Haven, Walt shooting 60% stretches the defense. He was phenomenal as well. Shandon might have played great, but he still was never a first option, Walt was. Meaning what? Meaning Walt's success helped secondary options, more than the opportunistic and assertive secondary options freed up Walt. No way anyone can convince me differently about Walt being king to close out the season. You can have your opinion and so can I. Now, answer when the Rockets played their best ball in the Francis era. And answer what do you think about TheFreak's implication that Mobley starting at the #2 has not produced like Shandon starting has. That's the man question. My tangent about Walt is disputable only by degree. I cannot believe any Rocket fan would say a worthless April stretch drive is better than our Playoff drive this year. Meaning our best ball has been with Mobley starting at the 2. mindboggling
Toast, regardless of the fact that we root for our team, you can't forget that the NBA is a business, and inside of it there's a market for players. A players is worth x amount of money according to what he brings to the table, and that's what determines how much he should be paid. Of course i see your point about the Hakeem/CAto situation, and i agree for the most part. But you just can't dispute the fact that Shandon is a ROLE PLAYER. Not that a have anything at all against role players, they are the glue that hold championship teams together. But role players get paind in role players money, and it wouldn't make any sense to overpay Shandon right now. He could've waited another year and get his bird rights accordingly. Yet. he chose to test the market. According to that same market, a defensive stopper with limited offensive abilities, simply does not warrant as much as Shandon seems to think he does. He is out of his mind if he thinks he deserves more than Cuttino. If that is his wish, he will have to seek his pay day elsewhere. Specially since we are in a very delicate situation as far as cap goes and what the team hopes to do with it now. Shandon is a 2 guard. We already have our starting 2 guard and he isn't going anywhere anytime soon. That leaves Shandon with the role Haven wants him to have. And that simply isn't worth more than what Cuttino is getting... ------------------ Just ship Cato's ass outta town. Plain and simple.
I'd say that April run demonstrated better basketball than the failed playoff run this season. In the April run, everyone was clicking. In the playoff run, some guys were clicking and some pulled the boat but others were still stinking up the court. I'd say the best basketball is when everyone is playing well. I think the setup of having Anderson at the 2, Walt at the 3 and Mobley off the bench was a great setup at the time. Unfortunately, Walt played himself out of the starting lineup and Anderson also wasn't playing as well as he had. So that had to be changed. If we could have a solid player at SF and Anderson returned to form, I'd rather have Mobley coming off the bench again. Mobley may be a better scorer, but he is a less complete player and fits perfectly in the role of playing the spark-plug off the bench (Anderson isn't a spark-plug; you need energy for that). Francis can fill the role of slasher in the first unit while Mobley can be the scorer in the second unit. Finally, Cato's contract can't be used as a measure for Dream's contract because Cato's contract doesn't reflect his value. That sucks, but that's the way it is, so Dream will have to get used to making less than Cato. In the same way, Mobley's contract can be used to measure Anderson's contract by because his contract doesn't reflect his value. He lowballed himself and signed for a couple million less than he was worth. That sucks for him, but we can't measure every free agent by Mobley and say, 'Nope, you're not as good as Mobley so you don't deserve the $4.5 million exception.' We won't get anyone under contract that way. He'll have to get used to the fact that players who aren't as good as him will make more money. That's the choice he made. ------------------ RealGM Gafford Art Artisan Cakes
