I think Shane is a complimentary player, who makes the Stars better, but Memphis has no real stars. Battier will help Houston a LOT more than he would help Memphis. DD
C'mon think for a second... would a division rival come on a rockets board and congratulate us for snatching their player? No, he'd try to spin it in a bad way just to incite our anger. What he's doing is "fishing" for posts right now. Of course he's going to say stro is bad...the same with battier. I bet if the grizzlies still had battier, and rockets fans were dissing him, memphisx would defend him. But now that they have gay and we have battier, he's not going to come in here and congratulate us on getting a competent player. Division rivals will always be foes in my eyes regardless.
Re-writing history a little here are we? First, the Grizz were in Vancouver at the time. Secondly, Francis forced the Houston trade. I wasn't proud of that anymore than I was McGrady forcing his way here from ORL. And the real reason McGrady is in Houston? Francis' ear infection caused him to miss enough games that we were in a Lottery that netted us Yao Ming whom TMac wanted to play with. Those aren't exactly sterling examples of how the Rockets recognize talent.
I was not validating Rockets' abilities to recognize talent, at least since we drafted Mobley in 98'. Yeah, it's been a while... What's done was done. But this is only the beginning of Rockets' offseason moves. So I would not jump to any conclusion basing on one draft pick just yet. But to call out Gay is the best player in this year's draft, is just premature.
I dont personally like the trade, but alot of you guys will be shocked at how good Battier is. He isnt like Bruce Bowen at all. Battier has a nice offense game, he can post and shoot. His stats may not be all that great, but he was on a VERY deep Memphis team. IMHO, he is a legit 3rd option.
1) I'm not calling out Rudy Gay as the best player in the draft. I'm calling out that MemphisX was spot on in his analysis of the situation. They got the #8 and we got a roll player for it. Remember...you started this by calling him out and he has more cred here than you do. 2) You are obviously clueless when it comes to what off season moves we can make. We have a MLE that 26 other teams have and we can trade Juwan, Luther Head or Rafer Alston. Except for a $4.2m trade exception that won't get us anywhere near the WC elites...that's it...period...end of discussion. If we are drop dead lucky, we can get Mike James with our entire MLE. And that is the entire summer.
That still doesn't explain what makes people think he makes stars better if he's never played with stars? I don't think I'll be shocked at how good Battier is. I know that his offensive game is better than Bowen's. Bowen has a weak offensive game except that he is great at the baseline 3. At the same time Battier is not the lockdown defender that Bowen is. I completely disagree that he's a legit 3rd option. I don't think he's good enough at anything offensively to be a legit 3rd scoring option. Spurs - Ginoblli Mavs - Josh Howard Suns - Take your pick To make matters worse all these teams are much more talented than our role players.
Originally Posted by Fegwu 1. Alston - PG 2. Bogans - SG 3. Mac - SF 4. Battier - CoF (combo forward) 5. Yao. - C If this starting lineup stays healthy and together for at least 70 games, we should be able to win 50 games. bogans being our starting shooting guard??? 50 wins with a bogans starting on our team which he wont even make the team on half of the teams in the league......battier being our power forward?? do u know what kind of studs play at the pf position in the nba.... garnett,brand,dirk, we wont be gettin enough rebounds wit battier being our starting pf....plus he would foul out late in the third quarter guarding talented and bigger pfs..........now thats the truth.........
Wrong...wrong..and wrong. First, We'd be lucky if Battier were like Bruce Bowen. Bowen gets named to the All Defense team and was a low cost free agent signing...not a trade for a Lottery pick. Second, whether or not Battier can post up is not relevant to anything. The last perimeter (SF/SG/PG) Rocket player you saw post up that wasn't named McGrady was....? Last, the "deep" Memphis team is history. Hubie ran a 10 man rotation...Fratello did not. Battier under Fratello played 35 mpg. He's a 10-5 player.
Well, why don't you try to do that in Grizzlies board? Try to spin that we got the better of the deal there. I believe the Grizzlies fans will laugh in your face together with Jerry West.
yea what u jsut said jsut pretty much sumed it up. Dam the whole rockets front office to hell. Gay had endless skills and potential to be a superstar in the nba. This jsut ruined my whole summer.
Let's not get carried away with this: Gay was the #8 pick in a VERY weak draft. If the high schoolers had been allowed in this year, he'd have probably dropped to #12-#15. While it's not impossible for him to turn into a superstar, I'd say the more likely chance is he'd end up more like Jason Richardson at best -- a dynamic, athletic scorer who's a lot of fun to watch, but doesn't really get a team much closer to the finals.
your think that there were 4 to 7 high schoolers that would've been picked in the top 15? also, #8 or #15 it's not his draft number that is pissing people off. Rashard Lewis and Gilbert Arenas were 2nd round picks.
Uh, yeah. But I'm not the only one. Greg Oden, Thaddeus Young, Kevin Durant and Brandan Wright would've almost certainly gone in the top 10 had they been in the pool this year. And Eddie Griffin was a #6. What's your point? My only regret is that we didn't force Juwan's contract on them instead of Stro's, and maybe snag a future draft pick as well. West obviously had a boner for Rudy, so CD should've played his hand better.
You know, I like you, MemphisX. You are one of the better non-Rockets fans that post here. I actually agree with your assessment of Battier and I am megapissed about this trade. Having said that, everytime I see one of your posts on this BBS, I have this completely involuntary reaction that makes me want to respond with this: [Andy Kaufman voice]Look at me! I'm from Meehhhhmphis Tehhhnnnaseeeee.[/Andy Kaufman voice]
Usually you can tell who makes the players better by how many assists a player has (in a non-pg position). 1.7 doesn't say much so I'm not sure you can make that leap. So are you saying Battier has a higher ceiling than he's had a chance to show?
While I'm against this trade as much as anyone, there is a lot of misguided animosity going on here. Battier is an excellent defensive player. I know no one on this board likes 82games.com, but their analysis is second-to-none. I'm going to keep this to the simplest of "advanced" statistics. Opponent's effective field goal percentage. That is one of the best measures of a player's individual defense. How Battier compares to the best defensive SF's in the game: Shane Battier - 45.8% Ron Artest - 48.1% Bruce Bowen - 45.8% Andrei Kirilenko - 48.0% Tracy McGrady - 47.5% For comparison, although it's heavily skewed by the gimmick system that the Suns run: Shawn Marion - 49.2% Stupid trade or not, Battier is going to make the Rockets a lot better.
