It was a pleasure watching professional basketball return to Houston last night. Disciplined and doing the small things like passing and picking teammates up off the floor. Udoka has us going in the right direction. Only have two small concerns (which are 100% knee jerk reactions after one preseason game), but keep an eye on Aaron Holiday as he didn’t look good at all (Nix #2?) and Jock Landale looked serviceable as a backup center but should not be making anywhere near 30+ million dollars. At best, he looks like a poor man’s Hartenstein. Small potatoes compared to a Silas run team and confident this excellent coaching staff won’t be playing Holiday when Bullock is available.
Landale looks way worse than last year when he was one of the best backup center in the league. Clearly still recovering from his ankle. Either ramp him back up slowly or play Jeff Green first part of the season until he recovers. Also he is not paid “$30m”. He’s paid $8m a year, which is exactly the same as Hartenstein, a backup center. Holiday is fine as a third string minimum guy.
That was Jock's first game minutes in months after coming back from injury. He will be fine and a very nice bench option. Amen was also rusty if you noticed and it's the same type of situation.
Simple math shows his contract of 4 years is for 32 million dollars. He will likely be here for the extent of his contract to fulfill the terms of it…..so yes he will likely be receiving 30+ million dollars from this team. In today’s NBA that’s a lot for a average backup at best.
None of the years of his contract are guaranteed money besides this current year, it is essentially a one year deal. The only way we fulfill all the years of his contract is by him earning it year by year, which I don’t doubt he will do.
Yup, not a coincidence that the two players who struggled last night were the two who are coming back from grade 2 ankle sprains.
Really???? Are you telling me that giving 32 million dollars (total contract) for a 28 year old backup center who averaged 6 points and 4 rebounds last year (best of his career) was an overreach????? We can kid ourselves and say that he’s not in mid season form, but c’mon it’s freaking Jake Londale! A great game for him is 8 points and 5 rebounds. Would have rather nabbed Clint Capela or someone else, but he’ll be serviceable only because he has some height.
Really???? Are you telling me that giving 32 million dollars (total contract) for a 28 year old backup center who averaged 6 points and 4 rebounds last year (best of his career) was an overreach????? We can kid ourselves and say that he’s not in mid season form, but c’mon it’s freaking Jake Londale! A great game for him is 8 points and 5 rebounds. Would have rather nabbed Clint Capela or someone else, but he’ll be serviceable only because he has some height. This needs to be the year that with no more Silas we also make no more excuses….don’t care that they recovered from minor injuries….they sucked and need to improve. No more excuses….it’s winning time for this team!
It's nice knowing there will be something meaningful built as the season goes on (shots fired at Silas and the idea Harden was a good idea here)
Hiring/leashing Silas and the leak that there was a credible plan to offer Harden the max tells me that FO is still a hot mess. We're really betting hard that Udoka will remove that management stink.
Are we really judging Jock based on one game in which he's still recovering from a pretty significant ankle injury? As far as professionalism... sure. Looked way better. Except for Brooks punching a dude in the family jewels... again.
Jock will be fine as a backup. He is what he is and that will likely be 6 points 4 rebounds a game which is unexciting but serviceable for a backup center. Not sure that he’s much better than Garuba but then again it ain’t my 32 million dollars (total contract) so I assume Stone and Tilman know what his value is to the overall team.
