swift should have been doing the work and drills that ming has been doing this offseason. catching tennis balls to develop better hands and such. if he is not willing to put in the work, he will never improve. i think the only thing we lose with swift is a bag of meat that takes up space on the court. if needed, battier can play the pf spot. i wish we had someone else to play center but swift provided no defense.
Since when is dumping Swift a bad thing? I'm glad we got rid of him and his stupid salary. It was a mistake to bring him in for that much money and they were able to unload him. And don't think for a minute you would get much more for him b/c you wouldn't at the salary he's making. The Rockets problem has been BAD CONTRACTS. They have a history of giving bad players too much money. Mo Taylor Moochie Norris Kelvin Cato Stromile Swift just a few that come to mind. And when you have bad contracts it's not easy to get rid of them....
People here are talking like Battier was incredibly overpaid or something, It's good that someone sees he's much better value than Swift. For people saying that this hurts our cap room, well obviously it didn't. As for the argument that it will hurt 3 years down the road, well that's 3 years from now! Howard will be off the books and the team will look totally different. It's not like we're ever going to be under the cap with 2 max contracts anyways. As for the depth issue, well look at what you're losing, a totally unreliable bench player. Someone that plays 20 mins a game when he has it going and should be pulled immediately when he's moping along. We all saw his perfomance last year, he's not even an improvement over Juwan Howard. Look at it this way, we have 3 solid pieces on this team now for the FO to build around. If we got Rudy Gay, we'd have 2 solid pieces with one very uncertain piece. We can win a championship with 3 solid contributors. Miami had 2 and they won. For those people saying that Memphis somehow raped us in the deal because they got both Gay and Swift: come on, Memphis had Swift last year and chose not to resign him. We probably had to convince Memphis to take on Swift's deal, it was that bad. The only thing I'm worried about with Swift is his dunk on Yao next year, not gonna be pretty.
At first I did not like it, but the more I thought about it, and the window for TMac and Yao, the more I liked it. DD
We couldn't do that if Isiah Thomas was the Grizzlies' GM. Stromile Swift is one of the biggest busts currently playing in the NBA, and couldn't even excel or earn playing time with more than half our roster out injured. He's a marginal, 20 mpg player at best. Battier was the #6 pick in the draft a few years ago and is a legit 35-40 mpg player who plays great defense, brings great intangibles and is an excellent shooter who moves well without the ball on the offensive end. He's right in line with what most people expected of him when he went sixth overall, and the pick was generally applauded. I still think we gave a little too much, but Battier's value isn't anywhere even remotely close to that of Swift.
3 seasons from now, Swift would be off the books and Gay would still have a year left (team option). If he sucks after the next year he walks, but the chances of him being bad enough to not even warrant a second contract are pretty minimal by all accounts. A likely scenario is that he earns an extension after his 3rd year (when BOTH Swift and Howard come off the books...roughly $14 mil combine). We don't have to have cap space to extend or re-sign our own players. So what if he turned out to be a superstar? Well, we'd only have to pay him for one year before Tracy's contract came off the books (23 million!). So then we'd have Yao and our new superstar, and then we could re-sign Tracy for a much smaller price if he's up for a couple more years. In other words, I don't feel we're any better off talent wise OR cap wise.
Swift has no value at all, there were rumor last year of a trade with NJ to bring young players back, but I think that's crap. The only way you trade Swift is to take on another bad contract or include the 7th pick of the draft. 99 % of the people here are more comfortable having JH start over Swift, that tells you how bad he is!
Well, if Rafer is our starting PG, it's irrelevant. My contention that this was a championship team was if we sign James. Doleac didn't play a minute in the Finals or most of the playoffs. Irrelevant. Sign Pittsnogle as an undrafted FA and there's the exact same player. Posey is solid but not impossible to find. I don't think it's at all unreasonable to expect Luther Head to have a similar impact... obviously not the same position, but he's potentially a huge impact player with his quickness and penetration ability off the bench. Hayes brings energy and knows how to finish around the basket. Novak is instantly one of the best shooters in the league.
We didn't get any better cap wise sure, but we'll always be near the cap because of the 2 max contracts. How could you say we didnt' get better talent wise? Gay could be a superstar? We don't need a superstar, we need solid pieces around Yao and Tracy to do the dirty work and bring a championship. Gay is the kind of guy that teases you with potential for a few years before you find out who he really is. You seem to forget that our goal is to win, not develop Rudy Gay, we are closer than you think.
I don't think you can judge a player who's never played an NBA minute. Just because he's got freakish athleticism and more talent than Battier doesn't mean he'll actually harness it. That being said, the Rockets still got robbed big time. Traded away Youth, athleticism, and talent for Battier + Nothing else.
Yea, keep making your dreamcast. Please relieve as presenting them as if they are facts. Well, at least it gives me some chuckle.
They traded away, Youth, Athleticism, Talent, questions about desire, questions about heart, questionable shot, for experience, savvy, certainty, hustle, and a good shot.
That is the funniest thing I've read in a while. "We don't need a superstar"? Please, even with Yao and McGrady, if you can land a superstar, you draft him and keep him. I'm not saying Rudy will be the second coming of Scottie Pippen, but his ceiling is high. I like Battier and I don't think he sucks, but there's no way people can convince me that Rudy couldn't have replicated Battier's stats from last season. NO WAY As far as being closer, maybe. Sure we got a dependable swingman..our version of Bruce Bowen if you will. But would you trade..lets say..Andre Igoudala (who I am using as a Rudy Gay comparison) for Bruce Bowen? I wouldn't..especially when our team is sorely lacking in PRODUCTIVE athleticism.
On the surface, you appear to have a point. But we probably used a full MLE to get James. That means you're backing up Yao with Mutombo (instead of Swift) and your rotation includes Alston, Bogans, Head, Hayes and Bowen. Sorry, but this just isn't the same as having Stackhouse, Devon Harris, Finley, Brent Barry, Marquis Daniels, Josh Howard, Udrih, and others available. Trading 2for1 hurt us deeper than what you will give creedence to and if McGrady continues to have back problems the imbalance of the trade gets even worse.
Uhmmm... I think we could have used one of our trade exceptions to make the difference between Shane and Gay's rookie slot.
Of course if you can have Dwayne Wade on this team, you'd take him. Every team gets better with a superstar. What I mean is that we're not a team that needs a superstar to win. We already have 2, we can already win. We just have to be smart. Philadelphia wouldn't trade Igoudlal for Bowen, because they have no use for Bowen, they're a terrible team. Detriot would trade Igoudala for Bowen, they would put him on Wade and hope to take the next step. SA would take trade Igoudala for Bowen. Dallas would trade Daniels for Bowen if they could. Do you get my drift? Teams close to a championship that need a defensive stopper would trade for Bowen in a heartbeat! All NBA first team D with a great contract, a 3 point shot and big game experience?
The thing is that, we traded away two tradable assets for one good, but not great, player in return... Now that's a bad trade... We're supposed to get one more conditional future first round or second round pick in addition to battier...
