How would having Scola and/or Prigioni ensure Llull signs? Are they buddies or something? Did they play together in the past? Just curious.
Going to the Mavs makes zero sense IMO. -Are him and Dirk going to play next to each other? Can they defend anyone with that lineup? -Are they going to keep Chandler and move Dirk to the bench? -obviously they would be moving on from Monta to make this happen. Who is going to score in their backcourt, and facilitate? Sounds like wishful thinking from essentially a Mavs beat writer on the national stage. The Spurs however... we will see, but.... Kawhi, Manu, Tim Duncan, and Danny Green aren't coming back for free so the capspace we see might be less than you think once everyone is resigned to come back (need to renounce their cap holds, and resign for less first in order to free up cap space). Also if they don't do that, and they do renounce and not retain guys...Are they the type of team that will completely overhaul their roster & let go of long time staples to their roster in order to rebuild around another star? Like all the other max free agents this Summer, I think LMA like Dragic, and Love will use New York, and the Lakers as leverage to get max deals from their current teams. I think Both the Lakers and Knicks will end up signing someone but it probably won't be the top guys like LMA or Dragic.
So is LMA a FA after the season or not? I saw cybrex say he was but everyone is acting like we have to trade our team for him ?
Yes he's a free agent. For the Rockets to sign him it would almost assuredly have to be a sign and trade because we are unlikely to have cap room. It would take a lot of dumping of players for essentially nothing in order to create cap room to sign a big time free agent.
Free agent, but like always, Morey has us in a position where we could be over the cap or significantly under the cap depending on how he plays his hand.
And why are you concerned about Dwight's knee? Chandler Parsons has a worse version of the same thing and is headed for surgery. Dwight is 29, has never had knee surgery, and is showing the same athleticism if not more since the back injury. Every NBA player who has had a knee surgery has a worse knee than Dwight. If you are concerned about anything with Dwight it should be his back. The knee is a blip on the screen. By the I am sports medicine physical therapist who deals with this stuff everyday. If his back flares then worry.
What if he gets hurt this upcoming season? Remember, he'll be 30 this summer and he's already played half this year with a torn ligament in his thumb. What if next year he tears a ligament in his shooting hand? What if that heart ailment from his rookie season crops up again? When you're 30 years old, 9 years into your NBA career, and looking at possibly your last shot at a massive payday, you capitalize on that opportunity. You don't turn down 120 mil guaranteed because you might make more than that under the new salary cap a year later. Melo was not based on circumstances. He's had injury problems over the last couple seasons. He's 30 years old with a lot of mileage on that body. These are not freak occurrences or accidents. The guy is starting to break down. It's hard to say with Parsons. He did bulk up before last season, so that extra weight could be wearing on his knees. But there's no way to know for sure. Now Bosh. THAT is a freak occurrence that Morey and Les never could've seen coming(neither did Riley). I still don't see how anyone could say that at the time, the offseason plan didn't end in disaster. We were left with no Bosh or Melo(although I never wanted the latter), Lowry had turned us down since we left him hanging, and Parsons was allowed out of his deal only to sign an insane offer with the Mavs that the Rockets had to refuse to match. And all this after already trading away Lin and Asik. Our consolation prize was Ariza. Where Morey salvaged everything was later on. The trade for Terry late in the summer, the deal for Brewer, and then getting lucky with Josh Smith being unexpectedly cut by the Pistons. I give him credit for all of this(well, half-credit for Smith with the rest going to Stan Van Gundy). But aside from Brewer whom the Rockets had coveted since last season, to pretend that this was always Morey's backup plan is a little naive. It's more like making lemonade after getting a sh-tload of lemons dumped in his lap last summer. As for the current Rockets team not being "good enough", how do we know this? Aside from the Warriors, is there any opponent they can't beat in the playoffs? Not saying they will beat everyone they face, but I would think they at least have a coinflips chance against the Clippers, Spurs, and Grizzlies(especially with home court). And no one from the East scares me. Shoot, even the Warriors might be beatable. They haven't exactly dominated the Pelicans so far and we only had 2 games against them this season with Dwight in the lineup(and that was subpar Dwight during his first return from the knee injury). Let's see how things play out before planning the entire offseason around yet another pursuit of a 3rd superstar.
He was doing fine until his knee injury and the addition of Corey Brewer. Then he was rendered useless with the addition of Josh Smith, the return of T-Jones, and his ankle injury in shootaround. I like Papa, but he serves no purpose on this team unless we become absolutely decimated by injuries.
If Papa figures out a way to lower his turnovers, he'll be a player in the NBA. He's a good defender when healthy and seems to be working on his shot. He's a crafty player. Those types figure out a way to make it and usually make it for 10 plus years.
I don't understand how people on this board like him. I have never been impressed with his play, but some people were obsessed with that he could bounce pass to dwight a couple times. I don't give much credit to euro players until I see them do work in the nba Y'all are giving him credit like he should be our starter and give him a big contract over bev
Pap's problem was that his range extended only to the Euroleague 3pt line, but not the NBA one. If you're going to be a stretch four / immobile three, then you had better be able to shoot. He can't do that, so effectively he's just a slower Chandler Parsons.
If KPap is actually thought of as one the worst players on this roster, then the Rockets are doing something right.
He is, and they are. Kostas is pretty much the very definition of a Morey asset, at the moment. How he'll ultimately be used by the team remains to be seen, but he doesn't completely suck, and there may be some upside there. But no chance he's taking minutes from Corey Brewer on this team.
