McGrady: How we can get both a starting point guard and a starting shooting guard

I like it. We get Hamilton and Hinrich for only T-Mac. We could use Brooks, Lowry, and/or Landry to grab us another valuable player, maybe another good big man to back up Yao.

or maybe we can flip Lowry and Brooks and Landry for Rubio :3

Hinrich/Rubio
Hamilton/Artest/Taylor or FA
Artest/Battier/Budinger
Scola/Hayes/FA
Yao/FA

Woo

 

I'm personally a big fan of Kirk Hinrich myself, BimaThug. He would be the ideal complement at the point for the Rockets. He's a catch-and-shoot machine. He's smart. He's tough. He can defend either backcourt position. He's exactly the type of player you put around Yao Ming—a versatile, intelligent, tough-minded player who'll make teams pay for playing Yao in any other way than with a conventional defense.

The thing to keep in mind, with Yao Ming and Rick Adelman, is that a "playmaker", by definition, isn't really all that necessary to this team. That's Yao's job, in essence...to create scoring opportunities for the rest of the team. It's what can make a guy like Richard Hamilton particularly effective, considering that offensive opportunities are going to be generated by reading defenses and moving bodies.

My only reservation with this approach has to do with Yao himself. He works extremely hard. He's unselfish. He wants to win. But he does have a time dealing with different defenses. Yao is still very mechanical and predictable in both his moves and his decision-making. That's the obstacle Yao has to overcome, for himself and his team, BimaThug.

The game has to go from being work to being instinct for Yao. Adelman has wanted Yao to be more active and more mobile in the offense, especially in moving from left block to right block. The biggest thing that Yao can do now is to lose about 10-15 pounds. It's amazing how much more durable Yao could become if there was just a little bit less weight for him to carry around, and if he spent less time wrestling for post position and moving around to better positions.

But again, nobody can say with any certainty what Tracy McGrady can be if and/or when he makes his return. And in any case, McGrady or a McGrady-like player would have to be option B offensively. Some of the people suggested in trades for McGrady, BimaThug, wouldn't be any more inclined or willing to defer to Yao as McGrady supposedly isn't.

The goal is to get as much talent working on the same page as possible. And I just feel that's it's easier to do that with players that are already here, than to hope that something like that can happen with new personalities and agendas. The Rockets have made progress. But this isn't Gregg Popovich and the Spurs, who have a very recent history and track record of winning big, and a core of players who won't settle for underachieving or selfishness.
The Spurs have more leverage in getting players to contribute to a winning formula than the Rockets, who are going to change their team based on who produces the most results.

It's the dynamic that has the Ron Artest Experiment on hold right now. Ron Artest got this team "over the hump" in some people's eyes, but not for any of the right reasons. Artest didn't make the Rockets tougher. The Rockets were already tough. He didn't make them more feared, or more competitive. Artest just added another player who was more versatile than the majority of the roster. But because of Artest himself (and the need to add more talent to the team) Artest's value will be overstated, and more importantly, his identity will begin to become the Rockets' identity. Yao is still too deferential a player to his teammates, and that will make the Rockets Artest's team before too long, if it hasn't happened already.

That's why you need to be careful about what type of player you decide to bring in here, BimaThug. I know McGrady has had difficulty adjusting to what Adelman has wanted from him, but I also know that if McGrady could recover to even 85% of what he was physically (circa 2007), he's that perimeter playmaker the Rockets need.

That is, of course, if we still wanted McGrady around here in the first place...

 

I need a napkin when i wake up from that dream

 

Great thread, great players, great trade. I would be very pleased with our offseason if this was the only thing that went down. I would still like a decent back up Center for Yao that could maybe start at the beginning of the season if Yao is still injured. Rip and Hinrich would be lethal in this offense. Best thing is we would only lose T-mac and get to keep all our guys from the playoffs last season.

 

When I talk about Brooks' potential for improvement, I imagine that manifesting itself in less mistakes and improved leadership and decision making. His size means that he probably won't ever be much better on defense. But he's a young kid and a smart one. I don't think he's reached his peak as a ball handler or decision maker. There's no substitute for experience where that stuff's concerned and he just started getting some experience last year. As he has more, I expect him to continue to excel as a scorer but to play smarter and with fewer mistakes.

 

Beautiful Trade IMO.....Actually, I hate to be the geek but last summer, when the Pistons were wanting Tracy, I actually used this EXACT trade as a scenario to my boys....loved it so much that I used it for the first half of the season on 2K9 LOL.....

Any ways.....I'd hit it

BTW.....one correction from your original post.....You can NEVER have enough scorers.....I think that the whole "x" amount of scorers and "x' amount of defensive guys mentality is an ugly byproduct of the JVG era that needs to be put to rest

 

If im not mistaken and please feel free to correct me if im wrong, but brooks played 4 years of college, the kid is 24 now, its not like he played 1 year and is 19 or 20, I understand it is his second year in the NBA but after 4 years of college and two years in the pros, im sorry but i believe your starting to get darn near your ceiling when its comes to potential

 

stop complaining about the PG... we need a shooting guard and a back up center. Mostly the CENTER.

There real problem with Tracy McGrady is that no one wants to take the risk for him. That is a huge factor in this equation. He's got a bad reputation for being lazy and it isn't entirely a sure deal that he can come back from his injuries at all.

See, in business, the person taking the most risk gets the highest return. So in a trade situation... guess who wants the most value? The other teams. Morey can't get a good trade out of T-mac because it is too risky and other teams want to bite off more than he is willing to part with.

 

How much experience does he have as a starting point guard (in other words, the on court leader) for a competitive NBA team? I don't think college or anything else is a substitute for that. And I think we saw clear evidence of that in his improvement over his time starting last year.

 

I'd do that in a heartbeat but Boston wouldn't. But if we were at least fairly sure that Rondo would sign an extension here, I'd still do the trade with Landry in there instead of Hayes. And I could see Boston at least thinking about that deal, especially if they're as willing to part with Rondo as rumors suggest.

 

Also, I think it's the exception and not the rule that players have reached their potential in their second year in the NBA, regardless of how much college ball they've played. But when it comes to point guards, who are the primary decision makers on the team, that's even more true.

 

I´d prefer someone else over hinrich...

I know i´m going to get flamed but does rip still have anything in the tank?

I´d rather get Gordon from the bulls and Stuckey from the pistons..

 

I didn't want to embed this on here 'cause it's to long but scroll down to February and go up from there...make sure and take a look at Points and assists....these are the stats he put up once he was fully healed of the groin injury


http://www.nba.com/playerfile/richard_hamilton/game_by_game_stats.html



If anyone is questioning whether Rip has anything left, they're crazy

 

sted, I like your thinking. The only thing is, if I trade T-Mac, I want a better PG than Hinrich. Hinrich is a solid all-around player, no more and no less. With Yao seemingly deteriorating, and T-Mac almost out of the picture, we need more firepower, more playmaking talent than Hinrich to contend.

 

I see now.

I´m still shaky about Hinrich. I´d rather have Brooks mature into Tony Parker second coming

 

I like Brooks more than Kirk.

 

Play them together...

DD