Yeah, pretty much that. Scola loved Houston and repeatedly said so. The guy's a competitor and his heart was probably never there while he was with the sucky Suns. I'm really happy to see him go to a contender. I'm pretty sure he'll bounce back this season coming off the bench for the Pacers too. I think all parties win in this trade.
Good for Scola. He will certainly have a bounce back year playing in the East as a backup. Phoenix was just such a terrible team last year, that I don't think many players could have done well at the PF spot. I think this gives Indy a good chance at beating the Heat in the playoffs, Scola can be deadly in the post against teams with weak frontcourts. I would loooooooooooove to see the Pacers knock off the Heat, so I'll have to pay attention to them this year.
So far, the offseason in the East looks something like this Heat > Slightly Worse (Lost Miller) Pacers > Much Better (Added Scola, CJ Watson, and Granger) Bulls > Much Better (Added Rose and Dunleavy) Nets > Much Better (Added Garnett, Pierce, AK47, Terry, and Teletovic) I honestly don't think the Heat will make it past the conference finals, with an outside chance they exit in the 2nd round. It all depends on Wade's knee.
How exactly do you get a first round pick and still shave 9M off your books? Teams don't have 9M in capspace, and even if they did they wouldn't give up a first round pick to absorb 9M in salary. Regarding Scola I'm extremely glad he's back on a contender like the Pacers instead of rotting on the Suns. He was one of my fav Rockets ever, the guy just has a lot of passion and leaves it all on the line. Plus, he makes the East a little bit better and the West a little worse, which is what we want right now. Let the East teams tear each other to shreds, at least we only have Spurs and OKC to worry about.
It's even worse than that, because his contract at the time was 3 years ~30m guaranteed. Nobody is going to take that contract without sending something back, and then you have to question whether or not Scola was even worth that much. Amnesty was pretty much the only way the Rockets were going to get rid of Scola.
I love Scola, but he dropped off considerably in his last year with the Rockets and is now 2 years older than that.
Knicks > Boss Mode (Added Bargnani) I agree. Besides, no team has made 4 finals in a row since 80s. It's too much of a physical and mental grind, even for a dominantly talented team.
Hard to take last year Suns situation too serious. Everyone YOUNG AND old all of a sudden sucked, even players that shouldnt have. Jermaine ONeal was maybe the only one who improved up.. Scola isnt a defender but he'll definitely fit into the Indy workman-like culture. David West and Scola is a gritty combo, kinda like the old Dale and Antonio Davis days
Luis Scola has joined a contender in the East! (2 days old, sorry if already posted) Luis Scola accepts benching to play for winning Pacers http://www.usatoday.com/story/sport...contract-free-agent-signing-addition/2609787/ Pretty happy for the guy. From 0 hope in Phoenix, to contenders ECF contenders in Indiana. I still have the fantasy that he, Landry, and Chuck somehow end up returning to Houston someday. Has a 32 yr old ever won the 6th man award? :grin:
He could be a 6th man of the year candidate. Morey made a mistake in giving up Luis. He would have blended in VERY well with this group. Imagine all the wide open Js and his ability to run the floor with the best of them. Instead, we are stacked with guys that can't shoot to save their lives. (Somewhat exaggerated, but in comparison to what we had in Scola and PatPat, our PFs are....mediocre.) Wish him the best...always was a fighter and loyal player.
Yeah, who needs Harden and Howard when we could have Scola? Sheesh. Scola is great but do you actually remember how bloated his contract was, especially for a team that wasn't contending? He's desirable now because his new amnestied contract is really good...
Are you serious? Resigning a declining Scola to a huge deal was one of Morey's biggest disasters. Fortunately amnesty was around to bail him out.
If we had Scola we wouldn't have made it to the first round. A deal for Harden never would have materialized without the Scola amnesty... Now let's say we had Scola and Harden in some awesome universe, let's add Chuck Hayes to that list too for fun... We still wouldn't have beat the Thunder. The Rockets before Dwight and Harden were a bunch of role players. They were loveable and fun to watch, but there wasn't a superstar in the bunch. You can't go against the OKC's and Heat's of the NBA with 0-1 superstars, you need 2-3 at least. Heck, this year we are going to need Chandler Parsons to really step it up into the next level as well just to fight for a top 4 spot in the west. All in all I'm happy for Scola. This role is perfect for him and he definitely deserves to be on a winning team.
Looks like our first game will be against our old friend, preaseason game that is. We play them twice, once on October 10th in Manila, and then again on the 13th in Taipei. Can't wait! I can't remember, does anyone know if NBALP shows preseason games?
Ugh, sure you can, when one of their two superstars is down. Each game was close, we had NO production from our PFs that whole series. You plug Chuck Hayes and Scola into the mix, we very likely would have won that series, IF Westbrook was still out.
You also can't win when you're first string guard is MIA. We were good, and both lucky at times and unlucky at times. I could blink and we could have had a hundred different outcomes. I still think the play of Scola and Hayes wouldn't have been enough, although it could have made the series a 7 game series for sure.
What does the scola deal have to do with harden? Even if we didn't amnesty scola we would still have lamb, martin, and lowry who were traded for harden. Without amnestying scola we wouldn't have either lin or asik. We probably would have had to amnesty him to sign howard unless we chose not to sign both lin and asik.
