EXACTLY my thoughts. always loved lowery but its a mistake at this point to bring him back due to the reasons u ve mentioned. Totaly agree with you here
Fumes!:grin: Sorry, couldn't pass that up. I'd love to have Lowery & would be ok with Gasol. However, Gasol only has 3 years max left in this league & probably would rather finish up with Mark in Memphis.
No he's not. He really struggles at lateral movement, hedging and defending outside. He's of course a very good post defender, and has the length to annoy the Nowitzki's / Aldridge's. I absolutely think that potential signings as Lowry & Pau would improve our team more than a Melo arrival. Not only those operations by themselves. You would be saving other assets as Jones, 1st pick, to improve more the team. Also speaking about Harden defense, I think there are better chances he improves his level having a true leader like Kyle next to him who pressures him every day at practice and who leads by example, than bringing in Carmelo, who gives similar effort level. *If our D was not good enough with Asik + Pat + Dwight, you can imagine our issues with Melo.
I agree with the majority of your post, but the underlined is just insanely funny. Decent value? A 3yr 15mill contract for one of the better PG's in the league? That's not decent value, that's a travesty! His value, and what we are willing to pay him might not be the same, but I seriously doubt that DMorey see's Lowry as a 5mill a year player! ....... ....... .......
I think you're probably right. Morey probably sees Lowry as a 4/35 to 4/40 player. And that is probably more than what Morey wants to pay to take the risk of Lowry as he goes into his 30's and puts on few more pounds, becomes a little slower, and more injury prone. I don't think there's any way Lowry's market falls to 3/15. Someobody is going to give him $8 million or more per season. But I'll be shocked if it's Morey.
They are? It takes two to tango. While I expect Asik to be dumped, I'm less confident about Lin going anywhere unless the Rockets sweeten the trade. As for as getting a super star, I'm not getting my hopes up, because too many factors would have to click together perfectly.
Kyle Lowry is not a $10M per year player. He is a max player who won't get paid the max. Kyle Lowry has the heart of a champion. And you cannot teach the heart of a champion.
Is Pau a FA this offseason? Can't remember if he has one more year or not And I would take Kyle at 4/40 all day especially if you've move out Lin for the capspace with a sign and trade
While a lot of blame goes to Harden, quite frankly, other than those three defenders, all the Rockets players don't play defence well, which is just too much to overcome for a team defence.
1. But Harden is the worst by far. Guys like Parsons or Lin lack the lateral quickness to be great defenders, but they at least pay attention and does enough to stay with their guys to give help a chance to arrive. Harden is the one making inattentive mistakes that end up in free runs at the basket and wide open Js which the rest of the guys don't even have a chance to provide help on. He is the one with the famous youtube clips and the team-worst defensive xRAPM (http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/teams/HOU.html and the ESPN's version of xRAPM, "Real Plus Minus")-- none of the other Rockets rotation guys come close (except the semi-rotation guy Aaron Brooks, who was traded to Denver-- http://stats-for-the-nba.appspot.com/teams/DEN.html -- I mean, yikes... -5.19?). Neither of the clips nor the xRAPM conclusively proves Harden's horrible defense, but when several types of information converge to tell the same story, one has to at least consider the likelihood that they are right. 2. Perhaps more important, Harden is the guy you have a difficult time benching because he is so good on offense. You can sit Lin for Beverley if Lin struggles in a particular matchup. Last year's team didn't have a good replacement for Parsons but you can probably find some MLE type guy on the free agent or trade market to spell him for a stretch, perhaps even in crunch time. But if Harden is on your roster, he is playing 37-40 mpg, and probably all of the crunch time minutes unless he is injured. This will happen even if you sign Trevor Ariza and trade for Tony Allen. And for those minutes, you are living with his defense, whatever level it is at.
Did you forget how the Gasol/Howard front court worked in LA? Spoilers : not well. And besides, I don't think Gasol would come here to try that experiment again, nor would I want him for his presumed asking price (probably around 10 mil at least) .
