Aaron Brooks Joe Johnson Shane Battier (Defensive Monster :grin: ) Luis Scola Al Horford I think that is a top 5 team, and a legit contender to Boston, Miami and LA.
Exactly. Chuck is a great on the ball defensive player and the rockets were really building some chemistry with Hill coming off the bench, but beating the Blazers and Nuggets is no easy task especially on the road. They need a true shotblocking big with size. Also Brooks came back way to early.
I don't think the Hawks would like that trade either, I see them getting worse after that. Then again, ATL is another team that needs to do some major changes, they have great talent but are going nowhere with it.
Well said! We've beaten 3 teams with a winning record all season out of our 16 wins. This team has a litany of weaknesses. No down low presence is a major one. Kevin Martins dependence on getting calls to have a solid game is another. The glutton of good talent with no exceptional players on the roster is another. I'll accept the fact that Chuck is one of the better defenders on this team, as well as a good rebounder. But frankly, Patterson hasnt been a huge drop off, and if Chuck really does mean that much to our team, it shows how bad this team really is...We can continue scapegoating reasons for our losses, but the real reason we're losing is because we're not good enough to be better. As I was watching the game last night, I was thinking about how many of us have been clamoring for Melo to come to Houston. But if you were Melo, why would you come to the Rockets? A roster of Billups-Afflalo-Kenyon Martin-Nene-Melo is much better than Melo-Lowry/Brooks-Battier-Scola-Hill/Miller/Chuck. And thats not taking into account the number of pieces we'd have to trade away to get Melo in the first place.
Fesenko was a restricted free agent. Morey knew that he'd have to overpay him in order for Utah not to match. He preferred to see what Yao, Miller, Hayes, Hill and even Dampier could do first. Fesenko got tired of waiting and accepted Utah's one-year qualifying offer. He'll be an unrestricted free agent this summer. (1) I am finally starting to come around to trading for Gortat despite his inflated salary. He does seem like a great fit with this team. (2) The Pistons' FRONT LINE defended like a MFer. Billups was above-average, but Hamilton was not a great defender. He was better than Martin is, but he suffers a similar deficiency in the weight department. (3) I have never heard that Morey was interested in Josh Smith. Just that Feigen throws the name out there as potentially available. And I agree with other posters that Smith is not a very good SF but is better playing the PF position. I think that was Feigen's point: There is no way that Chuck Hayes SHOULD be that important to the Rockets. While it certainly doesn't help their case losing twice to the Nuggets so far, the Rockets still have a much brighter future right now than the Nuggets. Billups is getting old. Kenyon Martin likely won't be back next year. JR Smith is a thug that Denver is trying to dump. The only good young players that Denver wants to keep long-term are Lawson and Afflalo, and they're even trying to trade Afflalo for a talent upgrade! Melo's camp realizes that a long-term core of Lawson, Afflalo, him and Nene is not going to be good enough, and with the impending lower salary cap, they'll never be able to get appreciably better. Meanwhile, whatever's left of the Rockets would be significantly better long-term than what he'd have in Denver. Still, agreed that whatever confidence Melo might have hypothetically had in the Rockets must be waning after this game.
There's like one superstar center in this league. Everyone else is just okay. There's no center beside Dwight Howard that would bring this team a championship. The only recourse is try to draft a center or pry one of the young ones from a desperate team and hope for the best. That may not be how you feel, but that's how I see it.
Statistics show that people who are dumb enough to believe the Rockets' problem is that that they are too talented are also likely to believe: The Texans have too many good cover-corners. The Hindenberg had too many fire-safety devices on board. AIG didn't have enough credit default swap exposure in 2008.
I agree..........even a average center would greatly change the defensive chemistry we seem not to have at this time.......IT IS WRITTEN.
I am not here trying to say that there is a huge probability of Melo coming, but do you seriously thing this game as ANY affect on what Melo thinks about us???? I mean seriously, there are only 3 possibilities, NYK, they are doing fine, but I don´t see Melo playing that up-tempo basketball and share the NY hype with Amare, I don´t know why, but, purely speculative opinion, I don´t think they would get along (on the court). If he goes to the Knicks, it is not about basketball, it is about NY, plain and simple, so our performance would not affect nothing on this. And the other possibility is the Nets, need I say more???? They have "the best young Center in the league" that is taking them to a huge 9-25 record..... c´mon..... (I would not even talk about the east vs west / Heat (young) vs lakers (getting old) argument) If his decision is about basketball, I actually thing we made a statement..... Bud played great, so he is proving Denvers GM that he can be a prospect they would take for the future, and for Melo, I loved Paterson being able to stay with Melo on D, and I say this because, I think we have Paterson (PF) and T.will (SG) (good players with small contracts), and the rest of them are trade assets to land Melo (ASAP), and Okafor (bad contract) plus CP3 by February if things get bad in NO, or next year. This is the MAIN idea, DM will sell Houston to Melo, and this has nothing to do with what we do before we land him, yesterdays game had 0 influence on him, he actually had to score 9 more points than he usually does for them to win. And by the way, hated to lose, but we didn´t SUCK BAD, we just .... lost PeAcE
They arent many centers available only ones I could think of are Javale McGee Maybe Sam Dalmebert Nene after the allstar break Its not like we have many options plus we didnt have any center last year and we played way better in the beginning of the season ..
Look we need to give Jordan Hill more time, going from playing back-up PF to starting Center against playoff teams is a MASSIVE difference. His got to learn how to be the last line of defense. Not to mention his not a flopper/charge taker like Hayes or Scola. He has to learn how to protect the paint in a different way, by actually protecting the rim. Its a tough task to ask off a second year big man, and its going to take time, but since were in a DEVELOPING year anyway's why not give it to him.
The funny thing about Dalembert and the Kings is, the Kings almost HAVE to keep him BECAUSE of his large salary! The Kings are just BARELY above the league-mandated minimum salary cap figure. They literally CANNOT do a salary dump! Since Dalembert is far and away the highest paid King, it looks like the Maloofs will need to hang onto his (fortunately for them) cap-clogging contract for the remainder of the year. Since I am pretty sure that the players union will successfully fight to retain the minimum salary cap figure, I am going to be interested to see the Kings flail around trying to spend their $30M in salary cap room next summer. Some not-very-good players are going to get PAID by Sacramento in their desperate attempt to meet the league minimum team salary requirement.
You know how you can effectively pay less than the mandatory minimum salary? Have one of your the guys taking up cap room be one for whom you can collect significant insurance money. Now where can we find such a player?
They can just act as a facilitator in trades and salary dumps and pick up draft picks in doing so, they don't really have to splash out in signings.
