The way its looking that it is shaping up. We will end up with the 8th pick. (barring any miricles good or bad). the 32nd pick, and hopefully be bringing V-span over. That is a real youth injection on this team, along with the other young players we have acquired, if the picks are made properly this team could really be very different without making a single trade. we know that we will have V-span, maybe Bariagini and Denham Brown? or some other combination of drafted players, but they could end up being the missing pieces around Yao and T-mac
I'd put the chances of Spanoulis being here next year at 50/50 right now. Not that he couldn't help, but it may not be his time quite yet. Read the thread about him in the GARM. There is the possibility he may want to stay in Greece one more year to try and win the Euroleague championship. Moreover, I don't know how the salary cap works, but if the Rockets have to dip into the MLE to sign him, they may decide to let him wait another year anyway, so they can use the full MLE on someone withmroe NBA experience. Also, considering the 32nd pick is a 2nd round pick, not guaranteed of a contract, there is a potentiality that player also won't be on the team. OTOH, if we do draft another 2nd round steal, and V-Span is wanting to and willing to come over to the NBA, that'd be great!
hi i've seen the guy play 4 or 5 times this season, and i absolutely dont understand all the hype around him. he's not a pure PG (3 assists/game), he's not athletic, he's not fast enough for the nba (he looks fast on the highlights, but it's because the european game is very slow and so are most of the players ; if you can, look at Juan Carlos Navarro of Barcelona, he is way faster than this guy). for your information, he barely played at the Euro 2K5, and when he was on the floor he didnt showed anything ... it was only 8 months ago. i hope the rockets will not waste their MLE on this guy ...
What about Badiane?? lets dig up all of our 'resources' and cross our fingers! maybe we can find another 'lonny baxter' out of all this and trade em for another 'chuck hayes' lol........... championship here we come!
I can't explain it, but I know in Europe assists are harder to get, 3 there is probably like 6 here. Someone else can probably explain this a little better. I know I thougth the same thing until I read something that mentioned that. Pugs
Thats my take on V-Span as well, doesn't have the speed or handle to be a top tier NBA PG nor does he have a great perimeter shot. Some guys love him after watching him on NBA-TV this year but I think he is controversial and I think his ducking coming over to the states to at least play in the summer league leaves me wondering if he can compete in this league.
hi. yes assists are harder to get, but i was not saying he's not a PG mostly because of that, but because of what i have seen of him so far. he's more a combo guard, a SG in a PG body imo by the way, here's the top 15 in assists for this year's euroleague some names should sound familiar to nba fans, and as you can see, it's possible to make more than 3 assists per game in europe lol
Just for some frame of reference based on the names on that list... Tyus Edney averaged over 6 assists a game his rookie year (his only year with really significant minutes). He averaged 9.2 AST/48 mins over his career - in this season, that would place him top 10 in the league, at a higher rate than TJ Ford and Rafer Alston, among others. Shammond Williams had a career high of just over 5 assists/game. He averaged just over 7 AST/48 mins - that would place him 25th in the league, right with Eric Snow, ahead of Arenas, Bibby, Jasikevicius, and Derek Fisiher, among others. Ed Cota is a very interesting name on the list. Cota never made the NBA, but he averaged over 10.6 AST/48 mins at the college level. He is UNC's career leader in assists and 3rd in NCAA history in assists. If Spanoulis is anywhere near Cota's level as a passer, we're in good shape.
i forgot to mention that spanoulis has a ratio asst/to of 1.18 in the 16 games of the regular season of the euroleague ...
