I swear to God, I will never understand why there are Rockets fans who are down on Battier. Every other team in the NBA will happily take him off of your hands.
The Battier trade discussion is sort of a catch 22: Rockets fans keep hearing how every NBA team would love to take him off our hands, but we can not get a star for him. So why would we trade him? He went overboard with the "soft, unathletic" comment, but if teams want him that bad, make us an offer that makes it worth it for us to trade him.
Agree that the Miller signing was terrible when it happened and is screwing up that team badly. The poor negotiations in the offseason with Roy couldn't have helped.
IMO Blazers aren't giving up Pryz when their frontcourt is as soft as it is already. Anyway, I hope the Blazers keep their players, especially if it keeps them from reaching their full potential.
The only people who are down on him are the ones who look at box scores to tell them what they need to know about the sport. Anybody who has ever played team sports understands the value that a guy like Battier brings to your team. Tough, gritty player who is willing to sacrifice anything and everything for a win, including his own personal statistics. He's basically the new version of the Junkyard Dawg.
Miller was a good signing. Turkoglu would have been great but he reneged. Signing Milsap was a mistake, but Utah bailed them out by matching. They wouldn't have had cap space next year, so at least they put it to good use by signing a very underrated PG with leadership skills. Blake will not be there long-term. I never thought Miller was a good fit for them, but he can easily be traded if it doesn't work out.
I bet they wouldn't give up a top 8 lotto pick for him. I'm probably the most critical battier guy on the board, but I know he's a valuable guy, but not the price tag the rox paid. I can go back 20 yrs and a top 10 lotto pick has never been traded for a guy with battiers production. If you want swift and a 2nd, cool. If you want swift and next yrs #1, I might do that. If you want the #8 and swift, u have to get more than just shane. I mean nuggets4, u guys got camby and nene for mcdyess coming off 20-10 right? Camby was coming off a good season and nene was a lotto pick for a all star. That's the kind of deal u trade a top lotto pick for.
Exactly. Love Shane, but price was too much for him at the time. Doesn't take anything away from Shane and what he has done here, but I agree.
Are you serious about what's in bold? You are not suggesting that you'd prefer Budinger to shoot over Roy, are you? If you have a Roy on your team, he gets the ball and shot. Roy also sets up his teammates pretty well by the way which would actually be beneficial to a player like Budinger. Roy is proven to be special and let's be honest Yao and inexperience were major reasons that their season ended in the first round. That guy is a winner and will be in this league. He's also that finisher down the stretch that none of our currently playing Rockets have done consistently so far. This logic kinda reminds me of the mistake that was made when Barkley was brought to the Rockets. He on the offensive was a detriment to Hakeem's game on the offensive end (i.e., being pushed out to the top of the key or sometimes three point line. And I still don't understand that logic!!)
The guy you were replying is making fun of DD's "dominating the ball" logic regarding Tmac, and why that style of play is not conducive to winning. I'd really like it if DD comes here and explains why he's advocating a trade for Roy when he's clearly not an "off the ball" type of player.
Relax buddy, he was joking. He was simply making fun of DD with his "T-mac is not conducive to winning since he has to have the ball in his hands" bs that he spouts every single day.
Andre Miller might be a large reason why Oden has emerged so far this season, but I'm not sure; I've only seen them play the Rox so far. If nothing else, they have plenty of trade assets in Portland. I'd love to get Fernandez on the Rockets, but they'd probably ask for Aaron Brooks in return. Since Aaron would be perfect on his hometown team, I'd balk at that. As much as I admire the Blazers, I keep thinking of the team as the one that stole both Brandon Roy and Rudy Fernandez from us. Argh.
8th Overall NBA Draft Picks Year Player 2009 Jordan Hill 2008 Joe Alexander 2007 Brandan Wright 2006 Rudy Gay 2005 Channing Frye 2004 Rafael Araujo 2003 TJ Ford 2002 Chris Wilcox 2001 Sagana Diop 2000 Jamal Crawford 1999 Andre Miller 1998 Larry Hughes 1997 Adonal Foyle 1996 Kerry Kittles 1995 Shawn Respert 1994 Brian Grant 1993 Vin Baker 1992 Todd Day 1991 Mark Macon 1990 Bo Kimble 1989 Randy White 1988 Rex Chapman 1987 Olden Polynice 1986 Ron Harper 1985 Detlef Schrempf 1984 Lancaster Gordon 1983 Antoine Carr 1982 Clark Kellogg 1981 Tom Chambers 1980 Andrew Toney I'm somewhat tired of debating that Gay trade but some people need to look at what historically teams have gotten out of these later lottery picks. Now let's look at that list and we can quit pretending that every guy you are going to get is a star. I would argue that Battier is better than average player drafted with a 8th pick, even more so when there seems to be a tendency to overrate offensive production. (For example if and when you have to pay a mediocre basketball player like Rudy Gay +10M$ a season to keep him, that is in my mind ridiculous.) Of course it's always possible to beat your competition and draft better than average but how big is your edge going to be when every team has tons of professionals scouting players for years? I think Morey would be the first to admit that we have been very lucky in recent drafts and exceeded the expected value by far. Same can be said for Spurs, who have drafted very well recently. They are good but their results in drafting IMO can't be sustainable long term. In conclusion, I think we got a fair deal. Dumping Swift's ugly contract and getting quality player back is a good result for trading just the 8th pick. Sometimes it might be possible to find a real sucker but unless you are dealing with the Isaiah Thomases of the NBA constantly, you have to assume that the other team also can value its assets somewaht correctly.
I swear, the ignorance about this pick for so called "Rockets Fans" is absolutely amazing. The Rockets at the time wern't into getting a guy that may or may not pan out some time in the future. They had they're #1 and #2 superstars and were trying to surround them with guys that they know would be good complimentary pieces to win a championship ASAP. You knew what you could get with Shane, especially the fact that he was an effort guy - the type Van Gundy loved. He was also a veteran. Please, I wish people would step back and understand the pick. If we didn't have such injury prone superstars, this stupid conjecture on woulda' coulda' shoulda' would stop.
