Yao was way younger back then Steve Francis was a ballhog Cuttino only shots Van Gundy gets on his knees to Pop. If it was all 3 of them in their prime and Pop as their coach, I could see a ring
Interesting take. Looking back to the preseason, we thought, a great many of us, and the Rockets brass, apparently, that Battier could play significant minutes at the 4 spot. Because he couldn't in the vast majority of matchups (as I recall the season), McGrady was moved to the 2 from the 3, and Battier played mostly at the 3 spot. (yes, I know there was a great deal of switching, to say the least) Putting aside the hole at the 4, if we had a player like Cat at the 2, with Tracy at the 3 (along with a starting quality point), I think we would have seen a quite different season play out. At any rate, it might have been more fun to watch.
Having lived in L.A. for 6 months of the past year, and watching alot of Clippers basketball first hand I would have to say you are severely overestimating what Mobley brings to the table. Offensively, he has resorted to alot of post-ups and spot up shooting, which is basically the same game as Battier. I will give you that he has a much more agressive offensive mindset, which I think any rocket fan will agree Battier could use a dose of. But at this point in his career he is an effective bench player at best (and an overpaid one at that). L.A. would take that swap in a second.
This team has never, repeat never, been stacked at the power forward poistion in franchise history. We have only had two good PFs in Otis Thorp and Barkley and Barkley was a ball hawg that could not get on with his teammates.
The better thing is Cat could guard quicker PGs as well. I bet you we'd have seen Cat on Deron Williams instead of Alston against the Jazz.......and i'm pretty sure we'd have won also w/ Cat instead of Battier that series not saying Cat might be better than Battier, but I think he could have helped us more.....
You forgot Ralph. Even if he was playing out of position, the guy was a hell of a 4 while he was healthy.
while I would be hard pressed to argue we would have won against the Jazz had we had Mobley on the roster instead, I will agree that Battier's greatest strength was negated against the Jazz due to them not having a scoring 2/3 (I also feel that Alston did a pretty underrated job on Williams after watching him basically go off against every other team he has faced in the playoffs). I don't think Battier was the problem vs. the Jazz by any means though, he definitely pulled his weight offensively the last few games of the series.
just assume we did all the others moves while kept sf3/cat, we would have a team like: sf3/cat/battier/hayes/yao with bench of head/deke and a guy with mle salary(howard), better or worse?
Deck, about 90% of Clutchfans don't know about Ralph Sampson. its sad. They don't know about the battles vs the Lakers and the Celtics. Watch the ESPN Classic where Dream talks about Ralph quoting the DREAM when asked how well Ralph would do against today's talent. "Ralph would score on dem all dey!"
This is the only post I read in this thread. I didnt want to waste my time. Francis sucks, always did. Mobley on his best day was Ginobli light. Ming still has a ways to go before you can compare him to Duncan. There is no comparison. NONE.
Not to mention that the offseason is a good time for a few laughs on this board with some of the type of posts that come into it
In terms of playing with heart: SF>>>>T-MAC. So overall, T-MAC is only slightly better than SF. T-MAC's Rockets end with first round, so does SF.
Ummm, hate to mention this - but Ralph is here today on the Rockets. His name is Yao Ming. Let's hope Yao doesn't have knee issues like Ralph did.
