Definitely worth keeping an eye on the male Gasol, I just don't think the probability is at all high. I wonder if it will take a couple years for Gasol to become realistically available (after first being signed to a big contract, then having the team not doing very well and Heisley deciding to "rebuild" again). After all, that's sort of what happened to Paul Gasol and Kevin Martin. Talented guys look a lot more untouchable before they become expensive and enter their mid-to-late 20s. For the short term, though, I am thinking guys like Nene and Varejao. Each of them is is (or is expected to be, after a Melo trade) that late-20s good player with substantial salary on a bad to average team. Neither of them is gonna lift the team up to the promised land by himself while his team is "rebuilding" with young guys and draft picks.
Likely gone???? ZBo is going to be lucky if he makes $3 million dollars next season. NOBODY is going to give him big money. I'm beginning to think Memphis is going to use Rudy Gay and Conley to trade for more draft picks. I think that's the only reason they signed them to extensions, especially Gay. Conley's contract is a little more reasonable but still a pretty steep payout considering he is bottom third of starting point guards in the NBA.
Alright, let's not jump off the deep end here. Dude is a top five rebounder in the league and a legit 20-10 post player. His problems and shortcomings are well documented but he's worth David West money. But I digress. Don't want to derail durvasa's thread, just making the point that there will be some shuffling done in Memphis....and perhaps that shuffling could lead to us acquiring one of their bigs.
easily had: camby(old), Varejao(flops), Thompson(pf?) probably had:Gortat or Lopez, Kaman(old), Thabeet(raw), Whiteside(way raw) all of a sudden available:Cousins, aldrich, McGee, Nene morey magic to get: Jordan, Sanders, Al Horford or Josh Smith(pf), marc gasol :grin: i think that morey will explore all of these names but will end up having to trade with cle or sac(our dleague affiliates) trade scenario (reasonable): houston gets: thompson, whiteside sac gets:buddinger, cash or houston gets:varejao cle gets:buddinger,jeffries, dalembert, ish, sac gets:sessions, cash
And what you are basing that on? #2 offensive RPG #3 defensive RPG #3 RPG and he has a good offensive game. I love to have him for 3 mil/year.
There may be several teams offer him $15 mil for 4 years or something like that. And they would love to have him at that price. But there isn't going to be a team that offers him much more than that.
This is me too. I like thabeet and the way he played at the end of last yr. Also, there are no guarantees adelman will be around after this season. If there is a new coach,he might want to be more defensive on the frontline.
If the rockets could aquire Camby right now without giving up a core player, then the 4th, 5th or 6th seed could potentially be within reach by the end of this season. Camby would change the dynamics of the rockets defense overnight.
I think that the Blazers might want a King's ransom for him, but we do have some leverage because he has been reported as saying that if he goes to any lottery team or even some contending teams, he might consider retirement and some teams would back away. He has a short list of teams he is willing to get traded to and Houston is one of them because of his family living here. But from reading some insiders from Blazers forums, their owner Paul Allen has told GM Rich Cho to make the playoffs at any cost, so they would not want just any young players, but proven ones in the playoffs, so any trade centered around Hill and Budinger isn't gonna cut it. With Roy out they are gonna need some help at the wing position and someone to back up Matthews. If T-Will is the real deal and can actually be a threat on both ends, would you be willing to give up Lee? A package around Jeffries + Lee + Hill for Camby + Fernandez? Would you do it? Brooks/Lowry/Smith Martin/Fernandez Battier/Williams/Budinger Scola/Patterson Camby/Hayes/Miller Still leaves us with enough assets for a superstar, if one becomes available.
The mere mention of going after Varejao and he gets hurt.. http://www.nba.com/2010/news/12/31/anderson-varejao-injured.ap/index.html?ls=iref:nbahpt2
Broken cheek bone huh? Maybe this was the cause of it? <object width="640" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/Z051LonYftM?fs=1&hl=en_US"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/Z051LonYftM?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="640" height="385"></embed></object>
1. The fit line (is that a fit line?) is saying that generally the older the player, the better the defensive rating? 2. Can we get some error bars or some other representation of error based on minutes played? It doesn't have to be complicated, you could just take the least minutes played person, make an educated guess on the %error, assume that the person playing the most minutes has 0 error, and linearly interpolate between the two for everyone else. Not necessarily accurate, but could at least make reading the graph easier.
1. Its not a fit a line. Players that fall below the line are the ones that it might make more sense to focus on. 2. I'm not so sure error bars would make the graph easier to read. Minutes played for each player is in the table above the chart, though.
Emeka Okafor had 18 points, 13 rebounds and 3 blocks today against the big frontline of the Celtics. Man I would gladly take that contract.
Not sure if Varejo is the answer. I'd like someone a little more athletic and young. Varejo is a good defender but not a great weak side shotblocker
Thabeet, depending on the price. Not huge on him, not #2 pick huge on him that is, but he certainly can be a shot-blocking interior force for years to come. Nothing spectacular. Just a defensive big with shot-altering abilities, potential foul trouble machine, too. Nonetheless, not many teams have a guy with his athleticism at the size to meet down in the post. It'd change our defensive scheme for the better.
If nothing of that is possible (Varejao, McGee, Okafor, Nene...), what about Cole Aldrich? This is what Rosas said about him on the draft night. "Elite defensive big. Productive rebounder. Professional approach. Winning and productive career." He's a rookie, but as well as PP, he looks like a smart guy and a good pro with winning mentality... You know what you're getting, and he has a high chance to becoming the player he's expected to be. I would be happy getting him.
