if all of our player are healthy, nothing gonna to be worry the following season is very important to mm, hope they can have a nice season
oops about the bynum part. yeh i meant landry. And I base Battier's defense on Kobe on the last game we played the Lakers, plus previous ones in the past. Odom is good but I haven't seen him exactly light up Oberto who is less athletic than Scola. Sure it matters, we killed the Lakers when Rafer performed. (Don't give me that no Pau Gasol stuff, we didn't have Yao.) You sound more like a laker fan to me than a rockets fan.
it doesn't matter what he sounds like, he's just being real, scola and landry can't match up w/ odom, he's 3, he's got way better handles and range than west, and look how well we did against him.
What happened to LA in just one year! It all started from Kobe demanding a trade. It put a lot pressure on the management team and other players (Bynum particular). Sometime you have to be an A-Hole to be a champion. Too bad Yao is too nice to do it. Well, if TMac demands a trade ... they may just trade him.
Ruben is the only guy with size that might be able to help us on that list. Other than that I'd opt to take a chance on Sikauskas or Papaloukas. If I had to get a backup PG I'd be looking at Prignoni who's a pass first point. He might not be as fast as Alston but then so what. If he can pass the ball on a dime and set up everyone that's all you ask for in a backup. I don't think that Nash or Stockton were all that fast and athletic either. That list of available free agents is enough to make you ill looking at it but yeah, if you can get Ruben Patterson why not? Oh and lets expand on that free agent list. Found this on a Rotoworld site. Found this on some random site after a quick Google search: 2008 Free Agents: The Big Dawgs (note: if you see player option, followed by... "50/50": that means we figure the odds at 50/50; if you see "unlikely", that means that the player is unlikely to opt-out, meaning the next season is too much money for them to turn down; if you see "likely", that means the money isn't enough, and they are likely to opt-out): Baron Davis (player option, 50/50) Corey Maggette (player option, possible) Elton Brand (player option, unlikely) Shawn Marion (player option, likely) Ron Artest (player option for 08/09, 50/50) Antawn Jamison Gilbert Arenas (player option for 08/09, 50/50) The Restricted Expiring Rookie Contracts (note: very unlikely to sign somewhere else, because they often sign an extension before their rookie contract totally expires; in 2008, though, several teams have failed to sign their rookies to extension, making for some very interesting dealings this off-season): Josh Smith (restricted) Josh Childress (restricted) Emeka Okafor (restricted) Ben Gordon (restricted) Luol Deng (restricted) JR Smith (restricted) Andris Biedrins (restricted) Shaun Livingston (restricted) Stromile Swift (restricted) Sebastian Telfair (restricted) Nenad Krstic (restricted) Trevor Ariza (restricted) Andre Iguodala (restricted) Kevin Martin (restricted, extension on way) Carl Landry (restricted) Young Filler Material, with some potential (The Chauncey Billups Grouping): Matt Carroll Andres Nocioni Chris Duhon Daniel Gibson Eduardo Najera Mickael Pietrus Matt Barnes Monta Ellis Bonzi Wells Kwame Brown Jason Williams Ricky Davis Boki Nachbar Antoine Wright Beno Udrih Fabricio Oberto The "They're Still Around?" Group (a.k.a. The Detroit Pistons Bench): Antonio McDyess Lindsay Hunter Ronald Murray Joe Smith Michael Finley Sam Cassell Alonzo Mourning Penny Hardaway Theo Ratliff Jamaal Magliore Chris Webber Aaron McKie Kevin Ollie Steve Blake Mikki Moore Brent Barry Robert Horry Michael Finley Kurt Thomas Andray Blatche 2009 Free Agents: The Big Dawgs: Drew Gooden Allen Iverson (almost certain to re-sign with Denver) Rasheed Wallace Baron Davis (if he does not exercise the opt out in 2008) Elton Brand Lamar Odom Kobe Bryant (option) Jason Kidd Stephon Marbury Jamal Crawford (player option for 09/10 and 10/11 - 50/50) Eddy Curry (player option for 09/10, 10/11 - 50/50) Hedo Turkoglu (player option for 09/10, unlikely) Andre Miller Steve Nash (player option, unlikely) Grant Hill Steve Francis Ron Artest (can opt out in '08) Mike Bibby Carlos Boozer (player option for 09/10 unlikely) Mehmet Okur (player option for 09/10 unlikely) The Rookie Contracts: Marvin Williams (restricted) Raymond Felton (restricted) Jason Maxiell (restricted) Luther Head (restricted) Danny Granger (restricted) Andrew Bynum (restricted) Hakim Warrick (restricted) Andrew Bogut (restricted) Charlie Villanueva (restricted) Rashard McCants (restricted) Chris Paul (restricted) Nate Robinson (restricted) David Lee (restricted) Channing Frye (restricted) Jarrett Jack (restricted) Francisco "Paco" Garcia (restricted) Deron Williams (restricted) Young Filler Material, Given Up, With Potential: Marquis Daniels (team option, unlikely to be picked up) Desmond Mason Chris Wilcox They Still Living? Eric Snow Brevin Knight Damon Stoudemire Smush Parker Juwan Howard Antoine Walker (player option for 09/10, 10/11 - likely) Jason Collins Bobby Jackson Malik Rose Raef LaFrentz Wally Szczerbiak
Artest would make us instantly the favorite going forward and so would Josh Smith but I'd be dreaming if I said I thought we could get those guys.
I usually think about the game in terms of matchups. Kobe won't kill the rockets cause we have shane but Tmac will kill the lakers. Yao will destroy their frontline and will do a decent job defending them. Rafer will do a good job defending their PG's. Scola will get killed by Odom and their bench will eat ours alive. If everyone's healthy, i think the Rockets actually matchup well against them. Our defense is what sets us apart and you can't just look at what the lakers did to the spurs. We match up better. Don't expect Vujacic to be able to contain Tmac.
We have to get loose balls and force the lakers to play defense. We need roll players to play well. We have so many questions right now, How will Rafer, T-Mac, Steve, Battier come back from surgery?, who would we draft?, Can we add length and athleticism over the summer? Can we freaking stay healthy? blah blah. The one thing that we can say is the lakers are pretty much what we see no draft picks, no cap space, and way over the luxury tax, and they have thier own free agents they have to worry about so they are not going to be getting much better anytime soon. This is who they are. And I believe we can beat them, sure we played them when they had injuries but we had injuries as well and still managed to win. We can beat any team in the league in a 7 game series when healthy. We can also loose to some teams. Fierguard
We tend to laugh at fans from this or that ball club. But, to talk about having the upper hand or evenly matched to the Lakers, when they reached NBA finals with 12-3, isn't that a little bit weak? Can we be more rational and reasonable, and talk about first round first? How to keep both Yao and TMac healthy, how to have role players make the team respectable when one of the two stars is unavailable, to me, is much more important than whether we can beat the Lakers now.
You guys are forgetting that this Lakers team will add a healthy Andrew Bynum next year. Now think about how we matchup. We need to get bigger in our front line period!
A couple of questions.. How often does T-mac outplay Kobe? When was the last time T-mac killed the Lakers? And why would Sasha defend T-mac?
Hard to say. Still don't like the Lakers, probably never will. Umm, they'll be tough team to beat, they still have to win the championship, even though they beat the Spurs, consider this, the teams that swept the Spurs this year are still in playoffs...and probably slightly tougher and more well rounded than the Spurs. I believe 90% of the question above can be answered by number 11 just being healthy, and the others being decent. Strangely, we would've played this team, if we got past Utah.....unlike the teams the Lakers beat we're more of a wild card, because we have great scorer in T-Mac, we have decent third and fourth wheel players, like Scola and Landry. One of the greatest defenders in the league in Battier....and the Yao guy. I think we could add a player or two, but I believe if we get past any team in playoffs, even the Lakers, it is probably going to be because of or in part of Yao Ming. I think he is probably only the player on the floor they truely don't have answer for, I think the only way they could slow him down is if they played spectacular defense on him and made him guard someone like Boozer.
kobe is a career 45% shooter. right now, he's just ON/AUTOMATIC, which is an amazing sight to see. but he's shooting 51% right now for the entire playoffs. he has NEVER done that before in his career. and the lakers as a whole are just ridiculously shooting the ball right now. it's very hard to defend them
T-mac's career averages vs Kobe's Lakers: http://www.basketball-reference.com/fc/h2h_finder.cgi?request=1&p1=bryanko01&p2=mcgratr01 Code: Player W L GS MP FG FGA FG% 3P 3PA 3P% FT FTA FT% ORB DRB TRB AST STL BLK TOV PF PTS [COLOR=Indigo]Kobe Bryant Per Game 10 7 16 40.3 9.6 22.8 .423 0.9 3.2 .291 8.1 10.2 .792 0.9 4.4 5.3 5.4 1.4 0.6 3.1 3.1 28.3[/COLOR] [COLOR=Red]Tracy McGrady Per Game 7 10 17 36.5 7.4 18.5 .398 1.2 4.4 .280 4.7 6.5 .721 0.8 4.5 5.2 5.3 0.9 1.0 2.3 2.8 20.6[/COLOR] He's also playing through a lot of injuries as well..
I agree, but our teams did win 22 straight games and even beat some quality teams this year without Yao Ming. If the Rockets have shown themselves to beat teams, like the Lakers, Suns, Mavs, and Jazz without number 11....I think it is fair to say if he is healthy. But you are right because everything is speculation.
http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/200803160HOU.html Check the starting lineup.. no Bynum or Gasol.
