Good offseason moves, but can we get some guards now??

How many roster spots do we have left? NBA-ready or not, we've got a guard heavy roster at this point, and we are dead in the water if Yao goes down.

I like watching Phoenix play too, but the small ball lineup is more the exception than the rule in this league. And if we shoot like we did last year, Yao's gonna need help on the offensive boards. It's time to get the best 4/5 we can get our hands on.

 

i think the gameplan is to have the ability to play "small ball" or "smashmouth" whenever necessary. flexibility, in a word.

having 8 "guards", most of whom are multipositional players, allows for this luxury. the frontcourt is a different question. of our 3 power forwards...

jho: can play 4 or 5 but sux at both
battier: can play 3 naturally and 4 situationally, and brings a good j
hayes: can only play 4, and is undersized for that.

a good 4/5 player that can rebound and shoot the 3 would be the ideal solution, but we don't have that player on our roster and that type of player, to my knowledge, is not available around the L. the closest thing i can find is lo wright, because he can play 4 or 5 and is a decent rebounder. problem is, he cannot shoot.

 

eddie griffin is another option, but no one will want to touch the ball after he caresses it.

 

I have a different take. Battier and Howard have their limitations in playing the PF, but they are proven NBA players. Hayes looks like a solid situational sub as well--we know what he can do and what he can't. As a group they should be no worse than servicable, and predictable.

But ask me what we are going to get from the 6 guards under contract: Snyder, Head, Alston, Sura, JL3, VSpan and Abuz? One for sure has starter talent, but has been given away for almost nothing, twice. One is a 2nd year tweener who may be too small to be starting quality at the 2 and not enough handles for the 1, one PG whose career shooting is below 40% and has been a malcontent, one who was solid and tough but also slow 2 years ago farther from age 35/pre injury ago, plus 3 others who have never done anything in the NBA, at all.

So I would say our PF spot has limitations, but I'd sure like to have comparable talent/proven play to Battier/Howard/Hayes at the SG and PG spots. We have so many guards because we have no idea whether any are worth a darn for this team.

 

Nobody is left for us to get. Who do u suggest?

 

How about Dajuan Wagner? He's healthy now and can really score.

 

recruit that chinese young guard Chen Jianghua

 

Nice article on Dajuan Wagner. Remember this guy was the 6th pick in the 2002 NBA Draft and is a scoring machine. He is not a point guard, but he is the type of guy that can score in bunches of the bench a la Mike James, Barbosa, etc. He would come cheap because he is trying to get back into the NBA. He sat out all of last year because he had his colon removed. That is why he was sick all of the time with Cleveland.



http://www.courierpostonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060808/SPORTS/608080361/1002

 

Welcome to earth, mr.mars~

 

You are much higher on Howard than I am at this point in his career. He is a little better than nothing for a few minutes and actually runs the plays called. I weight unproven higher than a little better than nothing. I don't have a problem with Hayes and Battier, but would like a backup PF that could play center. I'm not a fan of Howard at center.

I am not concerned with SG. The Rockets will get 8-15 minutes from TMac and/or Battier at the 2. Head, while not an ideal SG, showed me more at the 2 than Hayes and Howard last year at the 4. I haven't seen much of Snyder, but my confidence in his backups causes me no immediate concerns at SG.

PG is the scariest postion for the Rockets as it doesn't have a player like Battier. Span and JLIII to me are in the same boat as Hayes. I don't know what to expect with long NBA minutes from all three players. I have less concern with Hayes than JLIII or VSpan as backups, but have more concern with Hayes than VSpan and JLIII combined as odds are one will be adequate as a backup.

Alston needs a short leash and is the scary part. If he can find his shot that he left in Toronto and Miami, he'll be an adequate starting PG. If he plays like last year, it will be a long season for the Rocks at PG. Starting PG and 3rd string PF are the biggest needs with the Rockets. I doubt the Rockets can fix the PG spot, as the starter is the problem. Having a third PF/C to help when the Rockets are in foul trouble or are banged up a little is something the Rockets may be able to do.

 

We are on the same page with the PG concern.

But I still am happier with the 4 spot than the 2 spot. I much prefer Tmac and Battier not get any minutes at SG. Battier is slow for an SG, and Tmac has to work a lot harder as an SG.

I don't think Howard is a good starter, but I do think Howard makes a well above average back-up 4/5. Howard has played some center--he has the girth for it (really close 250-260lbs, not what he is listed at). He never had to here because we had Deke and Swift as back-ups. I think Deke and him can mix and match for Yao's back-up minutes depending if we are going offense or defense (or they can play at the same time with Howard at the 4)--Deke can give us 10MPG and Howard can average 5MPG at center along with his 15-20 at back-up PF.

Hayes I see as merely a hustle guy with some athleticism, but I see no reason why we can't get 10-15 minutes of productivity based on last year. However Head, unlike Hayes, requires shooting well (more vulnearable to losing confidence) and wing players can more be exploited once teams focus on the strengths and weaknesses of their skill set. Head could go up or down from where he was last year, but I don't think Hayes will go down because his game is so much less based on confidence or skill sets.

 

how much money do we have left from our MLE?
b/c, according to the Sacramento Bee, the Rocky Mountain News is implying that Bonzi might be available for cheap for one season. can someone say '3rd Scorer in a Contract Year?'


http://www.sacbee.com/static/weblogs/sports/kings/archives/003585.html

"Perhaps, as the Rocky Mountain News has suggested, he’ll take a one-year contract at the $3 million-per-year range with the Denver Nuggets to, essentially, delay his free agency and try again next offseason."

 

Ya but we only have a chunk of the MLE, much less than Denver has to offer, i think Bonzi is going to Denver one way or another. Q Rich is available from New York but if we dont want Tmacs back issues we sure dont want his. Plus his scoring has been down since his last year in a Clippers uni, looks like a Mo Taylor to me.

 

thanks. yeah i agree - there's been so much talk linking Bonzi with Denver that he's bound to end up there, either for the long-term or the short-term. i was just curious about how much we had, though, b/c $3M sounds a lot closer to our price range than $6M-8M, and Bonzi would be that 3rd scorer to shut half the BBS the hell up. i'm gonna post that link in another thread to see if anyone knows exactly how much we have. maybe one of those kids that's not at work can calculate it out.

 

MLE is $5.2M.

Minus ~$2M for Spanoulis & ~$1M for Lucas leaves us with somewhere around $2-2.5M IINM.