Kind of a snarky comment for him to make. Dalembert is pretty damn legit if you ask me, but yes a better backup than Hill would be great.
Yep Team seems backwards when it comes to 'rebuilding'. We'll give up our young players for an aging 30 year vet that's just a solid player at this stage in his career. Meanwhile the Hornets are 'playing their young guys' and shipping out their vets...
Have we ever said we're rebuilding? If we were, I don't know why KMart, Scola, or Dally are on the team. We went for 3 prime centers/pf in Pau, Nene, and Chandler and we struck out on all of them. NO is 4-15, we're 11-8 and a 1/2 game out of first in the southwest. NO is terrible and is trying to shed payroll so that someone will actually want to buy the team off the league. We're trying to strike for a playoff birth and I'd imagine we're going to be heavy buyers at the deadline unless we hit several losing streaks and fall out of the playoff picture. I don't think I understand where your "backwards" logic comes from.
Because the team doesn't believe in 'rebuilding' they believe in going for the 8th seed and hoping to land a big deal. That's why Kmart and Scola are still on the team, also because they can't find a deal to ship those guys (and according to reports both were close to being traded) What NO is doing is what typically every NBA team does when they lose their star player. They ship out their vets and take in young players. It is cutting payroll at the same time though. That little 'Play the young guys' line might as well be 'Lets lose as many games as possible.' As for being 11-8 thanks to the schedule. When the Rockets consistently beat good teams and outplay those teams then I'll believe they are more than a mediocre team. They are doing exactly what they did last year. Beating the bad teams and losing to the good ones more often than not. Of course though the Rockets will be heavy buyers, they always are. Hopefully this time there will be more out there than Kaman.
I don't think you understand what the word "mediocre" means. The Rockets have clearly been above average the last few seasons, if only by a little bit. When you're above average you try to push your team over the top in whatever way you can, not tear everything down and start over. A high lottery pick is not a magic bullet and losing for the sake of obtaining one can easily create more problems than it solves. Heck, look at the Wizards. Has John Wall turned them into contenders? When will he? I don't see a turn-around for them next season at this rate. They'll be lucky if they're as good as we are now, five years from the day they went into tank-mode.
spoken for truth. I'm sick of everyone talking about tanking when we are half a game off 3rd seed and the division lead almost a 3rd of the season in. How are the Knicks fairing with their 2 superstars? How are the sixers or pacers doing so far this season? (albeit still early but clearly don't have 'superstars' as such.
Would do it for Hill, Flynn, Thabeet, and a 2nd round pick. That saves NOLA some money this season, and they could find PT for all of those guys. A few months of Kaman isn't worth much more than that. Would be great to have someone else who can score in the post other than Scola.
Cmon now. More than half of the teams make the playoffs and the Rockets weren't one last season. Well it's good to know that Wall was given an entire year to completely turn around the Wizards situation. 5 years from now if Wall grows into the player he can become they won't be talking about 8th seed it'll be how they match up with the other powers of the NBA. Who said it was a magic bullet? Although it seems more often than not it actually is. Do we really have to start listing players picked in the top 5 that have taken their teams to finals? How many teams have won championships centered around players they have not drafted? Bball is a sport centered around individuals.Teams like the Pistons are an exception...a very rare one... You can try and push a mediocre team to the top by continuing to acquire "solid" role player like pieces but more often than not these guys will not make you true contenders. If this was the NFL you'd have the right mentality. Get as many good players as you can, make a push for the playoffs and see what happens. Basketball has no such parity. The cream always rises and although the Rockets are not far off from the 3 seed if you just look at how they've played against who then trend is very familiar. Kaman isn't going to change that. When they play the likes of the Lakers or Thunder and Kobe or Bynum or Durant dominates whoever is guarding them Kaman is not going to help them with that. But yay, I guess he'll give us a few more wins against more average teams, maybe he would have made a diff in the Bucks game? Lets send them Morris and Dragic for him!
NOLA owner King David may like to take expirings + Bud at savings of a few mil to make his franchise more salable???
http://espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine plus a 2nd rd pick N.O.-they get younger players with team options at end of year depending if they wanna extend or cut salary on which players they like... they also save about 3mill on the cap for this year... cut thabeet after year and it goes to 8mill off the books... HOU- we get a solid backup center to help with our playoff push... you know mchale would love to throw out both bear and kaman against the likes of bynum and gasol... it would help out against the better teams... also it frees up some playing time for SF to call morris up and start logging some minutes...
This fa class is crazy good. Since Kaman has an expiring contract, its a move worth making. He would be playing for a new contract somewhere else and we could possibbly attract fas to houston. And Les won't tank.
Don't take this as fact, don't freak out, this is only pure speculation and Chris Sheridan throwing out a trade that he thinks would be good for both teams. Again, not being reported, just speculation. [rQUOTEr]Kaman to the Houston Rockets for Hasheem Thabeet, Johnny Flynn, Patrick Patterson, Jordan Hill and the New York Knicks’ 2012 first-round draft pick. When the Chris-Paul to the Lakers trade was still alive, the league office was insisting that the Rockets include Patterson in the deal. The Rockets did not want to surrender four top-tier players to acquire Pau Gasol, and the trade died. But Patterson is a spare part, Thabeet is an uberbust, Hill is superfluous and Flynn is a former Top 5 pick. The real prize in this deal is the Knicks’ pick, which could be a lottery pick if New York’s freefall continues. Adding Kaman would give the Rockets a big man rotation of Samuel Dalembert, Kaman, Luis Scola and rookie Chandler Parsons. Play those guys along with Kyle Lowry, Kevin Martin and Chase Budinger, and that ain’t a bad team.[/rQUOTEr]
ESPN peeps really undervalue our players. Patterson is already worth more than Kaman by himself. You could argue that Hill has more value to a team that is rebuilding than Kaman too. Including the Knicks pick as well would be downright idiotic. It would be nice to have Kaman to solidify the frontcourt, but I wouldn't include Patterson OR the Knicks pick, much less both.
giving up a potential lottery pick for an expiring contract? Patterson is a "spare part"? He was a top rookie PF in PER behind only Griffin. I'm warming to the idea of some type of Scola for Kaman deal. I'm sick of Scola's defense and this would be a time to sell high on him. Plus it would free up cap space (although Morey has said free agency is not how they like to improve the team). Plus you know Kaman would play hard for his final contract.
