Rockets involved in trade talk for Dwight Howard or Andrew Bynum

Got Bynum yet?

 

To me trading for Howard, while taking on more than Jason Richardson or Duhon and Quentin Richardson, would be madness.

First of all you have no guarantee Howard would stay. He might, but it's still quite the risk.

Secondly, this team's core simply doesn't fit with Howard at all. Too young, inexperienced, unproven.
Sure, you can trade for (young-ish) vets, but good vets are expensive, making it hard to put together a quality team on the fly.

Also, by taking on a guy like Hedo or J-Rich you're essentially operating with a salary cap of $58M minus their respective salary. Neither guy is worth more than $3-4M, yet they're paid more than double/triple of that amount respectively. Good luck putting together a competitive roster that way.
You obviously could dump either guy to a rebuilding team, if you attach the right assets to them, but then you might not have the necessary assets left to pull off other needed trades to improve this roster.

Finally and maybe most importantly, no matter what you do, good luck beating the Heat, Thunder, Spurs and Lakers the next two to three years.

I believe Morey is as good as a GM as there is, but even I have my doubts he could pull off both convincing Howard to stay and putting together a quality team, after trading for Howard and the Magic's junk.

I quite honestly would prefer 'settling' for Bynum. Let this core grow with him. Develop from within. Keep your cap flexibility moving forward. Keep working the trade market and keep aggressively pursuing big time free-agents. I believe in 2-3 years you will be be much better off that way.

 

Shaq scored with his back to the basket, Howard scores more from other people drawing the defense and put back dunks. Howard does have that ugly non-fluid crappy little hooky shot when he tries to score in the post, but thats it. Shaq would often just physically dominate and force you down low enough to dunk over you, or even spin around guys who were using so much leverage to try and keep him from backing them down.

If we kept Kevin Martin, and still had Lowry/Dragic, I wouldn't sweat Howard's offense (just his complaining about not having the ball enough).

 

Great post. I agree. Especially with developing the young players the Rockets already have.

 

Although I prefer Bynum myself, let's talk about this for a moment. Suppose Orlando was willing to take less assets in lue of the Rockets taking more contracts. If the Rockets agreed to this and were able to take those overpriced veterans without needing to give up as many of these assets, would it not be worth the risk? Remember, the rookies are on the rookie wage scale and would quite easily work within the cap and still afford the Rockets the ability to sign one close to the max player.

Say Orlando was willing to take Ppat and Morris and some picks without giving away any of the picks from this year while taking back 3 of those contracts... The Rockets could literally payout J Rich and the other players and keep them on the books while still playing with their future players around Howard (if they believe them to be ready to do so). There are ways of making this happen if Orlando is willing to go that route. In fact, I would prefer to take more bad contracts as long as we can hold on to more of our young players.

Thoughts?

 

Agree with all of your posts in this thread. If we had all the pieces to surround Dwight with, then fine. We have nothing to surround him with - getting Dwight and subtracting whatever it costs to get him does not make us a championship team. If he wasn't willing to wait around in Orlando for them to rebuild around him, why in the world would he do it in Houston? If Bynum costs less to get then this should be a no-brainer.

And Dwight should not be mentioned in the same conversation as Hakeem/Shaq. Shaq may not have had a soft 'touch' but he had incredible moves that helped him get to the basket. Dwight puts up a lot of points but he is not a reliable scorer - huge difference, and hugely important to a team's ability to win.

 

I Wonder whats the package Rockets are offering to Orl for Howard. it says we are taking all 3 bad contracts from Orl. so guessing thats taking Howard, Turk and Richardson, and we are amnesty Scola so wonder who we giving away. Martin, 2Pat, Morris, and then who else.... any one got any news??? will be appreciated. Thanks

 

Any deal to rent Howard is too much.

 

LOL LOL LOL LOL LOL:grin::grin::grin::grin:

OMFG. Thanks for joining our board to self promote yourself Shaq. Wow. I have never heard you say that about yourself before.

To start with, Shaq may be the single greatest offensive force you have ever seen, but there is only one player to ever wear that crown and his name was Wilt Chamberlain who you must have never seen play. This man averaged 30 plus, 20 plus rebounds, and 10 plus assists in a season!!! Let's not even talk about Wilt's career numbers vs Shaq. If you took Shaq's career, pulled out all of the games he had any of those stats, you could not even piece together a half season of Wilt's best season. They changed the rules of basketball to try and stop this man. True Shaqs weight and center of gravity made him impossible to guard. Why is it true? Because they changed the rules of basketball to HELP Shaq. If you are given impunity to bowl over your defender at will, how can you not be unstoppable?

I realize I may be in the minority on this board but I do remember the players playing since you have been alive are not the only ones who have ever played! It is sad enough we have to put up with kids on this board who never seen MJ or Hakeem play and they think Lebron and Dwight are the greatest ever. But Shaq...........C'Mon Man!!!!!!!!!

 

Dwight Howard and Shaq is a good comparison, both are/were the #1 center. Both can't shoot FT and both are from Magic, importantly, both left in their prime to score success elsewhere. There is a slight difference between Howard and Shaq, you can play up-tempo with Howard, but you can't really with Shaq. Shaq and Howard are equal in offense capability, but defense, Howard is better. Howard is David Robinson on steroid, Shaq is just Shaq.

 

I wasn't thinking about Wilt so you can make a good argument there. But yes, Shaq is a better offensive "force" than Michael was or Hakeem. That doesn't mean he was a better player or better at scoring, I literally meant using force on offense.

 

The only reason I think Morey would be willing to take on all of those bad contracts is to hold on to more youth. I would think that in taking back these contracts we would have more leverage on what we were giving up. I would be perfectly happy with giving up Martin, Morris, Toronto pick and Dallas pick in return for taking on bad contracts. I'm sure the Magic are interested in more youth than that, but if you are starting a clean rebuild, the best way to do that is to shed bad contracts and give yourself a shot at two lottery picks next season.

 

Of course he was yank. Pretty unfair to put Michael in the same category as Shaq when implying strength imo.

 

Looks like Morey is still working on attempting to acquire DH. The reason I think that is because he havent started focusing on signing other players via free agency yet. Also, Courtney Lee is still waiting for him for sign and trade with Celtics. Morey might be busy right now.

 

I agree he was a force. No doubt about that. I believe if he didn't have the "superstar" treatment, he would have been a lot less of a force. I could not put him in the same breath Hakeem. He was a dominating force at both ends.

 

Shaq put up numbers adjusted for pace and era that matched up with things that Wilt did.

Shaq wasn't pretty, but was incredibly effective at his peak at a level that few players have ever approached.

 

Any updates?

 

If he he got officiated by the rules he would have been fouled on almost every play.

 

Well all I said was offensive force. I didn't bring MJ into originally. As a force he was better than any player in history, with the possible exception of Wilt. Skill? Give me Hakeem over him any day. Shaq was just a complete bully with the ball the likes of which has rarely been seen in the NBA.

 

None yet. Personally, i have a feeling that this will drag out till october or possibly later. **** orlando for wising up and not giving into the pressure