<center><h3>The CBS Sportsline Index </center></h3> Many of you are in fact already aware of this, but I rechecked/reread it this AM and some of you may be as pleasantly surprised as I. For those that do not know what it is a here is a brief overview) An Explanation: The five players each team puts on the court at one time all have loosely defined roles. How can one evaluate a point guard against a post player or a shooting guard against a power forward? Though teams certainly draft primarily to fill their own specific needs, some certainly will still draft by "the best player available" theory. Well, how do you determine if Chris Porter is a better pro prospect than Terence Morris? Is Scoonie Penn better than Chris Mihm? It is with these thoughts in mind that the Player PRO-tential Index (PPI) was developed. The system for example takes a draftee's ability to carry the ball as a point guard having more significance than a center's ability to do that. Conversely the ability to rebound would have more significance than assist ratios to a center. It is similar to the NFL's format for rating positional players including the quarterback. Some Results: 1. Jason Collier ranked 13th overall (out of a 100). 2. Jason Collier ranked as the 4th PF (behind only Martin, Swift and Fizer.) 3. Dan Langhi ranked 52nd overall 4. Dan Langhi ranked as the 11th PF (outranking PF Bageric drafted at #27 and ranked 59th ) Some other results were just as surprising, given the eventual drafted position. The Link: http://cbs.sportsline.com/u/ce/feature/0,1518,1474093_54,00.html ------------------
So, according to this system, Collier was a decent choice, and Langhi was horrible. While the "experts" say Langhi was an excellent pickup and Collier was a bad move. As long as there's a consensus. BTW-I happen to like both picks. ------------------
I'll throw ESPN into the mix: "Collier did lead the ACC in boards and is a good defender who shoots well, and doesn't try to do too much. He could use some work in the post, however. Collier did average 17 points per game in each of his seasons at Georgia Tech. Houston expects to be much better next season, and Collier, assuming he can handle those Steve Francis passes, should fit right in. As for Langhi, he was a big-time scorer in college and slipped to the second round, so we regard that as a pretty nice pick." Good defender? What does "good" mean? ------------------
LOL Yeah there is a concensus. No Rocket will be happy until we swing another banner from the rafters. As I posted a while ago, I thought Collier would surprise everyone with a jump way up in the draft, but I never, not for a moment thought he would be our highest rated draft acquisition. I hope he fits in as well as CD and RT think. But he is not the "answer" to our problems. ------------------
other things lost in this are the fact that the #15 pick makes less than #9. Say hello to our friend the cap. So what if it's only 200K? (Note-I don't know how much it is) That's 200K of the 11 million we'll likely need to get CWebb. As it stands now, without using the exception, we have about 10 mill of that. If we can trade Walt, for a guy who makes 4.5 mill this year, and doesn't have a huge rise in salary next year, we'll have it (Walt has a run up in salary). Here's my dream Rockets team for 01-02 season- C-Cato PF-Webber (free agent) SF-Morris (draft) SG-Anderson PG-Francis 6th man-Mobley 7th man-Collier 8th man-Langhi or Bullard other (could be gone by then)-Thomas, Rogers, Norris, Pig Miller, etc. ------------------ The more lefties on your team, the better. Collier is Seven Foot and Left Handed. How can you go wrong? Trade or bench Kenny Thomas.
