Remember Doc mentioning a three-way deal possibility? How much fun if it were Vinsanity for TMac for Stevie/Cat, or some such ???
Doc, Are you saying that Francis can't be moved until August 3 because of BYC implications? I was under the understanding from GATER that Francis' new contract kicks in on July 1st and that's when we can move him without BYC implications. If in fact we cant move Francis until August 3rd that could REALLY be a problem. It gives other teams better chances of pulling off a deal for McGrady.
Who was Hakeem's backup ????????? Get the picture...backups only play a small role, and are not integral to a championship team. The top 6 players are what matter. Yao, Tmac, JJ, MoT, Boki & a PG.... Yes we have work to do, BUT, that is a better team than the one we are playing with now. PS. I think Doc's post is referencing Eric Snow......but I could be wrong. DD
Snow has a terrible contract so Philly would probably want to rid themselves of him. We could probably take him for Griffin and the T.E. It would be a total salary dump for Philly. And it would hurt our salary structure to take on Snow but he would be a solid PG for us, make good decisions and play defense. But his age and outside shooting would be questions.
The Rockets in 91-92 were a non-contender who had a washed-up Sleepy Floyd as their 3rd guard and a brutal Buck Johnson as their SF. In 92-93, adding Horry at SF and refining their bench rotation (Herrera, Brooks, Bullard) was critical in their move from a 42 win team to a 55 win team, with the same top 4 scorers. Adding Mario Elie and Sam Cassell to that same bench in 93-94 pushed us to the championship. The idea that "backups only play a small role" is a ludicrous one that does not fit with history. And Hakeem's backup was always Otis Thorpe. In the same way that Cato could slide over to center when Yao went to the bench, O.T. always shifted to center when Hakeem needed a breather. When 7'0" Kevin Willis was on the team, he served the same role. If we lose Cato, we desperately need another player who can play strong interior defense and when needed bang with Shaq etc. inside. Given Yao's inability to rest during the offseason due to Chinese National Team duties and his propensity to complain of fatigue, it would be a mistake to think that it doesn't matter who is backing him up.
Also, to add to what Sam just said, Yao doesn't inspire the same confidance that you get with Hakeem. Dream had finesse and power. With Yao, we will always need to have a bruising back up to pair with him, always.
The biggest problem with all of these proposed scenarios involved with the Rockets getting T-Mac is that while you wind with a proven superstar in T-Mac at the 2, you basically end up with the same flawed team. Currently you have problems with your starting PF, PG and SF as all have serious flaws in their games. Now once you trade away your starting backcourt and PF for T-Mac, you wind up with super players at the 2 & 5 and holes at the 1 & 4 positions. Now it is at this point where I start having problems with this trade. It is ASSUMED that our front office will have the smarts to then go out and get the right kind of players to fill those holes. Folks here forget that we have one of the worst front offices (CD & Co.) in terms of finding NBA talent whether it is by the draft (take my 3 1st round picks PLEASE!) or via trade (could Manboobs be coming back?) or via free agency (Adrian "I'm hurt again coach!" Griffin or Eric "Has anyone seen my jumpshot?" Piatkowski). Simply put, I have no faith in this organization pulling this off because there is no long term plan in place, there is no one making and accepting responsibility for personnel decisions (CD & the mysterious "committee") and there is a complete lack of accountability for personnel decisions emanating from the entire organization (save for the head coach who often speaks alone) starting with the owner and on down the line. Based on this, I am not optimistic that a T-Mac trade, given these constraints, will prove to be the catalyst for vaulting the Rockets into contender status in the West that everyone is assuming it to be.
Hillboy, We'll I agree on your point that our front office has made some bad draft decisions. But, why would you think that AFTER TMAC comes to Houston, that we can't acquire FA or other trades to fill the voids at the other positions? I mean, what is the alternative? Keep Francis, Mobley and Cato and use them as our BASE/CORE for the next 10 years? It's not an option. Francis can't be our best player. The issue here is get a core group readied....McGrady/Yao. Now! Once you achieve that, then you can start plugging in the holes. Yes, we'll have voids at 1 and 4....But our priorities will have changed. In the past, it wasn't about getting role players. It was trying to get the "best damn players period" in order to off-set what Francis wasn't able to provide this team; consistent scoring and low turnovers. Look it this way....check out these three players...imagine them on the court playing.... McGrady Yao Cato Then, look at this...and do the same thing...imagine... Francis Yao Cato ...do you see how Cato is REQUIRED to produce more on the Francis lead team? Cato is expected to help Francis out more on the later team. How, him merely being a defensive PF isn't enough. He's needed to score. If he doesn't, well, we'll just be a average team because our star isn't carrying enough of the load. He's shifting the responsibility on to other players that can't do the job. What make it worse is that Francis is turnover prone PG! In this instance Cato is a bad solution....We'd need Kenyon Martin or Elton Brand to take up the slack that Francis causes. That would change the team for the better, but not anything that would catapult us into a championship contender... Now, when you take a look at the McGrady, Yao, Cato lineup...well, that's different. We are allowed to have good role players like Cato and not be affected as much since McGrady offers us more of everything. We wouldn't need Cato to score as much. He would be a lot better in that lineup than a Francis lineup. We have more leeway on role players abilities. What I'm saying is that it will be much easier to fill slots once we get our CORE players set. Those core players (McGrady/Yao/and maybe JJ) should be as great/high quality as possible, i.e. superstars. Then, we can worry about filling in slots. Now, this doesn't mean that I want McGrady/Yao with scrubs! To the contrary... In fact, if we do land, say Brand, in 2 years, well that's just a bonus since we already have McGrady/Yao core in place. Thus, getting Brand after McGrady is in place will be a lot better than getting Brand with a Francis lead team. Know what I mean?
Never thought about Sura. He would actually be a GREAT choice for replacing Steve. He's a blue collar (Van Gundy) type of player. He would bring a ton of energy and heart to the team, which is very important since we'd be losing a lot of heart by trading away Francis, Cat, and Cato. He's an excellent defender, which I think may be the #1 priority for this team at the point guard spot. And he's a very good passer and rebounder. I would be willing to spend between 3-4mil. per for 3 years for Sura.
Good points DavidS. To answer your first question: Because of the person (CD) or persons (the "committee") that would be in charge of scouting, evaluating and acquiring the free agents and making the trades of which you speak. This is an organization that cannot draft well nor does it make very good trades (CD, please explain what happened to this year's 1st round pick) nor is it all that great at evaluating free agents (Piatkowski, A. Griffin, Moochie, Mo Taylor). I simply do not believe that the Rockets' organization will do a credible job of getting good players. They WILL botch this up because that's what they do best. I think that based on the JVG interview earlier this week on 610AM that this core group of players is done. Mobley and quite possibly Cato won't be back next season. The important thing to consider here is not only which players you replace them with but also WHO is doing that replacing. I agree with your statement about the core players. I disagree with not worrying about getting role players. With the ineptness of our front office, this will not be as easy as everyone here assumes and you had better worry about what CD & Co. will do to screw this up. In fact, given the evidence of their recent history, there is really NO reason to believe that this front office even has a F ing clue about getting role players and until they prove otherwise BY DOING IT, this will not be the slamdunk for which you are hoping. This has been my position from the start and the only way I see thing getting better is when Uncle Les finally decides to wake up and clean house.
There is really no need for starting a new thread on this issue. Cannot we stop the nonsense already. This issue of finding freaking role players in begining to become ridiculous. Folks if we do this proposed trade, I GUARRANTTEE you that we will find adequate players to feel the necessary holes...QED. Heck if worse comes to worse, we can sign players from the and1 Tour players, Harlem Globetrotters, NBDL or WNBA. We WILL be fine. The big question to me and hopefully everyone else is this - can we get TMac? How bad or good is his back?
Speaking strictly about role players.... One of the things I wonder about our front office is that we acquire role players, but they don't really do much. It's almost like they fade. The front office seems to place low expectations on them...I wonder why...I'm sure it has something to do with our court leadership....but still. Pike is one of them. I mean, it seems like the guys feelings are hurt. What's up with him? And what about Adrian Griffin? It's almost like they don't push the role players to really be a part of this team. I really was worried that Boki might be one of our casualties. I don't want that to happen. But I worry about it. Boki will then go on and flourish on another team. Same with Pike. It's strange. At least Boki has taken it upon himself to make a "statement" on Malone's head in the play-offs. That should get him more PT. Anyways, I wish they would stop picking role players that are good at only a few things; specialist are fine sometimes. But at least (mostly) pick well-rounded role players; guys like Dampier, Snow, Fisher, Boozer...all of them can shoot. All of them can defend. Guys like MoT are specialist. He's a shooting PF. Little defense. And little rebounding. Cato too. He's a defensive back-up center. No shot. Don't get me wrong...I don't mind one specialist as an asset. But that specialist better be the best damn specialist in the league: like Ben Wallace (defensive mad man!). Or like the Bulls used have in Rodman (14.5 rebounds per game!).
If you know this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, just do it! we can bank on: 1. we find the player we want. 2. develop our own player. 3. FA they want to come here play with Yao & Tmac. worst case, we still have Yao & Tmac' s rights. we can trade a lot No. 1 pick and rebuild with group of young player. f
once in a lifetime oppurtunity. Please. Everyone acts like this guy is the answer to everything. If he's so good why can't he lead his team in the playoffs in 2003? Where was T-Mac then? Great players lead their teams from Wilt to Magic, Jordan, and Kobe. T-Mac isn't Kobe and never will be barring some miracle. Why would putting this guy on the Rockets instantly make us a great contending team? Yao isn't Shaq and T-Mac aint Kobe let's not make any illusions. The Rockets didn't beat the Lakers in the playoffs this year because Yao didn't show up, not because of Steve Francis' play. If anything, francis put the Rockets in a position to win more than anything. But where was Yao? Where was T-Mac in 2003 after telling the media it was all over for the opposing team? What guarantees do we have with a good scorer, an inconsistent center without heart, and nothing else? The lakers didn't win like that! The pistons didn't win like that! These teams had a deep bence, good defenders, along with consistent play and players trusting each other. Can this be developed and taught by Van GUndy? I think so. Give them some time. We also need solid role players and a solid starting 3 and 4. Until we Get the pieces, then we can start talking about being a dominant team. Until then let's stop talking nonsense about T-Mac and once ina lifetime oppurtunity. Being a good, dominant team for more than 3 years and winning a title is a lifetime oppurtunity.
Magic had Worthy and Kareem. Jordan had Pippen, Grant and later Rodman. Kobe had Shaq. Wilt got beat by Russell's Celtics team before Wilt was able to find success. They all had very good role players around them...great players sounded by very good role players. They did not win it all by themselves. Why do you think that these players "lead his team in the playoffs" Like if they did it alone. They do it as a team. Great players need other supporting players. In our case, those two GREAT players are McGrady and Yao. That's the starting point. Then we go from there... You're embellishing just as much as you accuse other of doing... Not everybody is thinking that "McGrady is the answer to everything." No, it's not like "Presto! We are a championship team." Of course not. We know that it's a process. But that process STARTS with getting the best core group of players possible. That where the process STARTS: With McGrady AND YAO! So, when we say, "once in a lifetime opportunity" we are talking about the fact that we have an chance to get one of these great players (a top 5 guy). It's not an end within itself, but it's a excellent starting point for our core team... Then, we go from there...fine tuning this team.
