Actually trading Wesley, James or Sura for DS can all yield a contract starting in the low 4s (4.1-4.3 mil). You can take Wesley's 05-06 salary x .8 or MJ/Sura's salary x 1.2. All three work out if we agreed with Damon at about 4.2 mil (give or take 100K). Sura and Wesley make a lot more sense to Portland given lack of quality SGs. MJ as a pure 1 and more offensive minded player doesn't help their roster near as much. But if they want MJ for DS, sure. Then we try to get Head to focus on learning the 1, not 2. But the NY 2nd rounder (06) value may not be that far off our own 06 1st rounder (very late 20s). We don't have our own 2nd in 06 or 07 (James deal--which was a steal BTW). Here is the thing, I think a DS/BS starting backcourt is much better than DS/DW. If we were acquring DS, the SG has to be bigger than DW, and this is Sura's more natural position. Also, in terms of spot up shooting, Wesley's 3% is only a little better than Sura or DS (last year), and lower than MJ's, and way lower than JB's. I think DS would be better than Wesley's playing with Yao and Tmac (I'd expect DS probably hit 40%), Wesley improved about 5% over his previous two years just moving from NO to the Rockets. This is not to discount Wesley's contributions, but given his age and size disadvantages from Sura, and that both have lots of positive intangables, I think it is more important to keep Sura overall, particularly if we add another small guard. I think with a greater role of Sura at the 2, hopefully some contributions of Head (defense, quickness), and the return of Barry, we would cover Wesley's attributes. But having our 1 shared by DS and James brings a lot of shooting, quickness and penetration ability. Finally, heck no for Sura and 1st for DS. I am wishy washy about DS for BS strait up enough. Sura or James strait up for DS, or DW plus pick, nothing more. Remember this is a S&T of a player Portland will lose anyway, anything close to equal is a good trade for Portland--and these are close to equal trades.
No way. It's not worth the 1st round pick, imo. And why would Portland take a chance on Sura's injuries? I don't see it happening. Maybe Wesley, if we get another player we like as well. I'm in the Damon for the LLE camp, myself. Use Wes in another trade, maybe, but keep Sura and keep looking, if Stoudamire doesn't work out.
This is kinda sad. I loved our veteran back-court by committee. Sura, James, Wesley, or Barry; whenever any of them were in, I never worried about a letdown. That being said, I think we need to retain at least half if not 3/4 of this quartet or else our chemistry will go to the dumps. I honestly don't know how much adding Stoudamire's playmaking ability will help us while considering that (a) he is even more of a defensive liability than the above guys, and (b) can possibly ruin our team chemistry. If push came to shove, in order of preference I'd get of Wesley first, Mike James second (especially since Stoudamire can probably be a more balanced offensive spark). We definitely need to retain Sura for his heart and toughness and attitude alone. No one else will stand up for our guys, and we need that. We need someone to get into people's faces. The reason it is so easy for me to part with Wesley is that he can't of been that great a defender because (a) he was too short, (b) he was not proportionately fast enough to compensate for his lack of height, and (c) Luther Head will probably be a better defender. Barry is just a freebie to keep to maintain some of that great locker room chemistry we had. He wants to come back bad. Who better to keep the locker room chemistry together than a man who professes to love the atmosphere and camraderie of the Rockets? So get Stoudamire and I think our committee of guards (Sura, Barry, Head, and maybe even Glover) can provide enough 3 pt shooting, and defense to carry us far. And whatever athletic tools they may be missing, is more than made up for by their heart.
2005 - 2005 Roster PG = DS\Sura\James SG = James\Head\Sura SF = TMac\Barry\Glover PF = Swift\Howard\Baxter C = Yao\Mutumbo
How is Damon Stoudamire going to give us an offensive punch when he shoots a putrid 39% from the floor? We complained about Francis' poor shot selection, but at least the dude shot 42%. Though a pretty good three point shooter, he's not in the top 50 in the NBA in 3PT%. In fact, both David Wesley and Mike James shot better from beyond the arc last season than him. They were in the top 50. I know he has a nice scoring average, but he gets those points at great cost. Factor in how he's a defensive liability and he really doesn't amount to as much as we perceive. Though I think he's a big plus when it comes to playmaking.
Wouldn't you shoot better if you had wide open shots? How many times was David Wesley contested last year? It's strange how those shooting percentages magically go up when playing next to T-Mac and Yao
I'd trade DS for Spoon. But Spoon's contract is too big so we'd also need a TE in return or something. I'd like to keep Sura and Wesley. I don't know why so many people would rather ship off Wesley than Sura. Welsey was our iron man last season and took all the difficult defensive assignments he could. Plus I believe only one person averaged more minutes...TMac. Wesley was an unsung hero. He the consumate role player that everybody seems to crave around here. I love Sura but I'm affraid his health is done.
Well considering the fact that Mike James shot 38.2% with the Bucks and 39.3% with us, I don't think that his 3PT accuracy "magically" went up all that much. Wesley is a career 37% shooter from 3-PT range. Last year he shot 38%. As for field goal percentage, Wesley's went up by a whole 1% after he joined us....while Mike James' FG% actually dropped 1%. Even if Damon Stoudamire's 3PT% went up by a whopping 1% (wow!) I don't think that justifies labeling him a very good offensive player. Stromile was a coup...but I'm not quite sure how much better we are if we added DS.
we have an abundance of quality shooting guards, but we don't have a champion-quality point guard. DS could be that for us. If it had to be Sura I would do it.
I would do that reade ONLY if I knew that we could then trade our expiring contracts for a bigger 2 guard. A backcourt of Wesley and DS is way to small and would really hurt us on defense. I would much rather trade Wesley for DS straight up and then either try to trade for a shooting guard or move Sura to the 2 guard. A backcourt of Sura/Barry/DS/James would be pretty decent (especially if Luther Head turns out to be solid) and could very well put the Rockets right behind the Spurs in the West.
Bob Sura rebounds better than Mo Taylor (who doesn't) and he can also dunk(something very important when playing bball) i see no reason to trade him for Damon.
Actually, we should keep Sura - > then pick up DS and then pick up Latrell Sprewell as our starting shooting guard , and drop the other useless guards
I think we should keep Sura and trade Weatherspoon for Kobe Bryant and some draft picks. With those draft picks we should draft college lacrosse players and have them shoot buckets with basketballs in their lacrosse sticks. We would go 73-9 breaking the Bulls record. We should then trade Jeff Van Gundy for Hulk Hogan and have him lead us through the Playoffs. That my friends would be AWESOME!!!
HELL YEA!!! I hate Sura.. he sucks.. im sure that damon is a much better PG, I havent check the stats, but what I do know is that Sura is no PG and never looked like it when I saw him play.
Come on daddies, locked up your keyboards before your preschoolers get out of bed. I guess big news always brings them out.
I think you trade DW before you trade Sura, but on the flip side DW is a player that brings a lot of intangibles also. The Rockets didn't start winning until we got DW. DW is small for a 2, but he defends well even when they try to post him. James is a guy that you hate to part with because of his age, quickness, and points off the bench, but he does not bring that much on the side of intangibles. Sura also brings a good rebounding guard on a team that couldn't buy a rebound last year against Dallas. I know Swift should add rebounding, but we know Sura has a nose for the ball. This is a tough one to crack because our present guards all bring good things to the team. Maybe the Rockets should get "White Chocolate" from the Grizz.
You had me until your last statement. I agree DW, BS and MJ do have intangables, it is why they are more tradable than Mooch, Baker, Spoon, etc. They only of the 3 I don't trade for Stoudamire at this point is Sura, because I am not ready to fully count on Dion to give us the bigger guard and back-up SF we need at this point. Again, big "no" on WC. Stoudamire and James look tremendously disciplined relative to him, are more consistent shooters, and James for sure (probably Stoud too) is the better defender.
I agree that Sura brings that added toughness and hard nose spark that a team might need, along with Barry, but we need a real point guard who can handle the ball and deliver accurate set ups for T-Mac when needed, soo... Tough one, but I would have to go with keeping Sura, because who needs a point guard when T-Mac usually starts the play!!!
