sure, the rockets would love to have him if the grizzlies want Maurice Taylor in exchange for gooden. other than that, no deal. cato is better than gooden. gooden is just a 12pt avg scorer at best who can't shoot from the outside or bangs inside. rockets don't need another scorer who's not really good at doing that. do the rockets want another eddie griffin?
Um.. why wouldn't they do this trade? First of all... they get another big man Cato (Who in the east will dominate the boards) Lorenzen isn't playing very well and doesn't log that many minutes for them.. they get a reliable back up PG Moochie... and they get a future SF in Nachbar, who possibly will shine with Gasol teaching him the ropes. IN addition they get future picks... They also get rid of Knight's contract.. Swift was going to leave for free agency anyways so no loss there.. and Gooden is packaged to compensate. seems like some of the posters here thinks its a bad trade for us and wouldn't do it.
Gooden was going real good early in the season....then the worse thing in the world happened on December 11th...he went 4-4 from 3 point range and now he thinks he is going to earn his dough in the league with his jump shot instead of his hustle, defense, and rebounding. He has a lot of potential right now but I think he is going down the slippery slope of becoming a tweener. Too slow to defend SFs and too soft to go inside. I hope he gets dealt along with everyone else on this team not named Pau or Shane with a contract that goes past 2004.
I am not for trading EG for Gooden because I think EG’s reach is significantly longer and he has more filling out to do relative to his frame, and we need a defensive protoype four. But quite honestly it isn’t like EG has been much, if any, more impressive overall than Gooden. There is less than 1 year difference in age, and EG has had an extra year of pro ball, yet Gooden scores a lot more and shoots much better from the field. Gooden is also a better on the ball defender and gets more steals—though EG gets a lot more blocks and is a much better weak side defender. You can say, well, DG’s team is much worse thus this should reflect poorly on him, but last year, when EG got more minutes than he does now, the Rockets were even worse than the Grizzlies are now. And the criticism MephisX lays on Gooden (that he has regressed by thinking he should just stand back on lauch 3s) is a frequent criticism we have of Griffin. Again, I am not for this trade, but it isn’t the nobrainer may think it is. DG: Born: 09/24/81 Height: 6-10 Weight: 230 lbs. EG Born: 05/30/82 Height: 6-10 Weight: 232 lbs. DG YEAR G GS MPG FG%3P%FT%OF DF RPG APG SPG BP TO PF PPG 2-3 46 29 26.8 .453 .316 .70 2.2 3.9 6.0 1.3 .80 .46 2.2 2.4 12.7 EG 1-2 73 24 26.0 .366 .330 .74 1.6 4.1 5.7 0.7 .23 1.8 .64 1.6 8.8 2-3 42 33 24.9 .399 .330 .61 1.7 4.5 6.1 1.1 .52 1.9 1.1 2.1 8.6
