relative to Philly's side of the trade, we are a full grade away from them. Philly gave up Art Long and Bryant? We gave up Kenny in a lateral move at best. That's a B in my book. Look at it this way, Philly lost absolutely nothing. How often do you do such a lopsided trade? If we still had Kenny right now, we would be in much, much better position to trade Eddie or Mo. Plus, I am almost convinced JVG would get Kenny and MoT on the court together, anyhow, just like KT and Van Horn. Thus, looking at it that way, with a different system, we might not have had a SF gap anyhow, especially if Boki ever produces. It's a B. Philly side is an A.
heypartner, I guess I can really only go by how it effects our team. I never liked the fact that we gave up a draft pick plus KT for Posey. Before the trade I had KT as the better player. Since Posey has been in Houston I was one of his biggest critics but the last month or so of the season he was just awesome IMO. KT is a warrior no doubt but he was over matched on most nights against the Duncans of the world even though he usually had his moments. At small forward I don't think we really ever got to see how good it could have been but I don't think KT is as good of a small forward as Posey. From my perspective Posey played the way the Rockets brass expected him to play in the last month of the season. If he continues to play like that then our 3 spot is locked up for the next several years. I think as long as KT was manning either the small forward or power forward position for the Rockets we would always be looking for an upgrade. KT is seen as a tweener (although a good one) at least in the west.
I probably have to agree will HP on this one because if we didn't trade Kenny last season, we probably will beat the Suns for the last playoff spot & that will change/affecting the whole perspective/decisions right now...
Good points, I agree with this for now. But if we sign Posey starting at 3.5 or 4 million over like 5 years I give us a B+ or better. We will see. I just don't by this. Each bit we gained by replacing EG or MoT's minutes with KT's we more than would have lost by having to play Tmo, Hawkins and Rice (when available) instead of Posey. At the end of the season Posey and MoT were major factors in use closing on the Suns (and Jazz) at one point. Francis and Yao largely couldn't close the deal--but the role players were playing well enough. KT is not enough of an upgrade over how MoT was playing then to make up the loss of Posey IMO.
FYI, the 76ers gave up a 1st round pick to Denver in the trade. Not just spare parts. For the 76ers it was a "win now" move. For the Nuggets, they were going to lose Posey anyway so it was a good move for them just to pick up an extra draft pick. For the Rockets we had a glut of PFs and needed to shore up the SF position. We did this. Good trade all the way around I think.
Desert Scar, If you look at the bigger picture... the Wins & Losses instead of individual stats & brilliance... we won more games & was in position to get into the playoffs before the trade... if we kept Kenny & let the chemistry develop, good things will come & players will also have higher trade values after having some playoff experience...
The key was Griffin having to play more. You could've played KT at 3 and Mo at 4 for stretches. Griffin being on the court and getting abused constantly hurt the playoff chances. Watch the Utah game when the lights went out. Your power forward getting tossed around like that without a fight is a demoralizer. The difference b/t Hawkins and Posey was almost nothing for most of the year. Also you have to factor in the team having to adjust to a new player, whereas Kenny had been there for 3 years. All IMO, of course.
I don't think so, I think the apparent "chemistry" was Yao being relatively fresh and causing lot of problems to our opponents. Once he got worn out, the other guys couldn't pick up the slack. As with other more role oriented players like Posey, MoT and even Mobley, I don't think KT could have carried us there either, it was up to Francis after Yao started to fade majorly with the to lead a team to the WC playoffs and he couldn't/didn't do it. I agree EG was often getting abused and I was very dissappointed in his season, but IMO EG nonetheless can do some positive things for longer minutes relative to Tmo or Hawkins. Plus, we had MoT there for when the EG match-up was really bad--a vet of that quality we didn't have most of the season at the 3 spot. Regarding Hawkins, he is a nice find and good to have as the 9th man and spot 10-15 hustle player if needed--but if Rudy thought he could do it for 30 minutes we never would have pulled the KT trade. Again IMO Hawkins has even less capability to handled 25 or so minutes on the floor w/o his weaknesses starting to majorly hurt an NBA team (this is why he is still fighting for a job with us and doesn't have any other teams beating on his door either) than is true for Griffin. As for the KT experiment at the 3--I would have been all for it, but obviously Rudy wasn't. He didn't even do it much early season either when we didn't have Mo as well as when Rice was injured. Just like the Cato/Yao bigmen combination--for whatever reasons, on target or not--even is close to desperate circumstances Rudy didn't want to try those moves.
