Definitely NO! I think I am one of the first in this forum who began the talk about bringing Ron to Rockects. I believe he's the missing piece for Rockects to dominate the league. But he is too risky an asset and now his value is down to the lowest. Use Juwan and probably one or two draft picks or some cash to get him. Then you say it's a good trade. Or Battier +Juwan for Artest and another better PF is ok, but not Shawn for Ron. Shawn and Juwan both are leaders in lock room. Ron needs leaders to not ruin team chemistry. Anyway, the reporter said Les didn't want anybody with bad records. I think Les just was the same as Jerrys in LA and Chicago, they are just cheap and mean. Don't expect too much from them. Fans needs a lots luck to enjoy winnable teams here and there.
guys clinging onto battier's 3 point accuracy need to consider two things: 1. he really isnt THAT good of a 3 point shooter. he has stretches where he can hit 7 3s in a row, but then the next game he'll go 1 for 9. thats not the type of consistent shooting you want out of someone you're relying on to hit 3s. 2. even if he WERE as consistent as some of you think, that 3 point shooting is ALWAYS going to go cold at some point. we were a team that lived and died by the 3 last year, and we obviously died. id rather get a guy like artest (or eve bonzi) who can bring consistent scoring INSIDE, rather than place our hopes on the 3 pt shot. teams far better than us at perimeter shooting and equipped with much better shooters than battier have gotten wiped out (suns, warriors, mavericks). our focus should be less on getting 3 pt shooters and more on getting people who can score consistently on their own, since tmac and/or yao are always going to be doubled and trapped. i dont know about you, but id rather not have our team's chances of winning rest on the ability of 3 pt shooters, no matter how great they are, because at some point shots ALWAYS stop falling.
58 to 46 are willing to trade Battier. I would like Artest on the Rocket's Team. My only question is would Kobe be able to play with Artest?
Artest was awful under Adelman (relatively speaking). Sure, he quit on Carlisle, but when he played, he was a lockdown defender and he played within himself on offense. Adelman let him have his way more, and he took Adelman's beautiful offense and ruined it while he was on the floor. And his defense slipped a little.
You have to pull the trigger on a guy like Artest. The West is so tough that you need to acquire talent where you can. Guys as talented as Artest are not usually available.
To everyone saying he is a mental head case...well yes he is. But here is the thing. WE NEED A MENTAL HEADCASE!!! We really need a player who is that emotional and crazy and lives it all out there. Is there a chance he may implode....yes, but we have too many of the players who are nice, good sportman, quiet, take-a-back seat when possible, don't-get in people's faces (especially other teams). We need a player who is like that, and trading Battier + Sura (which is really like just trading Battier, cuz we would use that cap space anyway), would be perfect. The only thing if we did this trade, is i would like to see us play a larger rotation during the season, even if we lost a few more games. Basically rest Yao, T-Mac, and Artest some during the season so that by the playoffs, they are not weary. The Spurs have perfected the rest your stars before the All-star break plan. Well at least in Odd year...
living in sac the one thing that worries me about artest is his inability to stay healthy. granted he does play through a lot of minor injuries but the guy seem to always be banged up. since he has arrived in sac artest at times is a huge headcase/soap opera saying he's going to retire or quit on the team one day and then the saying he want to finish his career in sac, i'm not sure if our team can handle this, but don't forget winning solves most if not all issues. say wat you want about how Adelman handled artest when he had him in sac, but what he was able to do was keep him happy and artest need a coach like that.
Why not just take all of Sac's big contracts and have them rebuild completely. 7 Howard 6 Battier 4 Sura 4.5 Alston 2.3 Snyder 1 Head Ft 1st and 2nd 24.8 mil total 8 Artest 6 Shareef 13.5 Bibby 27.5 mil total Successful Scenario Due to Houston and Sacramento being over the cap, the 25% trade rule is invoked. Houston and Sacramento had to be no more than 125% plus $100,000 of the salary given out for the trade to be accepted, which did happen here. This trade satisfies the provisions of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. Sac- gets rid of a headcase and their version of Howard with a longer contract for some quality good character vets. They also get Bibby off the books. They can't trade this guy to many teams and he would probably ask to be traded to Houston. They save 6.5 million and if they don't re-sign Snyder than thats 8.8 million in savings. Howard will come off the books quicker than SAR and will easily fill in the limited production that SAR provided. They get two great veterans to bring stability to a young club built around Martin and their #10 draft pick. Alston is a good cheap stop gap at pg for them with the lost of Bibby. Battier is Artest without the drama. The cleared cap space allows them to go after a solid FA. Kings get a solid year without any bad eggs in the locker room and take the first major steps towards rebuilding the once dominant franchise. Rocks- The Sac players, Bibby and Artest, would love to play for their old coach again. Shareef is a perenial loser but could be decent in a system where he would spread the defense. He is a younger quicker Howard with a longer contract. He would be the starter, and I believe he could do well here. SAR has always failed expectations, but ppl always wanted him to be a star. He could put up 20 10 for a bad team but he can't lead. Here he can just be a role player, which suits him better. He hasn't lost much over the years because his game never relied on athleticism. He is a smart player that could be valuable in our new system. Artest will assume the role Batter played. He is a huge risk but I believe this is a trade we make even if Artest fails. This is because it gets us Bibby who will drop our jaws when we see what a capable pg can do for this team. potential line ups Miller Thomas Battier Martin Law Yao SAR Artest Tmac Bibby If the Rockets sign Francis as 6th man our depth will not suffer greatly. Also I would advocate signing Darko for MLE who could log minutes at both C and PF. We should draft Byar if he falls to us and hopefully Wells doesn't opt out. Our depth chart looks like this- Yao (34) Darko (10) Deke (4) SAR (25) Darko (15) Hayes (8) Novak Artest (30) Byars (12) Tmac (6) Tmac (24) Wells (20) Francis (4) Bibby (28) Francis (16) Vspan (4) JL3 Tmac does not have to log a lot of minutes with this team which conserves the mileage we have to put on the guy. Francis, Wells, Darko, Byars will spearhead the bench with Vspan Hayes and Deke rounding out the roster. Not sure if Novak will crack the roster, but if he can prove to stroke the 3 ball when it counts, he will get some time. Lucas won't get many minutes at all. 14 players on the roster. 9 man rotation with guys like Vspan hopefully getting more minutes as season and hopefully efficiency increases. The talent on this team is massive compared to last year. We add 3 guys- Bibby, Francis, Artest- who are capable of taking over a couple games and winning them for us this year. Yao and Tmac have less burden on their shoulders with all the help. Darko will fit nicely next to Yao and hopefully the two grow together and become a solid frontcourt pairing. Artest will be our shark defender who takes the tough assignments and shuts them down. Wells will hopefully have a better year on a team where he will consistently get 20 plus minutes to contribute. Francis will probably so happy to be back in a Rockets uniform. Adelman will have a lot of Sac players here that know his style, and a pg that can run his show. Bibby will help the Rockets efficiency immensely. This is a trade that could help the King's future and our "win now" desire.
how many teams does Artest have to screw up with before you people realize that he is a cancer with the emotional maturity of a 3 year old spoiled brat?
BTW I have seen it reported that Artest loves playing for Adelmann and woulkd enjoy playing for him again.
