scola and Martin is risky, but we have to make big changes if we want to be in contention again. If you study our most recent success, it was clearly a result of being consistently ranked among the top in team defense. Getting back to playing that kind of basketball should be our priority.
