I'm one of the biggest Chuck Hayes supporters around but you are getting ridiculous. When Gundy was around who did Hayes compete with for PT? Juwon Howard and Slowmile Swift. In Adelman's time he had to compete with Landry and Scola. The difference is like night and day. Not only that. Hayes needs a playmaker to make plays for him, and Tmac hasn't been healthy ever since RA came. Since no one else is a playmaker on this team of course Hayes won't be able to score point because he can't score unless wide open. Finally Hayes has developed a ridiculous fear of shooting freethrows and now avoids contact when he has the ball so he won't have to go to the line. Factor in all of that and you have a guy who is useless on offense, in other words a situational player which is what RA basically used him as. And don't blame Yao Ming on RA either. The guy is injury prone, and one of the hardest players to set up offensively. His legs are shot so the passes have to be spot on, and he has a high center of gravity so he gets pushed around by players much smaller than he is. He also has slow reflexes, and gets stripped by opponents really easily. I'm still a Yao Ming fan, but he definitely is one flawed player...
So you'd trade our best defender, leader and all-around glue guy for someone who had to be coached 5 years just to learn how to execute plays and a scrub? Damn you really like those athletic low iq players, don't you? One thing we both agree on though is that Battier has almost zero trade value, which is why trading him now would be foolish. Let his contract expire, then sign him at less than MLE since no one will offer him more than that. Voila, we get one of the best role players in the league at a bargain basement price.
You're assuming Battier can't play SG, which he more or less did whenever whenever Ron started, or whenever T-Mac can't handle the opposing 2. It's a less impressive list if you have to include both wing players on those teams. Battier may or may not have trade value, but would start on plenty of playoff caliber teams.
Chuck doesn't have to ball enough or has been in the kind of situations to be avoiding getting hit and going to the line. Also, Scola and Landry are almost identical offensive players to Juwon Howard and Stromile Swift. We won't get into a long drawn out argument on who is/was better. The bottom line is, Rick Adelman would have played Howard and Swift over Hayes then. He will always lean to the offensive player. My point will be proven when the season starts and we see David Anderson going after the jump ball. If he starts The Chuck Wagon, I will come onto this board and eat crow. I just don't think he has the guts to do what is right.
Rosolian, its about shaving salary,getting talent, and getting younger. Is outlaw a better defender than shane? He's a ok defender that has his moments of being very good.Offensively he's a way better player and you can even disput that. Whether its slashing, finishing,mid range,3 pts shot whatever. So now look at outlaw who is 24 with a 4m contract in its last yr vs shane at 31 with 2yrs and 7m per. If the blazer fill the need to get a defender spot up guy because batum or webster aren't progressing properly, why wouldn't that deal make sense for the blazers and the rockets?
I agree about Outlaw being a good defender who has a lot of potential offensively. You are definitely spot on at what he can do: slashing, mid-range, finishing, yeah he definitely has a lot of skills we need. However the problem is Outlaw seems to be as b-ball r****ded as Slowmile. As part of Sarge's strategy an assistant coach was working with the forwards on the Blazers on their execution, and even then it took Outlaw several years of work before he was able to run plays effectively. And Mcmillan's plays are a lot like Gundy's-he tells you where to go and what to do, and you do it. If Outlaw could barely handle an offense where he is force-fed the plays, how do you expect him to work in RA's offense, where you are supposed to think for yourself on what to do? In RA's offense you don't have to just know what you're going to do, you have to be aware of where your teammates are and what the opponent is trying to do as well. That's why you need good bball IQ to run it, just look at the Sac players before and all of them had good bball IQs (Bibby, Divac, Peja, Webber, Bobby J and Christie). Outlaw in our system would be an epic fail.
Travis Outlaw was exposed as a one trick pony in our series against the Blazers. If his shots ain't falling, it affects the rest of his game and he becomes useless. But I forgot, he's young, dumb, and can jump through the roof...we need more players like that alright, someone needs to take Wafer's role on the team anyways.
I would be okay with the Rockets bringing back Swift ONLY IF they don't sign him to a long term deal like they did four years ago. If I was a GM, the longest deal that I would sign him for if I ever did would be a one-year deal with a team option for a second. If he had only one year remaining on his contract three years ago rather than three, I don't think the Rockets would have had to trade their lottery pick just to get rid of his bad contract at the time.
WTH?!? How can Scola (Olympics MVP) and Landry be identical to old Juwon Howard and freakin' Stromile Swift? There is no argument simply because you are comparing good players to trash. RA doesn't lean on anything, he plays the BPA (best player available). With Yao Ming, Artest and Battier all in the lineup adding Hayes' defensive prowess is redundant. We need offense, which is why Scola and Landry got PT. We don't have Yao, but with Ariza and Battier still here the defense is still solid. However with Brooks being more a scorer we need someone who can board, pass and shoot. If Anderson can do that at the NBA level he should definitely over starting over Hayes.
Roslo, the only problem I have with your logic is you act like shane reads and reacts in a motion offense. His reading and reacting consist of throwing it low and stand in the corner. Never mind kobe is checking yao jock size. Nevermind that when he dumps and soft cuts, his man has turned his back and gone to help. I can go one and on about how a guy can have such a high bbiq, but can't or won't use the offensive structure to get easy backdoors or cut hard enough to make the defender play him. I never said outlaw was a high bbiq guy, but he does know how to slash, when to cut hard, how to get to his spots and shhot and he just made 25 and on his last yr. V.3, I guess shane was exposed in his 1st playoff series with 4ppg and his team being swept. Or maybe teams just figured to wait to road playoff games so he can drop a hot 5 ppg.
I'd take him. PGs: Brooks, Lowry SGs: McGrady, Battier SFs: Ariza, Battier, Budinger PFs: Scola, Landry, Hayes Cs, Andersen, Swift
Notice that I didn't even mention Shane in my post. Like that Chris Rock joke about Martin Luther King, you're answer to everything is Shane Battier's shortcomings, or DeAndre Jordan is the schizznitt this, or why can't we measure up to the Lakers standards that... And of course you're right, ppg is the only barometer to measure a player's worth, the rest of those stats are just made up garbage. *Here is where leebigez will trash Moneyball and intangibles, like clockwork...*
Swift is (was?) a young, raw, physical and athletic talent. Nothing more. I'm intrigued by Wright, only because he's a heady veteran who will add size and rebounding and shotblocking, but I'm pretty sure Swift's days in the NBA are numbered, especially if he's not in great shape even with his future so uncertain.
leebigez, I will let you answer my own questions. What's Travis Outlaw got to do with Kobe being stopped and the Rockets/Lakers series? Was Travis in that series? Why weren't he and his team in that series? What's the capital of Maine? Answers: Dr. Martin Luther King/Shane doesn't cut to the basket
burnnotice, I'm not going to play these arbitrary "look at the stats" games with you. Chuck's high FG% under JVG in NO WAY defends what you are describing. I might as well pull up Brian Cook's per-48-minutes numbers and say "OMGZ, Cook could average 21/9 if DUMASS Adelman would just PLAY HIM MORE! 4 SURE!!". In all honesty, this sounds like an argument you would make. JVG was very much a one-dimensional coach. After watching our offense become stagnant time after time, I really don't understand how you could argue otherwise. Was he on to something with his "feed Yao constantly, run predictable PnR's" approach? Somewhat. But that still didn't stop our offense from exposing it's limitations -- against, say, Utah in the playoffs. Utah, being a team that played Yao one-on-one thus negating the need for all these spot-up shooters that were accustomed to open looks Yao created with the doubles. Suddenly, the Luther Head's, Rafer's and Battier's weren't looking so hot being forced to try to create their own offense. Might I also add: teams hadn't figured out how to neutralize Yao yet while JVG was still at the helm. This 'fronting' defense is honestly the bane of our existence. It happens, it works...there's little that we can do about it. The best way to fight it is to stack your roster with scorers, implement an offense that focuses on movement both with/without the ball and surround Yao with players that have enough court presence to warrant constant respect from the defense -- you simply can't allow players to be out there that teams can slack off of, further smothering him and increasing the burden on Yao's back. If teams knew how to front Yao under JVG, I am honestly terrified of what that team would have looked like with Yao essentially erased and McGrady trying to do everything. It's a scary thought. Some people may be overestimating his trade value but I absolutely promise you that we could get Fernandez in some sort of Rudy/whatever-for-Battier swap if we were inclined to do so. With all the pouting Fernandez has done lately about his role, playing time and threatening to bolt overseas I guarantee we could have him if we were willing to give up Battier (a player that Portland has wanted for over two years now).
We did not win the series? no. Did we do way better than any other team they faced, despite being extremely undermanned? yes. Kobe was held to his average with single coverage and was kept off the free throw line. I swear every forum poster on this board has a vendetta against a specific player.
That's quite an assertion. I do hope it's true that Shane is coveted badly by some teams for us to get equal value out of him whenever Morey feels it's time to move on.
