I miss MoT now

Some people can ride the pine and some people cannot. MoT is no kinda pine rider. We had to trade him. Plus we all know he has problems with pot. It's no big loss. We won the title with Chucky Brown and Pete Chilcutt. And those two went thru Barkely, Malone, H.Grant, and Rodman. We can win with Spoon and Padgett too.

 

I'm not sure if I miss Mo T...but it's painful to watch our backup 4s try to step it up. I don't understand how a guy like Ryan Bowen, who is not very talented in the first place, cannot shoot. You would think these guys who are just looking for a contract wherever they can get it would at least have a jumper, which is the easiest thing to learn to do properly in basketball, just takes practice. The Rockets got by Miami because of Dikembe's great effort, but in order to hold on to this 6th spot and fend off Memphis we'll need something more consistent. Hopefully Juwan is back in full force come playoff time. I didn't realize how much he opens up our offense with his top of the key jumpers until now. When our offense is lagging, it's because they clog the middle to keep Yao from scoring and force someone else to shoot. When Juwan is in there, he can be that man to hit a 17 foot shot. Now that he's out, we're forced to have a guard fire a three ball, and it's not as effective. Juwan has his faults...but we really need him down this critical stretch of the season.

 

There's some pretty short-term thinking going on in this thread. I don't get the reasons some people are giving for wishing we still had MoT. Bottom line is that when the deal with NY was done, it was entirely for financial reasons, and to give the Rox some cap room in future seasons they would not have had otherwise - not to make the team better this year. Everyone knew that Baker and Moochie wouldn't get any PT.

So it doesn't really make sense to evaluate the transaction from a short-term perspective. MoT was NOT going to get any significant minutes while Juwan was on the active roster, and to look back after Juwan's injury and say we should have kept him doesn't really add any value. It's not like JH is out indefinitely anyway. I don't see how spending an extra $10 million is worth having MoT start for one month.

 

Some of you sound just like Orlando did right after the season started, saying how they got the better end of the trade... You have to look at the Mo trade longterm not just a month down the line...

 

look at what mo has done in new york.
not a damn thing.
he is a large guy that gives little on the court.

 

I rather have Mooch as a "just in case PG" than motay now. Just in case either Sura or MJ goes down. I will do the trade ten times again knowing what I know now.

It is interesting no one has touched on this. We are more vulnerable and weaker at the point if any of our top two guards go down than Juwan or Padget going down - we can make do with a make shift PF squad/rotation. We all saw how hard it was to get a quality PG that can do even the minimal PG duties as replacement or backup for Sura.

Myopia is indeed a disease. We are still better off without Motay even if Juwan is lost for the season including playoffs. Saving the extra $8M+ for his final year is just gravy on top of landing Mooch. Vin is/was par for the course - heck he can still be used to absorb falls on Shaq or Duncan if need be.

Plus a 2nd round pick? Are you kidding me? We could luck in again into another 'Badman' (our future Amare stopper). Motay for Mooch_Vin_2nd is still too good to be true - FBI or congress needs to look into this.

 

1st, there is a common misperception here. This trade does not get us "cap room". There is little salary relief in 06 (unless Vin opts out of a 3.9 mil pay day to seek more money elsewhere ), and by 07 Yao will be counting close to a max deal. This deal or not, we will be over the cap and have the same exemptions available to us to add free agents.

The practical effects of the deal is it saves Les 10 mil (plus maybe more if there is a lux tax) for 07. Like I said luckily JH will come back or we would have been screwed this season. Would you really want 10 mil in 07 plus a 2nd round pick to kill an otherwise promising season? Do you know how many teams would give up 10 mil and a 2nd round pick to be in the Rockets position this year.

In the end I think it will be OK because I think JH will be back. But we took a major gamble leaving only 1 somewhat aged servicable NBA 4 on the roster because we did the MoT trade.

 

1) Actually we are far better at PG and SG than at PF, even before the MoT trade. It would hurt, but we coud survive Sura/James/Wesley or Barry going down a lot easier than JH because we still have 3 of them to gobble up minutes. Also, Mooch is a not factor, not significantly better than Barrett or Strickland--he is only still on the team because Barrett was easier contract wise to release.

2) It was not a slamn dunk trade at all. It was a big calculate risk leaving the team with only one servicable 4 for long minutes. It will only pay off if JH does come back and is effective in the playoffs--which I am hopefull for. Now had we pulled the trade in the offseason where there was still available servicable 4s to get with the MLE to pair with JH--yes then it would have been a slam dunk. But the timing made it high risk/modest reward--usually the opposite of what you want.

 

THANK YOU!

I've started to write multiple posts that begin with "what part of salary matching in the collective bargaining agreement make you think we got all this magical capspace in the MoT trade" but I end up deleting it.

Nevermind the fact that we did this trade to pad Les's wallet. Although Spoonman had a great game against Miami when we really needed it, I'd feel a LOT more comfortable if we had MoT right now.

And to put it in trade perspective, I'd MUCH rather have MoT starting right now than have Moochie & Vin Baker collecting money for riding the IL/pine. It's not even close.

 

The thing is MoT himself requested a trade though. If we just kept him sitting on the bench at the time, it would serve no purpose other than destroying the team chemistry.

 

So if Tmac has to sit out for 3 or 4 weeks, are people gonna start doggin the trade and say "we should never traded Francis?"

You can't predict injuries, and it makes no sense keeping MoT around with that huge, long contract for "just in case" situations.

Why do you think that no team in the league would touch him? If he was so valuable, someone in need of help at the 4 would have given up something. Instead we basically gave him away. That says a whole hell of a lot.

 

It makes more sense to me to hang on to 1 contributor than to hang on to 2 IL fodders.

 

Using that logic:

Clarence Weatherspoon's last game stats

22mins 4-6FG 0-0 4-4F 0OR 4DR 4R 2AST 4PF 2ST 1BL 12PTS

ain't that bad for a guy that supposedly is slow, fat, and a has-been.

Great argument.

 

The real question is, what loss of a player was more devastating to their team, Tim Duncan or Mo Taylor...

 

Well, if you took that approach and didn't consider salaries relative to contributions, then we could just be called the "Houston Knicks."

 

From the way some people around here are talking, you would think losing Taylor was more devastating.

 

I don't think this trade was primarily about money or what we got back.

JVG has carefully shipped out everyone who doesn't buy into his system and way of doing things. This was addition by subtraction. JVG needed Mo to be gone from the team. Now when anyone is added to the team, there is a new standard of TEAM. Mo was from the old ISO days, and was a black hole. He was very talented, just not a part that now fit. Howard had the same skills, but a very different attitude. JVG probably told Dawson to get whatever he could, but that Mo had to be gone.

 

1.) I think the post was more comparing our team state pre-trade deadline when Sura went down vs. Howard going down. We saw what happened when Sura went down- Strickland/Barrett at PG. Based on the fact Strickland and Barrett have both been waived, and our struggles without Sura all season. As unideal Spoon/Padgett with a sprinkling of TMac, Deke, and Bowen is, it's head and shoulders above Strickland/Barrett.

2.) I disagree here, mainly because I just don't think MoT was going to be a factor for us, Howard injury or not. He hadn't played in over a month. I don't know how much more in the doghouse he could have gotten. As far as JVG was concerned, Taylor was a lost cause, and may have even been becoming a malcontent. You don't keep a guy you think can contribute on the IR for a month with the "flu". That in itself is another issue. If Mo Taylor was for all intents and purposes done as a Rocket, clearing out of his last year plus saving 10 million dollars and an extra year -perhaps allowing Les to give the greenlight to a sign and trade on a multi-year deal, or using the full MLE this season and/or next- this deal was in fact a slam dunk, at least in terms of whether or not to make it. It's not like Mo was a contributor to the team like say Malik Rose to San Antonio.

Mo has had 2 double digit scoring games and 1 game with more than 5 rebounds as a Knick. He has 6 games scoring 2 points or less. He hasn't exactly lit the world on fire.