I guess Gortat's used this tone because he is expecting to be signed by Magic. What if he says "I hate to be playing 10 minutes a game, I want to start" and later on Magic matches the contract? That will not make him popular in the locker room. And I also guess because he is sure Magic will match the offer so he signed with Dallas. We will know for sure very soon.
I don't won't to offend anybody, but people on here should really stop trying to give T mac away for these scrubs.
He would get less money with the Rockets and if Yao does return someday a spot on the bench down the road. From his point of view he did the right thing for himself.
Agreed, I mean, even his HORRIBLE play last season still resulted in 15points, 5 assists and 4.5 rebounds. Hopefully he comes back fully fit and showcases what he's got for the second half of the season so that he becomes a S&T asset for us (at worst!)
Who exactly do you think you could get for Tmac. He'll have to play a season before anyone trusts him to not break down completely again. Someone would take a flyer on him, but not 20million worth.
the scoundrels up I-45 have the inside track on Marcin Gortat, but don't lose any sleep over it. Look, many of you were excited about Gortat because you saw him a couple of times during the playoffs. Admit it. That's the only reason you were so excited. It's that same reason some look at Hedo Turkoglu and think he is a better player than Ron Artest. Hogwash. Turkoglu is hot because the country got to watch him every other night for an entire month. I'm not saying Gortat isn't an OK player, but he is far from special. I've seen him play. OK, not special. When you treat an average player like he is special, you will look up one day and realize that guy is overpaid. (Cuban can afford it.) The list of players who have done what he has done in their first two years in the league and turned out to be special is very short. Actually, I'm only assuming such a list exists because we all know anything is possible. (I'll look for such players and get back to you.) I haven't seen any numbers that convince me Gortat will all of a sudden tear the league up in the next few years. None. The sample size is too small. The guy played 20 or more minutes in two games in December, one game in January, four in March and April, and then once I each of the four rounds of the playoffs the Magic played in. Unlike Turkoglu, Gortat was not a key factor in the Magic's run to the Finals. All veteran debaters know that if you really want to win a debate with Rockets fans that a player might not be that good (even if you are wrong) all you have to do is compare the player to Kelvin Cato. Gortat averaged 3.8 points, 4.5 rebounds, 0.8 blocks and 0.2 assists in 12.6 minutes last season, his first full year in the NBA. Cato averaged 3.8 points, 3.4 rebounds, 1.3 blocks and 0.3 assists in 13.6 minutes as a rookie. (And Cato was two years younger.) Since so many of your were running out Gortat's statistics, trying to estimate what he would deliver if he played more minutes, I dug deeper into my bag of cheap, unfair and meaningless statistical tricks for this one. I decided to stretch my boy Joey Dorsey's stats out for you to see. Based on Dorsey's numbers, if he played the same number of minutes as Gortat did last season, he would have averaged 4.4 points, 1.9 rebounds and 1.9 assists a game. Wait, I'm not done. Dorsey played two minutes against the Lakers, entering the game when the Rockets were down by 27 points and shot only 3-pointers while he was in the game. It was his first NBA game, his teammates purposely kept the ball away from him and the Lakers were stalling on the other end. We can't hold that against him can we? I say scratch the meaningless data from that game. If we do that, we see that Dorsey's numbers (in equal playing time to Gortat) improve to 6.3 points, 3.2 rebounds and 3.2 assists. Clearly, Dorsey is the better offensive player, more points (6.3 to 3.8) and far superior ball handling (3.2 to 0.2 in assists). Yep, the Rockets will be fine with Richard Elmer Dorsey, one of B-More's finest, holding down the middle. • • • Now the Rockets are among several teams that have expressed interest in Trevor Ariza. He met with Daryl Morey and Rick Adelman in Las Vegas today. That we like. Though Ariza has played for three teams in five years, he is an athletic player who brings some offense and defense. He might not excel at any one thing - he's a good defender, but he's no Battier - but if the Rockets can get him in the $5-6 million range, they would never think he is overpaid. Imagine how much better the Rockets would have been at the end of last season if they had Ariza instead of Von Wafer onto the roster. The problem: everybody is ofering the same money. It's not a leap to think that Cleveland and Los Angeles might be ahead of Houston on Ariza's list.
