Will it soon be time to move Battier for a starting PG?

i agree with DD for the most part.

i like ron a lot, but a good PG really changes the look of a team. see bibby in ATL.

 

I'd rather do Battier and Alston for Hinrich. I know I know

 

I do believe we have too many wing players but you're not going to trade Artest to get someone with a long term contract. I just don't see that happening. As I stated before, even though Hinrich's contract get's smaller, it's still a lot of money that's tied to someone.

The Rockets, just like the other 29 teams, are gonna want to be players for 2010. Why? Because majority of your core is not signed for 2010. T-Mac, Yao(can opt out of his contract), Scola, Barry, and Alston will be free agents. The Rockets are faced with some tough choices come this offseason and next. But Morey isn't going to want to tie himself with someone long term.

Not only that, if you pick up Hinrich, there's no way you keep Brooks and Alston at the same time. You would have to trade one of them. And with Alston, you get a nice expiring contract for next year. He could also be a great asset to trade for next year.

If they plan on trading T-Mac, you have to wait till this offseason or next year to do it.

I believe it's probably in their best interest to wait until this offseason to make their changes. I have no problem with them letting Artest walk. The team is going to have more issues in signing Wafer and getting a back up center during this offseason then risk picking up someone with a large contract. Not only that, they'll have at least $10mil of capspace for this off season.

 

Keep Battier under all circumstances.

 

Shane doesn't seem to be very effective anymore. i really like him but if he's gonna miss most of his open shots and still get torched on defense then i don't see why we don't package him and Rafer for a decent starting PG

 

if you get rid of 3 players and bring in 4, then who, leebigez, do you propose we drop? AFAIK, we have a full 15-man roster. looks like you might have to conjure up another trade.

 

i say we keep Battier.



Tracy Lamar
Rafer
Luther Head

for

Hinrich
Ben Gordon
Larry Hughes
(optional 1st rounder)

Why CHI does it:
-they won't be able to re-sign ben gordon this summer. -derrick rose replaced hinrich as their starting PG, but hinrich is too expensive as a back-up PG.
-they desperately want to get rid of larry hughes, and may throw in a 1st rounder for our troubles.

Why HOU does it:
-everyone clamoring for rafer's exit will finally be happy with a legit starting pg in hinrich. contract is long and expensive, although decreasing by year, but our PG position will be set. and most importantly, no rafer. our starting point will be able to hit open 3s.
-larry hughes- he may or may not have a role with the team. most importantly, his contract expires next year before 2010 summer, so his expiring contract next will be very valuable.
-ben gordon- he most likely won't re-sign here either, but rather will just be a rental. most importantly, once his 6.4m contract comes off the books in the summer, we can use part/most/all of it re-sign artest or lock up wafer.


this will destroy the locker room, though.

 

Throw in dorsey. If you get williams and frye, what's the purpose of dorsey?

 

The only PG mentioned that is worth Battier is Andre Miller. If the Rocket a can pull that off, awesome. Otherwise, keep the glue man.

 

heres the thing aobut battier that seperates him from other defenders in the nba...he's contained kobe the most out of any player. kobe struggles in houston and hes one of the reasons. we cant trade battier. even he hasnt playd healthy yet and he made kobe go for a bad shooting night

 

It's not based on just the past few games. It's based on this year as a whole. I did not say that Battier was better than McGrady or Artest. I said this team is playing best with Battier in the lineup as opposed to the other two. The chemistry problems are painfully obvious with the other two, and hopefully by the end of the year they'll have those things sorted out, but RIGHT NOW we are playing better ball as a team with T-Mac on the bench and Battier in the line-up.

I don't think anyone who has seen T-Mac play this year (and railed on him in these boards) can say otherwise. As far as Artest goes...the numbers aren't there, but he definitely passes the eyeball test with his effort. I loved the OT of the Jazz game, absolutely hated the 4th quarter but that was mostly Rafer's fault.

You look at how our team has performed in its past five games, and the chemistry is definitely coming back. If you want a reason for why it wasn't there for a good part of the season so far, I believe you have to look at the absence of Battier as a dominating factor. As others have hinted at though, it's so hard to isolate the events of Battier's injury, Artest's getting used to a new team, and T-Mac just playing awful awful ball from each other. Oftentimes one has come back to see the other one leave for a spell, and that probably is the #1 reason our start has sputtered so badly.

You give me one of those guys in the playoffs, obviously I take T-Mac then Artest then Battier, but for right now I think it's hard to make an argument against the team playing better with Battier and without McGrady.

 

Battier is terrible in a lot of ways. You can build a case on his intangibles, but there was a reason kobe goes off in the 4th vs the rockets and sink into Yao's lap. He doesn't even guard Shane. There is a reason why Kobe struggled against Boston. Its because he had to guard either allen or pierce. When a guy like kobe has to play defense, it tires him down. That's why they got a guy like Ariza to take the defensive purposes off Kobe. The differnce is Ariza can do a lot of things and guard a lot of people. Shane is a low iq offensive player. Either that or he just pretends he doesn't see his man not guarding him. Bullard illustrated how kobe didn't even acknowledge shane on a shallow cut after a pass to yao. Anyone with a bbiq would have reversed and made himself availible for a pass at the ft line. People have the nerve to wonder why shanes man is always digging the ball from yao. When you have a guy like Shane on the court coupled with rafer, its 3 on 5.

 

if we are going to get a starting pg, then we better get rid of Rafer, otherwise what's the point of retaining him.
Rafer + Head for some better shooting pg, I can't belive we still are not able to get rid of Head