Unless one of our young players break out like Morris, D-Mo, Twill, Patterson, or Flynn. The total success of this team really depends on them.
let's see. NO got Scola Martin Dragic Odom and 2 picks. Sounds like a pretty good team right there. LA now has nothing other than Bynum to trade for Howard. And they cannot sign Howard next year without Howard taking a huge pay cut if they cannot trade for him.
Lowry / Flynn Lee / TWill Budinger / Morris Gasol / Patterson Nene / Hill Still need a couple guards to truly compete this year. Can't expect Budinger to cut it as a starting 3, or Morris to contribute as a rookie.
All I know is I bet Bima is going crazy right now and has probably already written 5 different salary cap updates in the past two hours.
Chicago better get on the phone with Orlando quick cause Lakers is still gunning for Howard. Paul, Bryant and Bynum do not scare me. But Howard in LA does!
I think the assumption is, we're about to blow this cap flexibility on Nene. I'm not going to even entertain the thought that it gets blown on Dalembert, because that would be horrifying. Part of the issue here is, we've actually lost a good bit of flexibility. Scola or Martin could be packaged with the prior mentioned young talent to land a star on a reasonable contract. Hell, it's basically what LA used us to do (minus the Okafor for Odom component). Gasol on his 19m contract is actually pretty hard to trade, and the rest of our team doesn't make enough money to be traded. Back to the cap flexibility. If we sign Nene to a 12m per year deal (and I won't begin to berate the idea of 12m+ per year for a guy who's never averaged 15 points, 8 boards, or 1.5 blocks while playing in a high paced/possession offense...he's frankly not elite at anything), we've got 31m per year tied up on Nene and Pau for the next 3+ years. There went most of your cap flexibility. I don't mind Gasol. I think he's about as good of a #2 guy as you can find. But I don't see the #1 guy that comes with him in the near term, and by the time you can maybe acquire or develop one, Gasol is over the hill.
would be interesting to see if moray goes for marc gasol and NOT nene... brothers in the front court... instant chemistry?
Gasol is a legitimate two way player. the only question is the desire. I actually believe Gasol now has a chip on his shoulder being written down by the Lakers through the trade. Only time will tell if he plays with the same desire in Memphis that made them competitive in the playoffs and LA during its championship years. He will easily become the number 1 shotblocker on this team. I think patterson is likewise an underrated shotblocker. Rockets are now taller, more athletic, improved shotblocking, and ready to run with other teams. Looking at the lineup , the team looks solid defensively. Lowry and Lee are a solid defensive backcourt combination and are pretty sound in terms of offensive skills. They are both slashers and good penetrators that will draw a lot of fouls and exploit good penetration opportunities. In the previous season , we were scoring a lot of points but were deficient defensively. Morey is probably going after good two way players which will improve the team immensely on both ends of the floor.
I like how some people here are just automatically assuming we're gonna sign Nene now. Even if we do sign him, I don't see a combo of Lee, Williams, Bud cutting it in the backcourt.
Do you even show up to the games anymore, Luke? We got rid of Mbenga last year. He is a hot commodity.
I'm not the biggest Nene fan in the world but he is a legit low post scorer. It looks like the point of this trade is to team Gasol and Nene. Talk about moving our scoring out of the back court and back into the front court.
