Kelvin Cato is mentioned in espn's west roundup. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/roundup?conf=western C Kelvin Cato might be trade bait. But he would rather remain a Rocket. On Jan. 12 against the Nuggets, he had another double-double showing. Maybe it's not a "hallucination".
Cato's comments a few days back were very interesting. He said he wanted to remain a Rocket and he loved it in Houston, almost as if mgmt had come to him and informed they were actively shopping him. I can't wait till the day I hit refresh on this forum and see the thread "Cato gone!!!!!!!".
I would rather keep Cato than make another Glenn Rice type trade. I just don't trust RT and CD on making trades anymore especially when we are desparate.
If we could get Brad Miller and Ron Artest we would be one awesome team.... Houston trades: Kelvin Cato $6,048,000 to Chicago TOTAL: $6,048,000 Chicago trades: Ron Artest $1,241,760 to Houston Chicago trades: Brad Miller $4,400,000 to Houston (plus Trade Kicker $690,000) TOTAL: $5,641,760 TRADE ACCEPTED
We should really wait until the trade deadline. I think we have a lot of attractive role players for playoff contention teams that probably won't help us when we get into the playoffs.
I'd rather have Ratliff. Both Thomas and Cato are from Ga, maybe we can swing that deal someway then we'll be doing ourselves a favor both ways. Griffin starting and ridding ourselves of Cato.
I suppose you don't agree with the Steve Francis and Eddie Griffin trades either. How about the Drexler trade? Don't hold the Rice trade against Rudy/CD as they basically had a gun to their heads. That being said, I still like Rice for 3 yrs/$27 mil than SA for 6 yrs/$42 mil...even in hindsight. Besides, I don't think we are desparate. It would be nice to upgrade but that could happen easily in the off-season when Walt and Kevin's contracts expire.
Sorry, but we won't have any cap space, even with those two expiring, unless the salary cap rises significantly & I read somewhere that it might not. I would expect to see the Rockets resign Willis if they're able to move Cato.
If we let Shandon walk, who would we have signed with that extra $? <remember it was mid-summer at the time so options were slim> In the NBA, a valid cliche is "Use it or Lose it." Cap space doesn't do us any good sitting idle. Rice at least produced comperable numbers to SA and we'll get out of the contract 3 years quicker. Plus Rice has more on court potential than SA. The injury he got was unrelated to the original concern we had with his foot so you can't hold that against management. As it stands today, the Rocks will be 1 mil under the cap next season and that doesn't include the token 10% increase that we've seen nearly every year (granted that is not for sure but it's our reference point). If we get 10% increase, Rocks will have ~2.8 mil to sign a FA. That assumes we resign our own FA's after we acquire the new person. Expiring contracts are: Walt, Willis, Langhi, Torres and Brown. So if we can sign a better center, Torres is probably the only person we'd resign and he'd be cheap. The Rocks still have a chance to to pickup a solid role player. With the emergence of Grif and the readdition of MoT and Rice, all we need is a solid role player who can catch a pass for a dunk and rebound. As I said, the Rockets are not desperate. They have some wiggle room. And if we stand pat at center, that wouldn't be the end of the world.
You've made at least two assumption. 1st that we are lottery bound (a fair assumption but not certain). 2nd the salary commitment depends on what # pick we get. I'd bet we'd get a high lotto pick (over #10) should it happen, which would be <$1.5 mil (I beleive). Nevertheless, I hadn't considered that so it's a valid point. If MoT's progress look good this spring, I'd be willing to bet we trade KT before Cato due to higher trade value for other teams. Such a trade could result in added cap space. In the the end, I'm happy Cato is motivated by a trade prospect. We'll see if he can sustain (or maybe improve) his recent performances.
Use it or lose it would be a valid consideration if we were only talking about one year. Instead, we have a 27M contract for 3 years. Surely we would have found a way to make use of 9m of cap space either this year or next! If Rashard is serious, we could have used part of the 9M there. Of course hindsight is 20/20...
I have to say thought, KT's value is high right now, and he's making less than 2million. Cato's showing effort, and everyone is recognizing it now. His salary is probably the average salary for C's in the league right now. Switch his place with Todd Macculough, and you get his numbers on Cato, and Cato's numbers on him. Our highest draft pick next year to thrown in. I see potential for a good trade. Can we pick up Nazr Mohammed? Theo Ratliff? A top 5 pick plus a C with similar salary to Cato but shorter contract? Doleac and a pick? I wouldn't mind having Zydrunas Illgauskas if he madkes it through this year injury-free? Brad Miller? David Robinson? Lafrentz (sign n trade) n baggage? Dampier and a pick? Troy Murphy and Adonal Foyle? I see some good trade bait. Cato's contract used to be big, but the league average will be at around 5 million, and Cato's contract is not so big anymore compared to the rest of the league. Packaged with KT's small salary and breakout season, and our highest draft pick (let's say #10), we can get a good C, while Rice starts at SF, backed up by MoT and TMo, while MoT also backs up Eddie at the PF spot. Our new C just has to provide good rebounding, good defense, and average shotblocking.
Absolutely, but that cap space would be burning a hole in your pocket for a complete gamble that is at least 1 year away. Rice was capable of contributing immediately in a season where playoff hopes were high. If you don't sign a big FA next summer (2002), you risk digging into that extra cap space by simply re-signing existing players. Optimally, a team wants to stay right around the cap limit and then re-sign existing players afterwards up to the luxery tax threshhold. This gives a team more leverage to maximize cap space to acquire new players. So worst case scenario you're eating only 2 years of Rice's salary because the 1st year would have been a complete waste if you let SA walk off this team. When I say "eat" that assumes that Rice is less productive than SA which I seriously doubt will happen over the course of 3 years. Time will tell. So restated, I'd rather have Rice 3yr/27mil vs. SA 6yr/42mil or nobody and extra cap space for 1yr+. Rashard isn't worth a max contract so that extra cap space is moot for him, IMO. If Cato finished this season strong, I could envision a trade with Cato and KT packaged together. 4 yrs of Cato remaining isn't as imposing to other teams esp if he shows promise.
Can someone please post the exact possibilities the Rockets have in the comeing draft? I seem to remember us trading away pick after pick after pick in the past few years and I just wanted to know when that will come into effect.
NugzFan!! Lemme axe u dis kwestshun.... What would it take to put Moochie in a Nugz uni today?? He's got lo mileage and he runs great. Make us an offer!!
