Apologies if this has been posted earlier. I skimmed the BBS yesterday and this morning and could not find it anywhere. CD was on 610 yesterday just before the 7 pm press conference to announce the trade and said that New York had first wanted to trade Rice for Hakeem and were willing to pay the compensation that he wanted. However, Hakeem did not want to play with the Knicks and instead wanted to play with the Raptors. He went on to say that the Rice-Hakeem swap then died down and Hakeem signed with the Raptors. CD then said that once Hakeem was traded and they signed Taylor, the Knicks again approached them with a similar deal, though this time they asked for SA. CD said that the Rockets were always interested in Rice and then went on to say the good things about Rice that all of us have heard. From this I gauge that both the Rockets and Hakeem were interested in a fresh start. Hakeem didn't see him fit in NY where I guess he figures that he wouldn't be used as much as he hoped. Rockets didn't up their offer high enough to make Hakeem stay and at the same time, had the SA-Rice offer be on the table earlier, would that change the Rockets and Hakeem mindset, as having both Hakeem and Rice on the same team would really be a great, great move. Later, Tariq
Trading Hakeem for Rice--OR having both Hakeem and Rice on the team--would have been impossible to do. If Hakeem were traded for Rice, then the Rockets would not have had the money to pay Mo Taylor or to give Shandon what he wanted. If Hakeem signed for the money that he had wanted from us, then we could not have signed Taylor AND could not afford to sign Shandon to the contract it would take to match salaries in a trade for Rice. So any talk of a Hakeem-Rice combo is moot. And any talk of a Hakeem-Rice swap would have cost us Taylor.
Saying Rice would have cost the Rockets Mo can't be true Bima, or the Rockets wouldn't have pursued it.
