I think the difference maker is not the max players, but rather bad contracts - those players with heavy contracts who can't even sit on the bench, and Rockets have plenty of them. Lots of teams with some heavy contracts, but those players can contribute, while Knicks and Rockets are bad examples. was about to add Cavs, but left it out, glad you added
I pity the Knicks fans. It's really hard to argue that Yao does not deserve the max after you look at this list.
Thanks for the info. So Rockets are not the only team that's hampered by the salary cap, but why couldn't they pull off a decent contract to lure at least player that is most needed, either a sharp shooter or a power forward stud in the offseason?
1. you haven't given a reason why signing him now would be a bad thing 2. yeah, go ahead and show good faith on our part, endorse him as our guy, and get him locked up before anyone else can try to pry him away. just like the suns did. You disagree based on what? You said you didn't even watch the Memphis game. When TMac was on the floor, drawing a double against the Nets, our shooters got open looks and drained them. Our shooters have not had time to take open shots this season. DWes, Barry, DA, et. al are having to pump fake and pass/drive because there's not room for an open shot. Against the Grizzlies, without TMAc penetrating and drawing attention, our perimeter players were covered up. Damno Jones would have been just as covered as anyone of our players. Jones is a 39% three point shooter. Wesley shot 36% last year. Not that big of a difference. And it certainly wouldn't have meant anything with TMac out. Damon would be just as covered coming off the high screen as any of our other players. 15 and 4 with 2 blocks. So what, you're gonna base it on one game? You haven't presented one shred of evidence or even an assertion as to why Stoudemire has made a difference with the Grizzlies. Stoudemire was absolute garbate to start the season from 3. Gasol is averaging 2 more assists and nearly 2 more blocks this season and the Grizzlies are leading the league in points allowed. Funny how you forget to respond to that part. JWill averaged 15 and 4 to Stoudemire's 12 and 4, dont' think Mighty Mouse is the reason they're winning. Oh, well, then you have a REAL strong argument going here. If you had watched the game, you would have seen that the Grizzlies spaced the floor and let the rockets overplay on help defense and kick it to the open man. It had everything to do with the Rockets players overpursuing and the Grizzlies being lights out that night. Saying that Damon would make a difference based on one freak game is assanine. No I don't. I'd rather not have Ryan Bowen as our only back up at the 4. We are a heck of a lot better off this year than we were at the end of the last year. Has Stromile had some problems getting started? Yes. But he's a much bigger asset to this team, especially in the long run, than Damon Stoudemire.
Eh...pretty much all the teams are over the salary cap. It's not the big contracts that are bad. The loooong contracts are the ones that cripple you. I would say Juwan and Rafer are our two worst contracts. We have 5 player contracts that are coming off the books next year: Weatherspoon, Moochie (finally), Wesley, Barry, and Ward
True. But Yao is still playing under his rookie contract (4th year team option). His max contract hasn't cost us a further dime yet, unless you want to factor in the raise that goes with us exercising our team option.
before anyone jumps on me I'm not saying those teams are better than the rockets. but the rockets have the third worst record in the nba right now, no matter how early it is we shouldn't be thumbing our noses at any other fans.
Look at Boris Diaw's stats this year. This guy looks like a elite player averaging 15/6/7.5 and is worth a max contract as well in your concept. He almost triples his stats from what he had in Atlanta last 2 years with only 5 more minutes played. Amare will get nowhere if Rockets swap him with Yao to fit in our current roster and Swift will be as productive as Amare if he is traded to the Suns. Suns have Steve Nash and an outstanding offensive coach, period.
The only team that offered Swift 8 mil/season was the Grizzlies and that was last year. He turned that down, big mistake. I read some posts on this board that he turned down more money to come here. Who were the teams offering more money? The Nets,Sonics, and maybe the Kings are the only teams I can recalled that were interested in Swift. Those teams only had the MLE to offer.
He might not have gotten offers from them, but according to ESPN, Charlotte and Altanta were both considering Swift as well. If they had put an offer sheet together, it would've been for more than the MLE. I dunno if I'll be able to dig up that article again. In any case, we can't really make the argument that we overpaid Swift when he would've gotten MLE money or higher everywhere else. In hindsight, it turned out to be a bad move, but again...that's in hindsight. To tell you the truth, I didn't really like Swift very much and was more of a SAR supporter over the summer. I still think Swift can become a solid contributor. It'll just take a while for him to learn.
