Great interview. Utah is dirty Last night's game vs Denver, Nene...Jones were playing kind of dirty. Nene was banging Yao all night long. ......(I could have rephrased that better). Jones cheap shot on Yao. Trading Rafer was to get Lowry, who they believed in. Said Kyle was looked at as a great value in exchange for Rafer. (they made fun of Barkley's take) Morey talking about how we're so terrible at finishing games. You should listen, it was a good one.
If the above is what is needed to re-sign Artest I'd hope the Rockets can package a S&T happening for Nash. Anyhow, using the figures below, the Rockets will have less than $5.85M to re-sign Artest without excedding LT. This is regardless of whether they do so to keep him on the roster or for a S&T. Wafer will also be a free agent. The Rockets will be going into free agency with 11 players on contract. 13 players on the roster is the minimum. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/...undup-090218&campaign=rss&source=NBAHeadlines http://www.shamsports.com/content/pages/data/salaries/rockets.jsp Rocket's Team Salary 2009/2010: $63,544,452 Without making a major move the Rockets could hope for another "Steve Francis" trade next season. If an under the cap team exists around halfway through the season that team would ideally absorb Brian Cook's expiring contract for cash considerations. For that to be even an option, the Rockets would have to first sign Artest, Wafer, or whoever else they want on contract for under a total of $9.35M. Such a move would be staying pat when they clearly need to improve their roster to catch the Celtics, Lakers, Cavs, etc... Otherwise there's the task of trading McGrady. Besides the difficulty of moving a $23M contract. It doesn't appear that Les or Morey are that open to moving him... Morey said in the podcast with Bill Simmons podcast: http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=164281 Let's say McGrady's healthy, and recovers after 4 months which is a possibilty, some potential trading partners could be: Indiana Team Salary 2009/2010: $55,210,131 ; Team Salary 2010/2011: $49,089,558 McGrady + Dorsey for Dunleavy + Daniels + Diener/Hibbert/Rush *Dunleavy in similiar situation as McGrady *Daniels $6.8M can come off the books immediately if traded for before June 30 *Potentially an extra $11M of salary space is created. That would allow re-signing Artest, or packaging Artest in a S&T where the Rockets take back 125% more salary, and also the full use of the MLE. Timberwolves Team Salary 2009/2010: $50,917,798 ; Team Salary 2010/2011: $27,426,752 McGrady for Miller + Shelden Williams + Carney + Madsen/Gomes *Depending on the contract conditions on the team options for Williams & Carney. Rockets could cut an extra $8.8M (Madsen included in package) to 9.8M (Gomes included in package) from their payroll. That's possibly around $6.8M from those Williams & Carney that the Rocket might be able to simply not pick up. Sources: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=ford_chad&page=TradeWatch-090224 http://www.indystar.com/article/20090308/SPORTS04/903080365/1088/SPORTS04 http://www.shamsports.com/content/pages/data/salaries/index.jsp http://hoopshype.com/salaries.htm
Yao's offense is still the same dominant when he gets the ball, but his defense is up to a new level now. In other words, he is playing his best basketball. His +/- over the season backs up for that. Now Rockets can't lose him on either end of the floor. That's why his 6th foul last night is the dumbest ever.
Not to put a blemish on the outstanding accomplishment that is 22 in a row... but a lot of stars aligned for that to happen. Alston played out of his mind. We faced some injured teams. Now let us compare the two teams. Consider that Ron Artest is just a smidge below Tmac's output during that streak and that Brooks and Lowry playing at their usual level (perhaps below average for them) almost matches Alston...everything goes to the 09 squad after that. Landry seems back and better (reloaded this season with a mid range J) and Scola is coming into his own form of beast. Both have done well during this stretch. Now throw in the kicker...and that is Mr. Yao. Some Yao is better than no Yao, but I believe if you look closely you will find that this is Yao 2.0. We have a tendency as Rockets fans to attribute Yao's success with points and rebounds. That is why many of us think this 09 Yao, who is scoring less than 07 and 08 Yao, is worse. No way... we got an up up upgrade.Yao in this stretch since Tmac has been out has done more of everything. Assisting (back2back 6 assist games), stealing and blocking numbers are up. This can be attributed to many things namely, Tmac's absense. Most importantly, Yao's defense is starting to match his offense. Confused... well here is my theory. It is no surprise that Mr. Tmac has been known to slack on d, and this year has been notoriously worse given his knee. That means cutting guards that Tmac is assigned to blowing by. This either draws yao out, quick pass to post, Yao tries not to give up a dunk, ticky ta foul...or... causes a collapse where the guard can take it at Yao outside the inside the circle. Now the opposing guards are being funneled by Battier and Artest, they are both slower and moving where the Rocks D is intending them to. Enter the great wall for a rejection or the foul. Yao's blocks have increased as a result, and his fouls. the reason? A Yao that picks up less ticky self-inflicted fouls is a confident Yao. A confident Yao will foul more, but his conviction will lead to better interior defense. The increased level of defense with Battier and Artest on the court has caused many loose balls. Yao being in the middle of this gets his hands on a few more steals. Statistically, Yao has averaged 2.62 bpg and .62 spg since Tmac went down, a 30% increase in both areas. The blocks are good for 2nd in the league, .28 bpg behind D-Howard. Oh, by the way, don't let pundits fool you when they say Yao doesn't get many blocks. I seem to hear this a lot from opposing annoucers... newsflash, Yao is ranked 7th in the league right now. His rebounds are also up to 10.6rpg. This has mainly been an increase in drpg up to 8.3 from 7. The Utah game is a good example of this new utility Yao- 19p 7r 6a 5b. Yao is our dark knight. He is not the Hero we want (the flashy Dwight's of the league) but the Hero we deserve... a workhorse that does whatever the team needs to win. He is whatever the Rockets need him to be. Yao 2.0 folks... and don't worry, that scoring prowess didn't go anywhere. -V
Couple things. Tmac wont be hard to trade next season. Regardless of healthy or not. 23 mil expiring for the 2k10 event (if you will) is attractive to a lot of takers. I am not saying we will get rose smelling poo in return but trading him wont be hard, its just find the best. Will probably get some yucky contracts in return. You can give Artest that contract not have to worry about the LT until the TD. Although its kinda of a high contract taking in account the economy but whose to say how long this will last. Sign and trade for Nash. If he does that wouldn't that nullify his trade for Lowry. Getting a old PG to replace a younger PG of the future, not Nash quality but how much quality does he have left.
Not necessarily. Who would be better at showing Lowry how to get the job done than Steve Nash? Nash might even be a coach in the future. I'd love to have Lowry as an understudy to Nash for a year or two. The question would then be: what about Aaron Brooks? Aaron is a shooter who can get to the hole, not so much a true PG. He can create offense off pick-and-rolls and be a great spot-up shooter. He flows quite well with Lowry on the floor, so perhaps he could return to coming off the bench with Lowry or with Nash and be a Von Wafer type player (but with better skills, of course). It's not so bad, really. Yao would have to learn how to expect Nash passes though...
I think the best Yao played was in December 2006 before he got injured. He had turned into something about as unstoppable as Shaq for a stretch of several games. He had turned into an absolute monster. He was a beast pretty much that entire season before he got hurt. He was putting up 25-35 pts and double digit rebounds regularly.
He can still score like that if Adleman runs JVG's plays. Get the ball and shoot, instead of waiting for double team then pass. Overall shooting percentage will be down a little though. Yao's touches are much less in RA's system, that's the only reason he looks less dominant. His offensive efficiency is up, instead of down. Yao used to have more defensive rebounds without Scola in the starting line up. His offensive rebounding is improved compare to JVG era.
Yao's more of a role player now, which fits with what Morey and Adelman envision for their center position. We'll see how that works out come playoff time.
The interviewers and Morey should have known or noticed by now that Tmac is the reason the Rockets have not been playing well and should look to trade him in the future. It's pretty obvious we have the lineup we want now.
this was a terrific interview. definitely needs to be bumped up. anyone who read the recap instead of listening needs to just listen to it.
yao pre-injury 2 years ago gave me hopes he's become a shaq v.2. now he doesn't (not saying it's necessarily a bad thing for the team and even maybe for himself). the reason yao's offensive rebounding is up is mainly because "everybody go back once the shot is up to prevent fastbreaks" was the philosophy under jvg. adelman changed that day one he's here.
Thoughts on the podcast: *Morey seems to be someone really easy to work with. Its very rare to see a GM give interviews to the press, and yet he seems to be open to everyone-from BS to the 1560 guys. Judging from what I heard in the 1560 interview, all it took was a text and he was ready for the interview lol. *He's also one of the most cautious people I've ever seen. He never lets his guard down even a second, and wouldn't say anything that might be taken against him (Tmac issue, Jazz issue, etc). I think he was annoyed by Tmac though, and I highly doubt he would resign Tmac if it was up to him. *It looks like both he and BS really don't believe in the Wages of wins dude, and I agree because that guy sucks. I might have imagined it but they also took some subtle shots at Mark Cuban's "all star" system (well DM was subtle at any rate, BS called Cuban's system "wonky" lol) *Looks like DM is a gambler what with the Battier trade and the Artest trade and now the Lowry trade, which I think is strange because most stat guys are cautious guys. This leads me to believe we won't be trading tmac next season. I think DM would prefer to let Tmac's contract expire and see what he could get in free agency
