You don't think Les would take that chance for one season until Dalembert's contract expires? There's always the chance of giving him away to a team under the cap like the Hornets were close to doing with Chandler last season.
I think Martin's is better than Butler-- younger, much better long range shooter and efficient scorer. As for Haywood: He's be nice to have, but not a necessity for this team. He's great as a spare tire for Yao, but still just a spare. The Rockets current bigs are doing pretty well without Yao, so they may not really want to spend extra cash on Haywood, but would instead just roll with Hayes, Andersen, Landry and Scola. I'd be happy with any of the 3, too, depending on what else is packaged. Each has his own strength and weaknesses.
I agree about Butler, he is declining and getting up there in age......I would rather have Iggy....or Kmart. DD
ill take butler.. Joe Johnson would be even better but thats not happening now that the hawks are pretty good.. The wiz on the other hand need to break up their big 3 .. so its possible! go Morey
Side question: What would this accomplish? If your goal is to avoid having to pay Scola how does S&T'ing for another contract help in that regard? Especially since Scola is due a hefty pay increase.
Martin's younger and can shoot,plays the 2,unlike the 3. Baller4life,also pointed out Caron's faults,but I think Butler does play reasonably good defense at times,even though he does slack off some. I think he will do a better job in our system with his maturity level than Martin. Caron's contract is short too. Both of them are unfortunately injury prone. I admit I'm hesitant to pick Caron.
It's not like we'd have to keep Haywood people, his contract expires at the end of the season. He'd be great to have for the playoffs this year. Of course, so would having Butler.
Let's take a different angle. Let's say Rockets do Tmac for Iggy+Dalembert. We already have Ariza and Budinger and we would be bringing in Iggy. What if at this point the Rockets still look to keep Scola, Landry and Lowry but then move Battier. Where does that put us then salarywise? I don't want Battier gone, but just wanted to throw another wrinkle into it.
Read again. I said that they'd S&T him FOR A FUTURE DRAFT PICK. If a team with enough cap room wants Scola badly enough, the Rockets can threaten to just match any offer sheet to which that other team attempts to sign Luis. No player contracts in return. Just a draft pick or two. Phoenix did EXACTLY that with Joe Johnson and Atlanta a few years ago and ended up with two future first round picks from the Hawks (they also got Boris Diaw, but that is besides the point).
Iguodala would not compliment well with Yao at all. Iguodala really has no clue how to shoot a jumper or at least how to put them through a basket. Butler has a solid mid-range game and a mediocre 3 point shot, but he's every bit as versatile as Iguodala is. Iggy is more athletic, better passer and defender. Butler's the better scorer, rebounder and I think he's more efficient, I am not sure if anything backs that up though. I would prefer to take a guy like Young or Williams though on the 76ers before Iguodala.
The Rockets would have to either trade Battier (1) at the 2010 NBA Draft to a team with cap room and/or non-guaranteed contracts or (2) during next season to an under the cap team or a team with a large trade exception. It will be very difficult to move Battier in exchange for no salary commitments after this February.
Call up OKC. Presti likes making those moves in accepting salary since they are under the cap. Think he would be interested in Battier? I think Battier next year as an expiring would be very valuable to any team with a TE as well.
The Hornets actually attempted to trade Chandler to OKC for expiring contracts, not cap room. Any such move by the Rockets would just be salary for salary. Same luxury tax consequence for Les. And Les would have to REALLY love Iguodala to pay what could end up being a total team salary (plus tax and lost shared revenues) somewhere in the range of $95-98M (counting Scola, Hayes, Lowry and the first round pick). Personally, I don't think that he does.
I'm surprised that you of all people would tend to completely overlook that Martin plays no defense at all,despite his offensive strengths. Recovery from injury for a younger player is easier, I'll admit but his 4 year contract could end up hurting us.
OKC may actually be players in free agency this summer. I don't know if they'd be willing to tie up $7.4M of that cap room in Battier, especially when both Durant and Green are capable of playing the SF position for them. Also, the Rockets would have to GUESS that Presti might want to do that, since they'd be taking on Dalembert's contract well before any deal with OKC would materialize. That's a pretty damn big gamble.
i dont think the team is ready to give up on any win now possibilities...they were open to keeping tmac is he recovered well enough and he's the same age. Butler being healthy and a better fit here is better and gives us a nice 3-4 year window at least to contend. By then our young guys willbe in their prime and if morey sets it up well, which im sure he will, we could pick up some help at that point to keep contending.
why would you give up budinger for Jamison? Butler is 29, but jamison is already 33. And jamison would end up clogging the 4 spot with scolandry, doesnt make any sense.
Martin > Iggy > Butler I'd still like some McGee!! Aswell as Nick Young! <object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1JoMULx5GZg&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1JoMULx5GZg&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>
