[ch 2 video] Entire Scola news conference plus bonus interviews

LS will be a very good player and will complement Yao and T-Mac.

 

Thanks a lot Hilltopper!

Scola sounds very promising, very down to earth. As someone pointed to earlier, it is definitely very refreshing.

 

Sounds like Les ponied up a lot of money to make this trade go through to get Spurs to agree to the trade. I'm extremely thankful that we have an owner that is willing to spend in Les. He's bought picks in the second round several times now and allowed our GM to basically use the MLE every season. He's no Cuban, but it's clear that he wants to win.

 

Meet your new Rocket!!!

 

Thanks so much for the tape. Wow, what an impressive young man. He seemed very mature for his age. He gave very relaxed and candid answers. Very polite, seemed quite intelligent, cordial, calm......I was very, very pleased with his demeanor. A Spanish Yao Ming? Seems like a fine person.

 

Thanks as always Hilltopper.

Much appreciated.

 

I think the less "expressive" English they know, the nicer they seem.

 

I read that Mavs fans are pretty sour that Rox signed Scola...

 

I was surprised that Scola's English is so good. And he seems to be a nice person. I think this will help him to adjust to NBA and build chemistry with his teamates.
I like the part when he said that he would work hard and his time is to come. Yes, Scola's time is to come, and Rockets' time is to come. Hopefully it is this year.

 

thanks...great clip

 

Do you mean the f-word or s-word?

 

OK, Btw HI all!!!

Translation of the Spanish questions

6 mins
Q- Describe the importance of this day for you
LS- A day very important for him, because he made a decision very important to him and also the correct one on a sports level and also beyond that. He has been living many years in Spain. He is not 20 years old anymore, he is 27 He has a family now, he took this oportunity which he had as a dream and objective in his career, and it seems it will be fulfill now. So it is a very important day for him.

Q- How do you describe yourself as a player? And how would you like to be called by the Latin community.
LS - I don't have a nickname people would called me by Luis is just fine.
It is very difficult to talk about yourself on a press conference specially with so many people listening in, The people that know me know what i can bring to the table, also the ones that don't know me will have the opportunity to get to know me and have their own analysis, and overall I don't like to talk about myself. But I will bring to the table a lot of energy and work very hard during practice and during the games, and will help everybody to make this work.

The religion part is not bad at all, nothing that would be llooked badly.

 

damn, im so pumped up... can't wait the new season start!!!! GO ROCKETS!!!

 

Wow good attention to detail there. Had no idea you were bilingual Clutch. But perhaps since he knows that religion, specially catholicism is very important to about 90 percent of the hispanic population he doesnt want people to know that he is not a devoted catholic, because perhaps its not popular. It was probably significant enough for the reporter to ask and I think that is a very very personal question.

I like that he admits that he is Christian and admits that he does not practice it a lot. He's an honest guy hopefully his religion wont draw away fans. I am surprised to hear that question asked.

He will have a great impact on Hispanic people in houston, just by carrying a spanish name. The way Carlos Lee from the Astros draws fans, even though baseball has a way bigger latin american market.

 

I didn't know Samuel L. Jackson was a sports reporter in Houston (18:41 mark), haha.

Awesome clip! I always love the ch.2 videos and as many have already said, I always appreciate when you post these up here, hilltopper. Worth every minute.

 

Nah, he'd like Rybo's hustle and since Hayes "earns" his minutes, Scola would be SOL.

 

cool...............

 

I'm in complete agreement. Les is nothing like Drayton. I'm not going to go Richard Justice-style and dog on McLane forever here, but he definitely is one of the cheapest owners in sports, considering how much revenue he gains from the Astros. Since he acquired the team, he must have made so much money, not to mention the increased value of the franchise itself. To his credit, he has given big contracts to big players such as Bagwell, Randy Johnson, Clemens and Pettite (although both gave Houston a hometown discount), Berkman, Roy-O (a little late), Carlos Lee (also brought at a discount), and some more. He also offered a fair amount to Beltran, so no qualms there. However, after giving the money to these big name players, we haven't done too much else. I believe our payroll is under $90 mil, and for a franchise like the Astros, it should be greater than that...[/rant]

Sorry, went off on a big tangent there. Anyway, I've always been grateful to have Les as our owner. I know he makes tons of money via the Rockets (especially now with the Chinese faithful on his side), but he definitely uses a good amount of it too. Just b/c he stays under the luxury tax (which is actually a smart thing) doesn't mean he's cheap. I'm tired of hearing stupid Houston radio callers and some posters here talking about how worried they are about this trade b/c we dealt with the Spurs, believing that means that their front office definitely outsmarted us. No... Alexander just out-paid everyone! He made an offer they couldn't refuse (sorry, had to stick that in there). Like Morey said, the Spurs made the price a lot higher for us to obtain Scola (including Butler's contract), and let's just be thankful for the owner reaching into his pockets, rather than skeptical of what we got. We gave up next to NOTHING basketball-wise. What we gave up essentially amounts to a 2009 second-rounder and $$$. Unless you value Les Alexander's ranking in Forbes, stop your whining and Debbie Downer-attitude. And even if you value that stupid ranking of NBA owners, you should like this trade b/c it'll increase his revenue when we start winning playoff series again.

 

In his second answer in Spanish, the one where he had just answered a question about Spanoulis in english, and smiled as the question was being given. I thought he mentioned "Vasilis" or is there just a spanish word that sounds like Spanoulis's name?

 

Basketball is normally the second most followed sport in Latin America, with the major exeption of Venezuela, in which is third.
So the Latino fans are going to be love having Scola as their main man, just look at what Ginobli does for the Latin community there.