Bill Simmons NBA playoffs mailbag: Very Interesting Trade scenario for the Rox

I disagree - Hornet fans have consistently complained this year about the uselessness and lack of intensity from Chandler, Peja, and Posey even with a great PG like Paul. No one argues that Paul would immediately make the team better with his own skills. But the team you just mentioned will struggle to put up points when they allow Paul to get his (like they do Nash) and front Yao.

Lets not even talk about Artest - he is almost constantly a wildcard it seems like.

 

Imagine if we had Chris Paul AND Kyle Lowry. Floppiest PG duo in NBA history?

 

Looks better on paper than it actually is.Peja is the weakest link as you have correctly pointed out. Simmons didn't mention Brian Cook's 3.5 M expiring contract as part of the deal,if NO were to take that and give Scola back to us( they already have West) it may prove to be more palatable.

Nevertheless,I would still be concerned how would Chandler fit in with Yao.
I would rather look to get the best possible trade for McGrady's expiring contract,& Cook/Barry plus a pick or Aaron (if needed to get it done), retain as much as possible of the rest and go from there.

 

if we're getting CP3s superior playmaking / passing abilities, we cannot give away our 3 MONST UNSELFISH players - Shane, Scola, and Landry

we need to get rid of our MOST SELFISH players instead - Tmac, Artest, and Brooks

basically
Tmac, Artest, and Brooks
for
CP3 + fillers (any combination of Posey, Peja, Chandler)

 

And the trade would be that stupid too . . .

 

How will this team struggle to find points?

CP3 will get the ball to Yao better than AB ever could dream of,
With the attention Yao gets, CP3 will finish even better going to the basket,
nobody can leave Peja or Artest open,
and most importantly
Chandler will get all those offensive rebounds plus tons of alley-oops if the front Yao, with CP3 running the show.

 

The Rockets are the team with leverage in this hypothetical trade scenario, not the Hornets. There are other trade possibilities that the Rockets could pursue to improve this team. Given this, I think the Simmons trade proposal gives them too much. I would do the trade if we could retain Scola and substitute the additional expiring contract of Cook in there and also keep Battier and let Posey remain on their team. I think taking back the horrible contracts of Chandler and Peja and giving them our two good young talents in Brooks and Landry, both on cheap contracts, is enough.

As others have mentioned, I do not know why they would want both of our power forwards with West still there, unless they also plan to unload West if Paul is traded. To me, Cook's expiring contract makes more sense for them since if they trade away Paul, all they will be looking at is the draft lottery.

 

If yao gets hurt you are stuck with a lot of bad contracts.

 

And then Yao Ming gets hurt again, and you're left with a lesser version of the Hornets.

 

Believe or not, if Yao goes down, current team isn't any better than Honets in a long run, if Chander is healthy.
With the trade, Rockets can go from undersized to have size advantage and Chandler could solve the Rockets backup center problem.

 

That's the only downside. But if Yao goes down, the current Rockets team wouldn't have any chance either.

 

Scola, Battier and Landry??

FAR TOO EXPENSIVE to unload TMAc. . er. . . acquire Chris Paul
They are DEAL BREAKERS

Rocket River

 

A few year ago, Rockets unloaded prime Franceis + prime Mobely + Cato to get Tmac, and Rockets reached 50+ wins, almost knocked off Dallas in playoffs. That is what a superstar would do to a team.

CP3 is on the same level with that Tmac in 2004-2005, plus a better Yao with role players like Peja, Artest, Chandler, who are better than the role players at that time, Rockets should be an instant contenders.

 

No way you give up Scola to facilitate that deal.

 

We are essentially trading a bunch of role players who could hang w/ a championship contender for a bunch of role players who can't even though they played w/ CP3.

Those guys sucked hard in the Denver series. I don't give a crap about NO, but it was aggravating for even me to watch. Granted Denver looks very legit, but still...our team w/out Yao put up an incredible fight. Those guys WITH CP3 were turrible. If Yao gets injured again next year, you won't see an effort like this current roster.

All that said, getting the top point guard in the league at a young age is something you can't pass up. I'd be inclined to pull the trigger, although grudingly. Long term, Paul is probably still a force after Yao declines (3 or 4 more years?) and you can still rebuild around him. If we can somehow keep Scola, or too a lesser extent Landry or Shane, this is automatic.

 

I think they will. Assuming this is the lineup you are talking about:

1. CP3
2. Posey
3. Artest/Peja
4. Chandler
5. Yao

It won't be easier for CP3 to drive because he will now have both Yao and Chandler clogging the lane (it's the same reason you see Melo driving less when Nene and Martin are in the game but more so when Kleiza replaces one of them).

As for Artest, I'm guessing you are talking about the 3ball? Don't be fooled that just because Artest shot the 3 ball fairly decent this year that he will again and again. In his career, he is a 34% 3pt shooter. Call it what you want, law of averages or regression to the mean, he will not consistently shoot that well. Even worse, he seems to need the ball in his hands to be effective or else he might as well not be there. How is he going to handle the ball with CP3 running the show?

Peja might do better with all the attention yao gets, but he is 31 with a terrible shooting year. Will he get out of that? I don't know but he does not bring the defensive intensity that Battier brings. Then again, besides this year, many of role players disappeared too. As for stats, this year against Denver, Peja made 18 FG and attempted 49 (37%) and made 8-3PT and attempted 26 (31%).

So with even less defensive intensity, and without the consistency of Scola and Landry to some extent, where do the points come from and the defense?

 

I won't even go into how I feel about this absurd scenario. But if this were to go down, and if I were Stern I'd rip the Hornets out of NO and have them in Seattle before camp opened.

I could also see Les having perpetual wet dreams for awhile, and DM burning his spreadsheets.

 

Lets be honest, a trade with all those players will never go down, especially considering how much Morey and Rick value Shane and Scola. But, it might still interest both parties if a smaller trade scenario presented itself. My thinking is, if they trade CP, they want younger talent and unload as many bad contracts as possible. Then, in that line of thinking, how about:

CP3, Chandler

for

TMAC (expiring), Barry (expiring), AB, Landry

If they want to replace Peja with Chandler instead, we might have to eat that contract, but it'd still be worth it. For them, they get 2 young guns on the cheap, and save about 20 mil on Chandler. Not saying this is the best NO can do, but come next Feb, what other teams can offer up young talent, expiring contracts, and be willing to take back a bad contract or 2? Especially if AB continues to kick butt til the ASB.

 

Everybody loves Scola, he's vastly underrated before this playoffs.

But even if that's the case, Scola is only an average starting PF in today's NBA. His offensive game is great, but he lakcs size, defense and block ability.

It's much easier to find a PF of Scola's caliber than to find a PG of Paul's caliber.