Do you constantly see me posting nihilistic diatribe with a Scottish accent? You don't always have to live up to your handle...
Lead on, MacBeth! (or something like that... can never remember a quote, except for my signature) Dude, we were all just funnin' around and your getting serious on us. But you should ponder giving us the opinion of the guy, and even if it's just his opinion, it's something fresh to conjecture over. A cool breeze compared to some of the hot air blowing through the BBS, as it were.
I knida wouldn't mind seeing how Cat would respond to a new offense by JVG also unless we can get what we really need by trading him. If not, I think this team will stay status quo until at least the trade deadline.
The Rockets have made it clear that they intend to resign Posey. Is it possible they see him starting at the 2? Certainly you lose scoring talent with that move, but Posey is a superior defender and can gaurd 2s or 3s. You could get into a lot of speculation about that - didn't JVG make a comment on the radio about looking at EG at the 3 spot? - you can do a lot of talking about big trades and whatnot I guess, but I don't like the idea of moving Mobley now. His talents and skills are unquestionable. He is signed to a good deal and has a number of prime years left in him. The only questions about Mobley are his choices on the court. It seems to me that the thing to consider is this - will he/is he capable of playing the way JVG wants him to play? If the answer is yes, then he's an invaluable commodity, especially in the salary cap era. The Rockets should only consider trading Mobley if they feel he will be incapable or unwilling to play JVG ball.
Personally I doubt it, I don't think Posey handles the ball well enough or shoots well enough from the outside to start at sg. The Rockets are a poor shooting team, and moving Posey to sg wouldn't help. I think the Rockets need shooters to stretch the defense and increase easy scoring inside, and prevent saturation of the lane, aloowing the Rockets to penetrate to the hole easier. Just my opinion
I don't see Posey at the 2 spot either. He can't shoot (look at all the bricks he put up in Denver) and I doubt he has enough ballhandling skill to pull it off. His defense is undeniable, but what the Rox need is a shooter at that spot, not another Bruce Bowen without a jumper. If you're gonna deal Cat, at least get someone who can shoot the basketball. Anyone here think they'd be better off keeping him unless he can't play the JVG way?
I beleive it. I heard this a few weeks ago the Rockets were shopping Cuttino around, just noone was interested. Maybe the rest of GM's see Cuttino as a ballhog. If he wouldn't pass it to Yao, a 7'5 center with offensive skills, who will he respect enough to pass the ball to elsewhere?
Mobes has value, I'm just not sure enough for us to trade him to receive equal value. No to Sheed. We don't need Blazers' problem children. We need to build a team, not try to blend headcases into our line-up. D. Anderson is a decent SG, but the dude has a problem staying healthy. McInnis? No thanks. There's got to be a better deal out there, or I say let JVG work with this group and a couple of new FAs.
I agree, Cat is underpaid by NBA standards, the Rockets are short on guards and hes happy here. Im not saying he couldnt be included in a trade..but its logical ..hes not on the block. Someone in Toronto is making up this senario, its pure BS. This isnt a rumor..its a lie.
I would highly doubt that no GM is interested in Mobley, whose salary is so reasonable. Lots of GMs have scoring-challenged teams. (Including us, unfortunately.) Maybe Toronto's GMs had no interest, but they wouldn't need Cat anyway; and who on Toronto's roster (besides VC) would we want? Every rumbling about a trade involving the Rockets has been for a premiere power forward. There's a guy on another web site who swears he's an insider, family friend of someone close to the organization, says we're gonna 3-way with Miami and LAC and wind up with Brand. That would cost us at least Cat and EG; and some sort of trade makes sense for the 3 teams (LAC = cheap, Rox = need better PF/wanna make big splash, Miami = roster-starved). Miami and LAC have the cap space. It could happen. He's the same guy who posted before the draft and had the trade removed because his insider didn't want to see it there. Do I believe him? I hope it's true. You can always sign a Jon Barry or the like with the MLE. But one man's WMD's are another man's empty storage container, y'know?
I like Mobley. He plays hard and is is a good leader on the team. However I am not so sure he is the best compliment for Francis in the backcourt. So it is more of a compatibility issue. Perhaps he would work well with Francis in JVG's system but perhaps not. We won't know until we see it. As for Mobley being traded...I think people here in Houston tend to "undervalue" Cuttino as to his value to other teams in the league. I think many NBA teams like Mobley and would like him on their team. If we trade him (perhaps in a package deal) we should get back a decent player on this team. Someone that is better than someone that could be had with the MLE. Like it or not, Mobley is still the second leading scorer on this team and until Yao can step up on a NIGHTLY basis and play like a Franchise center we are going to need those points that Mobley would have provided. Whoever we get back had better be able to put some points on the board and the team as a whole will have to elevate their games.
I don't like Mobely and I'm glad to see him go. The question remains what do we want from the other guard spot? I think you primarily want someone who will feed Yao and Steve, who can finish IF they pass it back to him. You want someone who can help on perimeter defense. You want someone who can nail the open jumper; who can set and use picks. Someone who thinks on the court and doesn't turn it over. That's not really Cat. Cat's an iso guy. You don't want an iso 2 when you have Yao and Steve.
I'd heard the same thing about Cat from the same person that told me about Rudy's retirement at the end of the season.
Why would someone in Toronto make up a story about the availablity of a Rocket in whom they have little or no interest? I am not saying that this might not just be talk...my friend couldn't claim to have heard of Cat's availablity from CD himself...but he was accurately passing on the word going around, and I highly doubt that that word originated in Toronto.
This is interesting in the sense it could mean a multi-player exchange...You just can't get rid of Mobley and really get fair value on a even kneel. If this is destiny, then a multi-player exchange would give a better chance to shore up strengths better.
When Cat first got into the league, I loved the guy, he could score at will, and I thought that he and Michael Dickerson were the future of this team. That summer thr Rockets traded two of my most beloved players (Dickerson and Harrington) for a young hotshot scoring PG (Steve Francis). Somewhere along the way Francis and Mobley became the future of this team, but still had one of the greatest big men of the game in the twilight of his career, Hakeem Olajuwon. We all knew about Dream's complaints about not getting enough touches, and most of it stemmed from Francis and Mobley taking all the shots. I think Steve has calmed down from that shoot first, shoot second, think about passing...shoot third and pass fourth mentality. Cat on the other hand has not seemed to get away from that. Explain to me why Cat feels the need to try to dribble between two defenders? Why does he need to take a fadeaway jumper from near the three point line with two and sometimes three defenders on him? Why does Cat not throw the ball into the post where Yao is standing wide open (how can you seriously miss a 7'5" target)? Ditto when Eddie is in the low post (the rare few times). Mobley is a shooter and a scorer. His services would be best coming off the bench. However, his fragile ego couldn't take that, and I doubt his publicist (who the hell hires a publicist unless you're a politician?) would like that either. Not to mention his agent. Yes, Cat signed a sweet-heart, home-town deal. Yes, Cat gives back to his community. Yes, he is one of the nicer guys in the NBA that you can say hi to without him ignoring you. But as much as I would like to root for the guy, its the boneheaded decisions on the court he makes that irk me so much. This guy has been in the league for six years, and still makes rookie mistakes. I'll cut him some slack and see how he responds to JVG' s system, but if it doesn't I think we could see Cat moved. I'm pretty sure everyone besides Yao and Steve are "on the block", most teams do it to see what they could potentialy fetch for those players. Cat has a good contract and is one of the better players at scoring which GM's look for, so it shouldn't be a surprise to hear such things. I just want to see this team improve and if it means losing Cat and watching him tear it up for another team, as long as the Rockets get better, thats all I care about.