Obviously, a deal involving Miles has considerable risk and an pretty ugly contract in return. But, it's not like his is making $14 million a year or something. And, for all his faults he is a legit starter in the league. I'm not sure Head spends many seasons starting in his career. He certainly shouldn't be a starter on this team if we have the type of quality players around Yao and T-Mac that we should. I guess he could end up starting for some team consistently during his career, but he always looked a little shaky to me. So, you are talking about giving up a bench player for a starter and getting the pick you want. And, your team has already blown the cap for as far as anybody can see into the future with Yao and T-Mac. Seems like a decent gamble to me. --Drof
I am praying that this trade goes through! If it does, it would be a big boost for the ROX who can transform their trifling roster from last season into a roster that could actually compete with the best in the west with a healthy TMAC and Yao! Miles has some baggage, but is young, long and athletic. I would the draft Roy at #4 and a PF/C at #32. I would then sign Mike James to the Midlevel Exception. The ROX would then be ready to roll next season. I will keep myfingers crossed until Wednesday!
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/3999562.html By JONATHAN FEIGEN Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle Rant of week: This rumor has no Miles on it A pretty funny rumor surfaced last week about the Rockets taking on Darius Miles' contract to move up from their eighth pick to the Trail Blazers' fourth pick. After finally getting out of bad contract jail, the last thing the Rockets need is a long-term contract given to a talented but under-achieving player with attitude issues. The Rockets want to move up and no doubt have talked to acting Portland GM Steve Patterson. But if the discussions so much as mentioned Miles, Rockets GM Carroll Dawson would have been wise to run from the phone.
Not directly Riockets related: http://www.phillyburbs.com/pb-dyn/news/100-06242006-675019.html Maybe no one in this draft wants to move down? ie Rockets trading down for a couple of picks (they see scrubs, not potential) is far from their minds?
We still have Juwan, so this doesn't make any sense to me. If Miles pans out (and I realize that is in no way certain) then his contract is much better than Juwan's when you consider age and ability.
Juwan's contract seems to be the norm for a starting vet in the NBA. Below MLE guys are only rookies, bench players, or near-MLE for late-bloomers like Rafer. It's a MLE type contract, only has three more years, and sizeable enough for it to be a trading assest in the last year. Plus he's not a bad player.
If Juwan's contract were the norm for a player of his caliber and age, he wouldn't be so damn hard to trade. When Miles has his head on straight, he's a better player than Juwan, and he has room to get better. Juwan is on the decline.
For a guy like Miles to be projected to make the 3rd highest salary on the team and not be a legit 3rd scoring option does not look good for the Rockets future. There comes a point when a players "potential" becomes irrelevant. The Rockets do not have time to watch him bloom in his 8th season. He should have bloomed last year.
How do we know for sure they've been shopping Juwan in the past couple of seasons? If CD was able to move MoT whose contract is redickulous and offered virtually no production. I can't see Juwan as being a greater challenge to trade.
Taylor was only 29 at the time of the trade so there was plenty of reason to believe he could get better or at least sustain his output until his contract was up. The same cannot be said about Juwan at 33 with 3 years left. Also, while Taylor's contract was more money per, it was a year shorter which is attractive for a team that is so far in the hole like the Knicks. Believe it or not, the Knicks potentially have 62 million of their 123 million coming off the cap after next season. Still over by 10+ million though
including 35 Millions of salaries for players who are not on the knicks's roster anymore lol (allan houston, shandon anderson and jerome williams)
regarding Miles, I really think this team should be taking a 'no ***holes' approach to personnel decisions. That's one of the (many) reasons I'm glad that we stayed away from Ruben Patterson. I realize someone's probably going to bring up 'Sheed, but let's remember that Sheed's teammates and coaches have always liked the guy and lauded his unselfishness. Most of his problems have stemmed from his paranoia with the refs. Darius Miles is one of the most immature, overpaid players in the league. Frankly, until we add a legit starting PF, I'd rather have the professionalism of Juwan Howard and his old grandpa legs then Darius Miles and all the baggage that comes with him. I get the feeling that some of the posters here see the same things in Darius Miles that they saw in Stromile Swift. If he ever ends up here, I think those posters are going to end up dealing with the same disappointment. There comes a point in a player's career when potential becomes wasted potential. Miles may have already crossed that line.
If we could somehow parlay Juwan Howard and other spare parts into darius miles and a top five pick I would consider it one heck of a great coup. Miles might be immature, but him and tmac would be unreal with their length and atheletiscm at two and three......
Dont blame CD for taking on Howard. He was part of the Mcgrady deal and if we wouldnt have taken him, we probably wouldnt have gotten Tmac.
You have to figure Feigen talks to CD weekly, and that Feigen wrote this because CD told him, off the record, there was "no chance in hell" we would take Miles. You wouldn't think Feigen would put CD on the spot if there was any chance of this rumor coming to fruition.
Aren't we going to be over the cap for the life of Yao and Tmac anyway? Would Miles put us into luxury tax range?
Really. That last line sounded like he was editorializing based on what he (feigen) thinks CD should do.
