Here a quote from the Houston Chron: Allen's fellow Sonics All-Star Rashard Lewis said, "I would love to finish my career in Houston, to be back in front of the hometown fans and in front of my family. You never know what can happen. I'm happy in Seattle right now. But at the same time, there's no place like home." -- Houston Chronicle http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2005/scorecard/02/22/truth.rumors.nba/index.html
Why didn't we land this guy in the first place? He seem like a very good shooter, something that we defenitely could use.
I would love to have Lewis come home to Houston. I was really dissapointed when we didn't pick him up with one of our 1st round picks (which none are still playing in the NBA). I know a lot of teams passed him up as well, but Lewis would be a nice fit here along with TMac. Lewis is a big body who can hit shots, drive, and has improved his defense a lot. Too bad, he signed a pretty sizable extension not too long ago.
TMac and Rashard in the backcourt would be sweet....but won't happen anytime soon unless Rashard forces the issue, and probably not even then.
Rashard is 6'10 almost 6'11.......what kind of back court mate is that? He's a 4 that plays like a 3 (small forward) Still would love to have him
I wanted him, too. He was a 2 year project when he went into the draft. It wasn't like he was a sure thing to even make the roster. He made the Sonics roster the second year, but wasn't an impact player until the next year. The Rockets were trying to make an impact with that draft, and I don't think they wanted to work with him for those two years. I thought Dickerson was a great pick, the fastest guard in the draft. Drew was the perennial "great shooter". I don' know where they came up with Turksan, still don't. It was this third pick that I thought they might pick up Rashard, but they didn't. Definitely a mistake, but hindsight is 20/20.
He's a natural sf. He can play minutes at pf, just like Vlad can, but he's a sf. And a lot of people include the wing positions (pg, sg, sf) as backcourt players ... I know I don't think of many SFs when I think of frontcourt players. And it would be sweet to get Shard here ... but I don't see how it can happen. Maybe whenever he becomes a free agent again. His shooting and rebounding would definitely fit in here.
Every single team in the league passed on the guy. The Rockets just left him on the side of the road more than once.
Actually, I remember it was Vancouver. He had connections/family up there. The Toronto thing was just somewhat of a coincidence in that it was Canada, too, I think.
Hakeem wanted to go to Vancouver. I don't think it was family, isn't there's a very strong muslim community up there? We didn't land Rashard Lewis because Michael Dickerson, Bryce Drew, and Mirsad Turkan were such unbelievable prospects.
Rashard has an opt out in 2007, otherwise he's available in 2009. Should we start the Rashard for the full MLE thread now, or maybe wait a year or two.
He has no family there or anything like that, I think he randomly just said once or twice that he had been there on vacation or something and he thought it was a nice city and would be a decent place to live someday -- I believe this was before Vancouver even had an NBA team. Anyway, it sort of got perpetuated as an urban myth that he wanted to finish his career there (I guess via the talk radio circuit considering this was pre- or early internet era) - and I might be crazy, but I recall (wrongly? ) he once came out and said in an interview late in his career that there was no way he would go to Vancouver (reason being that they sucked...) EDIT: I love you search function:
a lot of people say that we promised rashard we'd take him with one of our first round picks if he were available. i'm glad he's not bitter. he would be a great addition to our already young nucleus.