I am so tired of people whining about Rafer and demanding a trade for tmac then posting ridiculous suggestions that are either flat stupid or totally one sided. Yea rafer is streaky but at any given time he should be at the best the 4th scoring option so I am ok with that. TMac is disgusting right now, but I promise you we aren't the only ones watching him. He will have good value at this time next year but right now he has NONE. SO with all of that said I created this thread as a dedicated one for these two players ONLY since everyone seems to think they are the biggest disappointments. Not that other players can't be involved in your ideas but it has to be a legit solution to these two problems. Post your financially and legitimately possible trade suggestions on here with an argument of why player incoming is better than player going. Stats are probably better than "he's just better"
I think whatever happens GM is likely not going to deal with McGrady nor Rafer Alston. Probably will release some cap space by dealing Luther Head and maybe Chuck Hayes and that's it. And yes we have bad luck I believe that's all but I still believe even after losses to Grizzlies, Bucks and Knicks. You have to learn from mistakes and I think team's doing that. Call me crazy but this team will be totally different in April, May, playoff time I mean.
Hmm no can edit... on a side note I agree that nothing major will happen but if we are going to vent via wishful thinking and fantasy GMing...I would prefer it to at least be reasonable.
I also think people need to stop whining about rafer and tmac. Rafer has been putting up his stellar 12 & 5 all season at 37%....He has been a beast. I wouldn't trade rafer for chris or D-will or nash, because rafer brings an aspect to the game that is so great, I can't think of what it is. Any real rocket fans knows tmac has been playing with heart and effort all season. Yeah, he may loaf of defense at times, and get dunked on by scrubs in the open court, and get shut down and forced to take contested fade away 19footers, by scrubs and nobody's, but who hasn't?....20 million isn't that much money if you think about it.
we don't have a single player who wears a sweat band, I think that needs to change, pronto. that and fohawks, this team needs more fohawks.
Its only about 3 players that plays hard enought to sweat out there...so we dont need that many...lol
http://games.espn.go.com/nba/features/traderesult?players=11~532~125~194&teams=12~12~10~10&te=&cash= It works, it gets LA out of Barons contract and gets them 24mil in cap space for 2010...I'm not sure I want BDavis on this team but he does play with heart and has an amazing ability to grow facial hair. His contract is a long one but its not ridiculously high. Camby comes off the bench with landry battier wafer and brooks and now we aren't so awful on interior defense with yao out. And against the more athletic lineups we can put Camby in over Scola to help on D. I don't see it happening because Camby's contract, like mcgrady and alstons, also expires next year so neither team is maximizing their value.
Don't trade any major stars. Usually it made team worse than better. but Rockets' role players are great, so I don't think Rockets need any trade now unless for some financial reasons. They need to change the coach or change the line. Bring back JVG or at least bring back his ghost. Let Hayes and Ron start and Tmac/Scola off bench. Let the starters play half-court low-post stagnant offense with brutal team defense, kill other team offense rythm and then bring in brooks/scola/T-mac/barry/wafer run and gun. Tmac don't need to be a one on one superstar now. He just need to good team player in order to win WC for Rockets. He and Ron are not selfish player as starberry. They just not good at team offense because they are too physically talented. Luis Scola is a super excellent team player and a fighter and a winner. But his defense play style needs team-defense efforts from his teammates. Now when he help others, nobody help him, thus his player is wide-open and the team defense totally collapses. Bring the best defense players to start the best defense now or never. (actually T-mac is a top level defensive player if he can focus and overcome his lazyness.)
http://games.espn.go.com/nba/featur...27~532~510~509&teams=10~14~18~10~21&te=&cash= This one I would actually like to see. Miami gets Scola and Stoudemire and I think that would be a pretty solid combo because Scola is not a major shot taker like Shaq so Amare would get his. Pheonix gets Starbury back but more importantly they get his 21 mil off the books this summer and they are desperate for cash. New York basically gets rid of Starbury without sacrificing their 2010 abilities, and who knows maybe what TMac needs is D'Antonis fiery leadership and run and gun??? Most importantly they get something for Starbury that they can then turn around and retrade next year when tmac's value will be higher. We get rid of TMac, bring in Marion who if he works, great, if not its one year sooner we have cap space. And we get Barbosa. I am still probably starting rafer at the point mostly so I could see a lineup of Landry, Hayes, Wafer, Barbosa, and Brooks flying all over the place. No way it happens though just because 4 team trades like this just dont happen.
Here’s my slightly long two cents on the rockets’ situation. Feel free to disagree or add on. First I really don’t see us making any major trades. We don’t have many movable, attractive pieces and there are too many teams looking to make deals as well esp. for point guards that could top any offers we can make. I’d like to look at viable things I believe we can do to get better with the players that we have to maximize their talents and skills and create better matchups. First off Rafer is a solid, steady yet completely unspectacular, streaky shooting point guard. He keeps his turnovers low but isn’t by any stretch what you call a playmaking point guard. He plays solid defense but against quicker, penetrating point guards gets beat often leading to foul trouble for our bigs, esp. Yao. This idea may well fail miserably but I think it’s worth trying. I believe he would be better served in a backcourt with Wafer as opposed to McGrady. When we have both T-mac and Rafer in the backcourt we have two guys who can’t penetrate well to the basket and who lack elite athleticism. I feel like T-mac would be better served playing alongside Brooks, so Brooks can takeover the role of penetrater/attack the basket and T-mac can post up more often (which I think is his only real strength as of now) and be a spot up shooter (which he’s actually done fairly well at this year). In the same vein, Rafer and Wafer would also make a better fit because they compliment each other better. You’ll notice Rafer does try to push the ball but he never has anyone follow him (other then Scola). We rarely get fastbreak baskets anymore and I believe Rafer and Wafer could help in that situation. Also Wafer can have the role of attacking the basket and Rafer can feed him the ball and also spot up and shoot. T-mac is what he is (had to throw in the Denny Green reference) but he really can’t drive to the basket anymore. We want him to attack but he’s not quick enough to do so and can’t finish at the rim. Almost everytime he drives, he screams like he got fouled and weakly put the ball up and usually misses. His strength now is spot up shooting and he’s actually become decent at it now (good 3 point percentage this year). Now with all that said, the only way the Rockets win big and consistently is if the ball goes through Yao. Now with Yao, what we saw last night was a problem he’s had throughout his career. When you front Yao, he is almost always rendered ineffective. What can we do to fix that? When Yao gets fronted, we quickly go away from it. I believe that is our huge mistake. Twice in last night’s game, when Yao was fronted and Scola slashed/showed to the middle, all Yao had to do was seal his man and turn to the middle and once Scola passed it to him for an easy basket and the other time Scola’s man sagged off of him and he took it to the basket. We can’t go away from him even if he is getting fronted. Our offense is built around him and he is our best option. Now Yao is not without fault in this. When getting fronted he has to do a better job of sealing his man off so when he does turn (when the ball is swung to the other side) he doesn’t get fronted again. I see this happen way too often and for someone as large as him, this shouldn’t happen. Now on defense, watching Yao play can be one of the most frustrating things to watch. Now a lot of the time it’s not his fault, our perimeter defense is atrocious and he’s exposed way too much. But Yao, also hasn’t learned a lick from Deke. Positioning is crucial and for a man his size he doesn’t need to jump and attack a guard but let the guard/slasher come to him and react to that. He just has to play smarter defensively because if he gets in foul trouble our offense goes into the toilet. And for the love of god, please don’t take any charges. Hold your ground and use your size to your advantage. With his size and wingspan it would be quite effective. Now on to the bench/role players. You just have to get Landry more minutes. He brings it every night and is one of the few decent athletes we have on the team. Now with Battier, it’s just a tough situation. Does his defense outweigh his offensive production? At some point, you can’t leave a guy out there if he just can’t and is unwilling to score. Even when he doesn’t shoot the ball, he can be a detriment offensively. Artest is a ballstopper no doubt but he does play with passion and intensity which I can at least respect. But I wish Artest would post up more often. He can be just a bull down low and no 2 or 3 should be able to hang with him down low. Watching him take fadeway 20 footers just makes me cringe. And on defense, he does well but gambles way too often. And we have got to get Brent Barry into the game. For a team with a dominant post, we need to surround him with shooters and Barry is the best we have. We have really lost our identity out their, we lack the JVG defense and we def. lack the Adelman motion offense. Defense is all about playing with effort and playing smart and we really don’t do either. We take too many risks and get out of position way to often. We expose our bigs and get them in foul trouble. For the love of god, can we learn how to defend the pick and roll or fight through a pick and guard the shooter. We take the worst angles to on screens and try to go under them with our players who are too slow to even do that. What is the solution??? This one is even tougher then solving the offense. Because honestly we are unathletic and slow and in this league you will get torched for that. Perhaps, we can mix in some zone d (you see college teams do it b/c they lack the athletes), but that is def. not a permanent solution. Sigh, this is not going to be a quick fix but perhaps some subtle changes can make a big difference.
i get what you're trying to do, but this is just going to end up like any other post, you can't stop people from posting unrealistic answers.
I won't quote ur epic post, but Basically I love it. I think it is a very reasonable answer and I actually suggested something similar in another thread. Benching McGrady and Battier and Starting Ron and Wafer. On top of what you said I think having Ron in there with the 1st team helps him because he has been pretty good at spot up shooting when he is open, but the downside is that it will be hard to work in his posting game with Yao AND scola in there. Maybe you leave Artest coming off the bench but with Mcgrady. I think Artest historically performs better as the number 2 punch as opposed to trying to make it all happen. The problem is that imho Battier is terrible right now. I have always been kind of a non-Battier guy but right now there is no denying he is helping us out 0. MAYBE we go with Yao Landry Hayes Wafer Rafer. Then we have Scola come off the bench with Ron, Tmac, Brooks and Barry/Battier?? Scola and Ron can handle the posting up part, and landry has a good midrange jumper so Yao clogging the lane doesn't hurt him. Hayes is not going to get you any offense but I think his D is much better than Battiers right now, and he is much quicker than Yao so he could help when our perimeter D...well does what it does... just my 2 other cents
THE ANSWER = bench TMAC & let Von start, start brooks. Put the load on Yao's shoulders. Then watch the greatness.
putting brooks in there with yao is a mistake, brooks is good at driving but when the lane is clogged with the people focused on Yao he just gets flattened. The same problem is true for Wafer but Wafer is a bit bigger and doesn;t ALWAYS get flattened.
yao ming needs to bang lauren jackson, of course with permission from his wife. yall remember what happened after andre aggassi married stephie graff, right.