Too bad no one bothered to ask Kobe "who can you expend the least amount of defensive energy on?" The answer would have been the same. Oh...and the clip is from Jul 2009. Light-years ago in terms of how much Battier has fallen off.
You still have to guard Battier on the perimeter, he will get back to knocking down threes when left open (admittedly, he hasn't done much of that this season so far). Plus, I would assume Fisher/Kobe would be guarding Brooks/Martin. Small sample size. He had a severe injury, and we have only seen 10 games since then, in which he did not play badly defensively at all (yes, he needs to pick up his offensive game).
In my time here there has never been a single leaked piece of information regarding insider info. Our organization is one of the most secretive out there. You are being BS'ed
Kwame, no need for the hate, man! I have it on the BEST authority that what I said was true. A few months ago, Daryl Morey himself came to speak to a young professionals group of which I am a member. In his speech, he talked about how the organization has certain metrics it uses to value players and used Battier as an example of a player whose value outweighed his contract. (Obviously, he did not share those metrics with us.) I will qualify my prior statement, however, to say that this was based on Battier's salary LAST SEASON ($6.9M) and may have been largely based on his performance in the 2008-09 season and playoffs. And, on another note, I already ate crow for my exaggerated statement about the Rockets being in luxury tax hell. I can promise you that NO ONE on this board (who has any good understanding of the salary cap) saw a salary dump FOR QUALITY like Ariza-for-Lee coming. And, as others have said, the Rockets are STILL hovering above the luxury tax line. And I have it on good authority that they are not desperate to avoid the tax. Of course, if nothing else materializes, it would be stupid of the team not to try to avoid the tax. That's just good business.
Battier the only player on the Rockets with a positive +/- tonight. And it's not just stats, he did actually play well.
