Is Patrick Patterson Our Swing for the Fences Pick?

Destroyed by T-Mac? You must not have been a fan for very long.

Bostjan Nachbar, Bryce Drew, Eddie Griffin, Jason Collier, Mirsad Türkcan, Rodrick Rhodes all say hi!

 

You're comparing PP to David Carr and yet still calling PP a solid player? If PP is a solid nba player then he will never be a David Carr.

 

some of you really need to think a lil deeper with this pick. I think this is a GREAT GREAT pick. The guy has a wingspan of 7'1. He is shorter at 6'9 but that wingspan allow him to be extraordinary versatile. His wingspan and leaping ability he is anything but undersized. With all that said, I think this team is well position into the future. I trust in MOREY. He will swing hard for a top free agent this summer. Pair that with what we have and go hard for a "WIN IT ALL" this year. If all fail, our future is bright. After this coming season Yao will either resign at a cheaper rate or gone. The rox will end up with a mixture of young core and few veterans that are well position to win games.

 

Geez... You are really underrating Patterson's efficiency and upside...

 

My guess is that Patterson doesn't have as high a ceiling as a lot of the 1st rounders but probably has a higher floor, making him a somewhat safe pick and likely a valuable asset.

In other words, he doesn't have as much bust potential as some of the players taken after and even ahead of him.

Again, this is just my impression.

 

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Spoiler

Prepare your family for a visit from Derek Tavern.

 

You're just mad they didn't draft Larry Sanders.

Notice how The Rockets Value a players ability to contribute right away, his maturity, versatility and athleticsm.

He's the most NBA ready PF in the draft so I guess that's something Morey and RA value. He was also BPA so no need to reach for "potential" when you have a Pro player staring right at you.

 

What's wrong with a good pick? Also, David Carr was a bust, not a good pick.
This kid was picked 14th, Carr was picked 1st overall? Do you know which boxes are being checked? And how can you judge that Ed Davis has better talent then Patterson? Unless you're an insider and you know exactly how the Rockets are quantifying talent or you're a fortune teller, there's really no way you can tell. I also don't see the connection with Tracy McGrady. If Les is still heartbroken and can't make a decision on a lottery pick based on Mcgrady's breakup with the Rockets, Daryl needs to place a call to Dr. Phil.

 

a cleverly disguised "we shoulda taken Larry Sanders" post. we took the best player available. Was it safe? yeah probably, but at the same time, its pretty damn logical.

Only time will tell, but I believe in Morey and can't wait to see what this kid can do.

 

No one knows if this guy will be any good or not, including the Rockets. Jordan Hill has played one year in the NBA and people are still debating whether he will be any good or not. I don't think many people believe Patterson will be a superstar, but he was the 14th pick not the 1st pick. Teams can't always "swing for the fences" with every draft pick. Whiteside is probably a swing for the fences type of pick, but he may turn out to be a complete dud. Patterson seems to be guy who should be able to contribute fairly soon and that may be what the rockets wanted.

 

For most of my basketball fan lifetime, I'd agree with you here. But not anymore. I have seen way too many "high potential" players never even having a chance to reach that so called potential because they lack intelligence.

Steve Francis may be considered a "high ceiling" player by most. But is that really true? The man had very little IQ, and could not play winning basketball to save his life. Eddie Griffin had godly measurables, yet decided he was a 3 point shooter for some reason.

In order to truly be great, you need to be a smart player. And Patterson has that in spades. And he has the measurables to go along with that IQ, as well as the mentality to be a team player(willing to sacrifice stat and draft position to help the team). To me, Patterson has as good a chance as any outside the top 5 to be a star.

 

OMR: I've never seen Larry Sanders play, so I'm assuming Sanders is more of a high risk/reward type. I think an argument against drafting projects that need more development time is that good nba-ready players on rookie contracts are particularly valuable as assets because you tend to get production that outperforms their contract value significantly, and the faster they are ready to contribute, the more value you get out of them. The risk with taking Sanders, (or a more extreme example Whiteside) isn't just that his floor is lower, but that even if he does eventually become a better player than Patterson, if he takes too long to develop he will not be worth it (eg. spends 2 years in D-league, only starts outperforming Patterson in 4th year and becomes a free agent demanding $$ after that). Sanders might be much more nba-ready than the example I gave (I don't know), so it might be a "greyer" decision than that, just laying out the argument against taking high upside projects.

 

Dorsey is better than Hill

 

Daryl Morey said in his press that Patterson will be a solid NBA starter, and maybe more...

I'll go with that.

 

With all the pre-draft rumors about trading up, I think it became anti-climactic when we actually drafted at #14. If you listen carefully to DM's post-draft conference, I think he intimated they really wanted Favors and Cousins except that they knew they would be gone very early. What could they do? No one, including Kahn, wanted to trade down. After that, PP was the BPA as well as someone who could become part of the rotation right away.

The "swing for the fences" move will come with FA, and if nothing comes of it, because "prices are higher than they've ever been" then we just have to be patient and trust DM and the organization to make the wisest move. With our current roster, if we don't get Bosh, we only need a center to back up Yao and we're good to launch.

 

From what we hear from Morey and co., I'm starting to think that Patterson actually has better upside than realized before.

In Kentucky, the early scouting reports told us he's a bad defender, slightly undersized, doesn't have that much range on his shot, can't rebound etc. Years go by and he adds a 3-point shot, learns to defend solidly in the post and even some in the perimeter and turns out to have a great reach for his size. Even his rebounding can't be that bad if he can grab almost 10 per 40min alongside a dominant college rebounder.

He is a hard worker with a good iq so I don't see why his improvements have to stop here. He is also only a few months older than say, Hassan Whiteside so the Joey Dorsey logic doesn't fit that well either.

Now, Sanders on the other hand, is older, doesn't really have an any kind of nba caliber offensive game, his position in the nba is in doubt as is his ability to guard quick 4's and strong 5's. His shotblocking has declined every year and with all this talk about his athleticism, he can't get off the ground any better than the "fatboy" Cousins. Yet, we should assume that this guy has better pro potential?

Now, I liked Larry Sanders and wouldn't really have complained if we got him, but I really can understand why they went with Patterson.

 

I think the Rockets have taken good character guys for the most part, with the only risk being Donte Greene, which they soon flipped for Ron Artest (clearly not a character guy).

I think Morey is gathering as many quality assets as he can so that he can try to get a superstar player, I don't think they want to wait or try to hit a homerun from the draft, unless you are drafting 1 or 2, usually the players that blow up into star players take a couple of years to get there.

We already have a couple of them in Brooks, Budinger and Hill.....will they blow up? Probably not, but they might.

So, to me, this was about a guy that they may flip, or they may be trading Hill and this is their replacement for him....

I completely think this was 100% asset management, and not "Swing for the fences" as the op suggests.

As much as we hear about them not drafting for need, with Scola's a free agent, and Hill our only other quality big, they needed more size.

DD