Aruba, Adding Amare does not get the team any closer to winning the championship as his contract essentially limits the ability of the team to acquire other players they would need to win it all. Essentially you would be tying up 50% of the payroll, or more in the Center and PF positions. When neither of them are creators, or people that can bring the ball up and attack the basket...both rely on wings and PGs to get them the ball in advantageous positions. This team needs another creator/penetrator a lot more than a small upgrade at a position of strength. Our wings are great defenders but terrible at creating....we need to replace either Ron or Shane with an efficient Wing that can play off our center... Right now, that is the most glaring hole on the entire team....and one that would be a much bigger upgrade than an incremental one at PF that ties up most of our cap room. DD
but you didn't even mention the problem we have with Yao's injury history and the need for a guy that can play the 5. At least respond to my arguement, don't ignore it. I understand the argument you are making, and I also agree that we could use a "creator/penetrator", but if Yao goes down this team has a big problem. If we had a guy like Amare, our playoff chances wouldn't be ruined by a broken bone in Yao's foot. Also, I guy like Amare means our guys in the back court will have to "create" less. As I said before, a front court of Yao and Amare would give our back court a lot of open looks.
LOL... I read this reply thinking it was DD. He was making great points, acknowledging the previous posts' arguments, looking at the topic from all angles and giving his own insight without hyperbole and bias. Then I noticed it was thacabbage...I guess it made too much sense...
I am not a big fan of Amare but if we re-sign Artest and Amare is healthy, I can see where he would improve our tea considerably if we could acquire hi without giving up Brooks.
Sorry, If Yao goes down we are toast anyway, and as long as the franchise is married to the big fella, you need to plan for him to be there. DD
Tmac for Amare would be a good deal, but then we'd have to bench scola, and i think thatll mess up our starting lineup. and if amare played backup center, hed be benched and i doubt he would even want to play with the rockets. we just need a back up center who knows his role. looking back on the teams the rockets want to deal with, i think marcus camby is the perfect pick. he is a former defensive player of the year, and can provide everything we need. Injured or not, Tmac is still an all star whose done amazing things. hopefully this microfracture surgery will bring him back to the days where he was the scoring champion of the NBA. if so, i believe we'll be seeing a championship real soon in houston
Agree with most of the things you said, exceot upgrade at PG position is better choice than replace Artest or Battier. PG position is still the weakest link.
We can still win without Yao as long as we have the right pieces. 22 game winstreak mostly without Yao ring a bell? this isn't a team sport? we're pinning all of our hopes on a great player who, until this year which also ended in an injury, had not played more than fifty or so games in a season for 3 straight years?
I don't consider 10 out of 22 "mostly". Better than "22 winstreak without Yao" though, as many have claimed.
The 22 game winning streak was nice, but mostly lower end teams after Yao went down in game 12. And Tmac was still effective, which is precisely the type of player we need, a crafty wing that can create... I don't think Amare makes the team that much better, we have weaknesses that need addressing.... He is better than any PF we have, but our production from that position is nearly identical to Phoenix production with Landry and Scola, and they are on cheap contract. Amare is going to be very expensive to re-sign, and is another injury prone player, I would prefer a younger Wing over another injury prone superstar. DD
We should trade Tmac for David Lee from NY because LEE fit what the team need. He's a MONSTER in terms of rebounding and he has that mental tough attitude of Shane. He will be a perfect backup for Yao. At the same time, maybe that will be enough but we still need someone to make plays because when Yao is fronted, things are stagnant. Will getting Amare work out?? I will go for Amare as well because he can come off the bench as our 2nd option or Scola. So at least we have someone that can be our go-2-guy. But i wouldn't give up Brooks for him.
12 of the 22 wins had Yao. Why so much people here think of the 10 of the 22 wins without Yao as "MOSTLY"? Yao also played more than 50 games during 3 of the past 4 seasons. You can dislike a player. But, please RESPECT THE TRUTH AND DO NOT EXAGGARATE.
I just don't think an injury-risk Amare is enough of an upgrade over Scola/Landry, or that it makes the Rockets that much better. A good backup center and SG would do a lot more to improve the team. I'm for keeping the point guard and PF tandems intact, unless some team needing to dump salary makes the Rockets an offer they can't refuse.
Its not "gambling" for a year if youre mortgaging your future and trading away your 8th pick, especially since theyre the most likely to pick up Rubio (the top 7 teams are unlikely to want to deal with the $6Mill buyout). And trust me, the Rockets want nothing to do with Larry Hughes unless it means we get the 8th pick. The Knick's direction is clearly youth, with players like David Lee, Chris Duhon and Wilson Chandler getting minutes over veterans like Larry Hughes, Al Harrington and Quentin Richardson. Where would you get the idea that they are willing to forgo Mobley's insurance payments and trade away the 8th pick for a fragile 1 year rental (liberal term considering he will miss roughly 30 games of the regular season) to make a run in a strengthening eastern conference? I am almost certain that all the top 7 teams will want to avoid taking on Rubio because of his contract disputes in the spanish league. With a bunch of experienced point guards in this years lottery, theyre more likely to make the safe choice than to roll the dice with a potential superstar in Rubio. The Rockets, however, see this as an opportunity to scoop up a player who is a top 5 prospect... I think if the opportunity is there to also take advantage of the David Lee dilemma, we have to pull the trigger. Rubio and Lee's work ethic and style are perfect for the Rockets. Adding a rangy shooter with a post game in Quentin Richardson (similar to Bonzi) completes the deal. Ron Artest + Carl Landry + Brian Cook for David Lee + Quentin Richardson + #8
I'm almost certain that Rubio won't drop below Sacremento, and him even lasting that long would surprise me.
Is that because youve been reading NBADraft.net? Sacto already has Beno making an average of 7 mill through 2012. You think Sacto would pay the 6 Mill buyout then pay Rubio his 2.5 Mill per year for his lottery contract? They would tie up nearly a third of their cap space on these two point guards. They already have Nocioni, Kevin Martin and Garcia's contracts to worry about. If you take a long hard look at the mock drafts, you'll realize that those mocks were done with little to no regard for the financial health of these teams. NY is the only market that may be willing to pay a premium for superstar potential in Rubio... too bad they recently traded for Sergio Rodrigeuz, a favorite of D'Antoni's and almost a shoe-in for the starting lead guard spot. Even if Rubio isnt available at #8, Stephen Curry, Buddinger, DeRozan or BJ Mullens will be there and any of those players would be intriguing for our team. Flynn, Jennings, Teague and Evans aren't dramatic improvements over Aaron Brooks so I find it hard to believe we would reach for any point guards outside of Rubio or Curry.
I'm firmly convinced that we could beat LA and lift the O'brian Cup next season if only we could retain Artest at a reasonable cost and trade T-Mac for a healthy slasher plus a decent big backup C before the trade deadline. Go Morey!!! Bring us some surprises as soon as you can
totally agree an athletic scoring wing is in fact the priority. looking at our situation, basically shane battier is the only player we have locked up at the wing. both wafer and artest are unrestricted free agents. assuming we count out tmac and barry as major contributors. we need to shore up the wing. i would be alright just letting artest go. i would hate geting stuck with a big contract on an aging veteran who basically relying on his defense to stay on the court and have been living on the 3 point line this whole season. although we loose on the toughness and defense department, we still have shane and his nice contract. we can buy into a draft for a solid pick for a wing player and seek another in free agency. we also have the wafer option. with the assets we have right now, we can also explore many trade options in order to address the wing position. but shane and ron on the floor at the same time kinda makes us week offensively at the wing. i think the 4/5 position a few guys have pushed for in amare can be solved by doing the simple move of signing a back up center in free agency or via trade. we will still have plenty of options at the 4 with scola, landry, dorsey and hayes with all of them having the ability to fill in at center when called for. even if one of them gets traded, we still don't lack bodies in the 4 spot.
