true we have some holes we need to fill but we had some holes last year too.. think about how many times we lamented over the fact that we start 3 SG's and 2 C's. Now were complaining about holes in our lineup. Lets be realistic were not going to have ALL stars at every position.. im pretty happy with what we have now.. PG - Lue / Gaines (Lue is quick enough to guard any starting PG/ while Gaines has tremendous upside if given the chance) Gaines I would predict will become our PG of the future. SG - Tmac (enough said) / Pike / AGriffin should do better this year SF - JJ / Boki (solid role player/ hopefully our SF of the future) PF - Howard/MoT/Spoon (not awesome but solid contributors) C - Yao / ummmm?? Spoon? hahaha still good enough. J
It's the first day of free agency. There are very few teams in the league right now that don't have holes. It's not time to panic yet.
Mo Taylor was often our best scorer last year. He's a solid 3rd option. Juwon Howard is, historically, a slightly better player than Taylor. He's also a solid 3rd option. I agree we need another perimeter shooter.
"losing barry is huge..." I never had a good feeling about adding an aging combo guard who had been injury prone throughout his career. Sure has great court vision but he is a combo guard not a true pg. We need a true Pg. I wouldnt mind using our TE in sign and trade for Payton. His contract is one year and after that we'll have some other players coming off the books. Sure he's old and got out played during the playoffs but the glove loves pushing the ball and thats something we need with Mcgrady and Nachbar being open court players. And let's face it he was on a team that had no team defense whatsoever. I have faith that Van Gundy can get this team playing on page defensively. so good points of trying to land Payton are ; 1. frees up salary cap next year 2.a pg who knows how to push the ball 3. a pg ,when in rhythm can create his own shot 4. a pg whose offense centers around penetrating and find open people 5 a pg that has something to prove ,that he still has it I think Payton wasn't able to do that last year because he was limited by the triangle offense.
How about trading CD for another GM? By the way, it wasn't really him that brought TMac here, it was TMac decision to play with Yao. Isn't it time to bring in a GM that can do a proper job and bring us some talented players and sign some smart contracts?
I agree, If we had a real GM the rockets would be set by now. The West was tough last year and it's going to be even tougher this year. All the free agents that could have help this team get over the hump are gone. Now we are left with scraps - that ain't going to cut it in the West.
That's right. Relax........sit back..............take the Prozac.............everything is better now, Yes?
That's true. This current roster is by no means a finished product. I really would not be surprised if the 3 players that start with Yao and Mcgrady next season are all off the team by the time the Rockets become contenders.
Comes down to this. Compared to LAL last year. Would you rather have George/Fox or JJ K Malone (last year) or Howard/Taylor/Spoon Payton ( last year) or Jones/Lue/Fisher Shaq or Yao Kobe or TMac Not sure myself but most of the choices are close enough for me. I lik eht Rox going into the season, especially if you factor in a healthy Pike and AG, another year for Nachbar. Really need a backup 5 but LAL did not have a real one so maybe MoT is enough.
Yeah it wasn't CD that brought in Steve, Barkley, Drexler. Sure there are also Griffin, Pippen, SA, MoT and other stuff, but CD has the balls and experience to pull a big trade. And oh yeah, with only 2 losing seasons in the last what 11 years? While rebuilding/remodeling the team 3 - 4 times in last 7 years. Yeah he's done a real terrible job, I mean teams like the Bulls, the Lakers, the Pistons all on took 3 - 4 years before they become contenders again after their championship teams broke apart. And we are definitely worst then the hawks, clips, cavs, nugs since they are alwasy more consistent then us. Seriously, as a Rox fans since I was 11 I really don't remember that many bad/hopeless seasons. In fact I seems to remember to be excited almost every season when it starts (and not just because it's starting but I feel we can be very competitve or something big happened in the offseason. I think that's quite good management by the rox.
Just to reiterate being excited every season since the first championship, At the start of the season 94/95 just won a championship how can u not be excieted 95/96 just won back to back obviously exited 96/97 excited cuz we got barkley 97/98 got the the conference finals the year before, feel like we can make one last run 98/99 got Pippen 99/00 Pippen quit but this young dude name SF with freakish potential just arrived on the team. Also got SA. 00/01 Missed the playoffs for the first time in a long time but still had a respectaple 34 wins, also got a solid young pf with potential called MoT during the summer (he was consider a max player that year and we got him for the MLE out of no where). Feel like we can make major move. 01/02 Missed the playoff by 1 game but feel the young core will get better 02/03 Dissapointed in a bad season with SF freakish year injuries but got MING. We can become part of something BIG 03/04 JVG comes in, hopefully adds discapline 04/05 T - MAC in the offseason, a top 5 25 yr old. The point is, we are always on the up swing or atleast making moves to get there every year. We never go into the season like the Bulls are right now, like the Clips every year, like the Hawks, like Cavs right now, like etc etc etc. In the past 11 years we've done pretty well for a team from a small market and without an owner that has a money tree.
Agreed, people just have that instinctive knee jerk reaction. They get all emotional and don't think about the bigger picture. They don't see the building process. They take the attitude of "what have you done for me lately". What they don't realize is that building a team takes planning, and that takes time. Detroit went through this for four years and then added that last piece to put them over the top. The Lakers went through 3 or 4 years of Kobe and Shaq together before the 1st championship. I like what managment is doing long term and agree that we need REASONABLE contracts. I would love it if we could get on par with say the Spurs in that regard, but i don't think its possible, they are one of the best, if not the best managed team in the league. I think we are going more for a Detroit structure (coached defensively), but also with a little bit of an LA- 2 superstars vibe to it.
I'm inclined to think one off the reasons which made Yao so burnt out towards the end of the last season was Catos lack of offensive abalitie and his shooting touch. with cato being so bad at shooting, teams were just collapsing on yao know Calvin was not threat. this Season which JH, i believe he will help Yao alot with his shooting and crafty offense. having said that, yao will have to step up on the boards and defense to pickup th slack left behind from cato.
I'll admit, i was getting frustrated too. But now i'm glad we didn't really overpay. This has been a crazy offseason, and I'd rather us come away with a steal and get a reasonable player (Jones) than overpay (Fisher). I'm still of the fence about Daniels, the fact that he can just leave next year bothers me somewhat. It all depends on what direction we want to go (Someone like Hinrich in the near future? then Daniels would be good).
