TJ FORD declares for draft - Should Houston be interested?

Look, who to say Ford will be great or a bust? All I know is I am rooting BIG for the guy b/c he was my favorite player to watch in college basketball. After watching this crazy year for rooks' -- you know, Jay Williams nto being great and Yao, well, being great (even though I thought he's be good this past season -- I will no longer PRETEND, like many "experts", I know what kinda impact they will have their first (and ongoing) seasons.


I do know that the possibility of Ford struggling his first season whether he ends up being great or not is very likely b/c ALL ROOKIES do in one way or another. Given the difficulty @ the PG position....some scouts say it's the hardest to learn/play in the NBA...I am not sure the Rockets will/would want to go this rout if the playoffs is truly a place the franchise wants to be in 2004.


We'll see.

 

TJ maybe a great PG but where would he fit on the team?
The opponents will kill you if you start him and Steve.
You surely don't suggest play him and Cat (or Hawks or anyone ese) and sit Steve down?
Look at all the smallist guards in the league history, they were/ are always paired with another big and strong guard.

 

I'd have to agree. He'll probly end up a bench player. Anyways, he's not for the rox. We don't need such a small backcourt. Plus TJ will be a rook, I doubt he'll have that big an impact his first year. It'll take a couple of years, and he may have a stint as starting pg on some team. But in the end he'll probly be a bench player. If the team is going to trade, trade for a proven, solid player in the league.

 

nbadraft.net has Memphis taking PG Kirk Hinrich with the #13 pick we are giving them. Painful.

But they have us taking 24 year old 6-10 PF Uche Nsonwu-Amadi with our second round pick. Sounds fine by me.

 

TJ is an interest thought but it is not even in the realm of reality even if the Rox wanted him and I am not convinced that they do. First of all you do not trade away several players (two of which are starters) and a future draft pick just to get into the lottery and roll the dice hoping you get value. Also such a trade would not work due to salry issues and the cap with teams...$$$$$value for $$$$$value not just talent. I would much rather see the Rockets pickup a FA like J. Berry, trade Cat and maybe another player for E. Brand then use Griff in a combo with another player or two in a trade for a proven point guard and move Stevie to the 2.

 

avery johnson = winner.


tj ford = avery johnson + better court vision + better shot at this point in their careers + better knowledge of game.


where is the problem here?

 

Okay, i'll preface this by saying I love TJ.

He has great vision. But I don't know where everyone gets off saying he has killer instinct and that special quality that Isaiah and all had...the guy hasn't proven anything like that yet. It takes time before you can say something like that about someone.

And you HAVE to admit that size matters. Are you gonna double team Mark freakin Jackson everytime he's posting up TJ or Steve because he's about to score over a short guy? Pretty hard to name a team that couldn't exploit that size disadvantage..even Cleveland could throw Ricky Davis or Jumaine Jones at you.

I don't think TJ needs to have a great shot, but he should be able to hit the 3 once in a while. I'm sure that can be developed. I just don't think he can fit in with the Rockets if they plan on running Steve at the 2.

YES for every Sac there's a Denver, for every Laker team there's a group of Clippers...but the Rockets are building for the future, for championship hopes. For that to happen, they have to go through those good teams who have players that will exploit the matchup advantage they obviously will have.

But I do think TJ will succeed if he gets in the right situation

 

From Wizkid
He's an unselfish pg with great court vision no doubt, but his main weapon is penetrating, getting buy his defender, drawing help and then dishing to the open man, sounds familiar? That's what Steve does. What I do like is a lot of times he starts the offense off with a pass instead of the dribble but still he's really only dangerous when he penetrates and not as dangerous w/o the balls in his hand.

OH NO! God forbid, a PG that breaks down the defense and draws a defender!! Are you kidding me? The difference between him and Francis is that TJ can pass the ball, which is exactly what a PG does. Francis scores the ball, which is what SG does. I would trade Mobley and Griffin in a heartbeat to get TJ Ford!

 

Like I said before, no one is going to believe in T.J. until they see him......and I mean see him consistently, not just one or two games during the NCAA Tournament. I live in Austin and attend a lot of UT basketball games. I saw a winner, a unique talent (and by unique I'm talking last of a dying breed of PG), who possessed a killer instinct, who put his team on his shoulders and did whatever he had to do in order to get his team a win against the toughest schedule in the country. I mean the guy knew exactly when he had to take over and create his own scoring and when his teammates were playing well enough that he could continue running the offense through them. He only went to his own scoring as a last resort.
If that's like Steve Francis I don't see it. Steve Francis is selfish to the detriment of his own team. He hasn't shown me much maturity over his first 4 years and while there's no question he'd be a beast on the playground, I think he's a cancer to a team. What's odd is that he also speaks as if he is a guy committed to making the Rockets win. That kind of talk impressed me his first two years, but now it seems more like good schooling from his agent and team management. The guy plays selfish and unlike Allen Iverson and the Sixers, Steve Francis' selfish play is not a good thing with this Rockets team. I think the Rockets shout themselves in the foot for paying Francis franchise player money. I fear that one or two years down the road that the Rockets are going to realize that the kid won't changed and can't be worked with. Unfortunately so will everyone in the league and there is no way they'll trade for Francis with that contract.

 

whats this tj is too small crap...earl boykins lighting up sf ring a bell?

 

ding ding ding

 

You missed the point!
Boykins, TJ, Murphy, Spud are all fine players but you do not pair them with another small guard: Steve!
Boykins also played in only 68 games and avg 19 mins/ game. Can he play 35-38 mins for 82 games?

 

Yeah, Earl Boykins is a sparkplug off the bench that plays 20 minutes per game. People here are saying TJ Ford will bring championships. So, I don't see the correlation you're trying to make.

If you're asking if I think Ford will at least be as good as Boykins, then the answer is yes, but even that will probably take at least a year. Plus, just because Boykins can "light it up," doesn't change the fact that he's a defensive liability

 

re: small backcourts


you guys do realize that steve and cat are almost the same size, right? so what's this crap about having a small backcourt? is it because tj at the point would be smaller than steve at the point? oh yea, like opposing point guards could light us up any more than they did last year.

 

My main concern isn't the point guard. It's Steve on opposing 2's. That's almost terrifying. Like you said, opposing pg's already light us up, imagine what opposing sg's will do.

 

once again, you do realize that steve and cat are essentially the same size, right?


and, really, i expect steve to get the same 25 points dropped on him by shooting guards that he did while guarding point guards...


the truth of the matter is that steve is a defensive liability no matter who he is guarding. but i'd rather have him getting lit up by 2s than 1s, because 1s usually penetrate more and get your teammates in foul trouble.

 

Forget about size. Cat is twice the defender that Steve is.

No. Shooting guards, as a whole, are better scorers than point guards. They would score more.

 

But I think Rockets commited the least fouls in the league, so I don't know if that really was a problem.

 

you're right they are better scorers. but if i had to make a choice on who to get lit up by, i'd rather it was the 2 than the 1. the only reason being that most 1s will penetrate and get your big man in foul trouble in the process of lighting you up.

 

that cause our defensive rotations were passe.