Posey was a bigger upgrade at the 3 than Kenny was at the 4 over MoT and EG. Anyone disagree? Then how in the hell does KT get us to the playoffs? He would have been a cancer playing for a contract, knowing all along that he wouldn't sign with us. Keeping KT would have been unproductive, unless he was a part of the future(can make a jumpshot) and we could have moved one of the other PFs.
Exactly, Posey was one of the few Rockets who raised his game the last month or two and got us in a position to nip Phx in the end. I agree KT was/would have been our best PF last year--but Mo/EG were much better replacements than anyone we could have put in the 3 spot in lui of Posey. Ditto on this. IMO if we wouldn't keep Posey, our only respectable starting 3 for 23 mil over 4 years, we certainly would not have matched KT for a 5 or 6 year MLE (like 5 year 30 mil, 6 year 37) and probably not for even an equivalent 4 year MLE deal considering he is just a tad better than our other two options at his position. We lost Posey because we are cheap--that wouldn;t change and wanted to save short term money, that wouldn't have changed not pulling this trade. Looking back 2 things sucks about this mess. 1) we also lost an extra 2nd rounder, not a big deal but you would rather have it, and 2) we didn't sit down with Posey and his agent to work out a slightly lower contract that all parties would have been happy with (maybe 5 years but starting at like 3.5 mil). Both Posey and the Rockets lost the way they gambled hoping they could low ball Posey.
Good Said Desert Scar. The Rockets seriously low balled Posey hoping the market would not be there. Then after it was, the Rockets were screwed! Posey liked Houston by what he said, but Houston gave Posey no reason to show any loyalty. A decent contract offer should have been sufficient to at least show respect to Posey. But I know, GM have to use the cards they are dealt, Carol knew Posey's value to the team and he was going to give him a contract near that vecinity. Problem is than West values Posey more and stoked Posey's ego, which is perfectly fine, because as they say "Money talks and bull $hit walks". In this case it was the Rockets tough negotiation that did the walking.
I said it. KT was a better 4 than MoT and Eddie and he was a better 3 than Posey. KT played the 3 for Philly and did so for us on occasion. I thought KT could have complimented MoT like he did VanHorn. I know some of you will say that KT couldn't cover some of the better 3's in the league. But who can cover KG or Dirk? However, I bet KT does a better job on those two guys than EG, MoT, or Posey. And name a 3 in the league besides KG that can cover KT in the post. With KT on the team, we would have made the playoffs. We were better before the trade than after the trade. Now that Posey is in Memphis, we missed out on the playoffs for nothing.
I love the Kenny Thomas ultra green grass that grows over on the philly side of the fence these days. If only Kenny Thomas were on the Rockets, then we wouldn't have a 400 billion dollar budget deficit.... ....his 10 points a game were far superior to Posey's 10 points a game, because Posey's points all came with a .25 punk-ass beyatch deduction, whilst Kenny's came with a .25 "hard worker" bonus..... yawn.
KT's a good player but demanded the ball to score with the Rockets. Yao, Cat and Francis are enough ISO options and better than KT. KT was the odd man out on offense. It was just a matter of time to trade him.
KT was never going to be the PF we needed to take us deep into the play-offs. He was a black hole on the offensive end and wasn't a great rebounder/defensive stopper either. Getting rid of KT instantly made more shots for Yao and more importantly, gave us the opportunaty to pursue the pf of our future. This happens to be Eddie, however, those plans haven't exactly worked as of yet. Mo, to me, posesses some real game and we saw that by the way he took KG to school last season. Disapline will do both these guys wonders IMO.
Posey is a better offensive 3 than KT and a better defensive 3 against most players. In fact for the Rockets Posey had a better FG%, drew more fouls, much better FT%, much better offensive efficiency numbers (PPS, adj FG%) and infinetely shoots better from 3 land. KT might be the better overall player, but I don't think too many people can objectively say KT is the better small forward for the Rockets than James Posey. If KT had SF shooting and scoring skills and was a natural 3 you can be sure we would not have made that trade. It does totally suck we gave up KT and #2 for Posey and then lost Posey for nothing though, what dumb decisions by the org. If we didn't plan on resigning Posey for MLE money (we had to figure another team would at least offer an MLE going into that trade and some teams could offer more) we should have just traded KT for an expiring contract and a #1 pick. Than at least instead of losing KT and a #2 for nada, we would have kept our #2 with a #1 on the way.
Agreed. We weren't going to cough up to pay KT long-term, so the deal was pretty even. We could play "What if?..." scenarios all day (and I do, believe me!), but it wasn't a bad trade for the Rox.
Why hasn't anyone stated (or restated, as this is an old topic) the obvious. We had a glut at the 4 position and were thin at the 3. KT had the most trade value at the time and we still believed in EG's much ballyhooed "potential". The final kicker was the question of whether we would be able to re-sign KT during the summer knowing that he would probably receive far more free agent attention than Posey did. And for the record, I believe both were overpaid; Posey especially. Thus making Jerry West the X factor in this whole discussion.
and KT had a lot of heart. The guy was just flat out a superior defender to Eddie, and that is why Eddie never did nor could not get more minutes. Eddie's inability to hold ground to pretty much any PF was a handicap. Eddie is likely not going to get more minutes than Kenny this year, either, and the 76ers have a bigger logjam at the 3-4 than us. The one thing we had going for us early was defense. No knock on Posey, but the transition period implicit in all trades also set off our defensive chemistry. The emergence of Yao Ming in December hid that for awhile, but January and February brought it to light. By the time Posey was contributing steadily, the whole team was out of synch.
Totally agreed. There were times our D just plain and simply had holes. W/ KT, every4 in the league had to work on us to score. W/ Eddie, he made avg. 4s look like Tim Duncan in the paint. People, its not always the blocks thats important. Its strength, determination, bodying up, will etc. KT was undersized, but most of the time did a decent job. But i still think the trade for KT was inevitable. We had higher expectations from Eddie, just didnt happen. And as for Pose, i have always loved him, and even think he is worth 24 mil. Easy. He was a big upgrade at the 3 spot and kicked ass the last 2 weeks when Stevie was.........nevermind... As far as how does KT get us to the playoffs. HeyParnter just said it. It wasnt KT > Posey. It was more like team chemistry and defense at the 4 being more important than defense at the 3.
Just because Thomas signed a big deal with Philly does not mean he would have signed as big a deal had he not been traded. There are examples of players signing below market value to stay with their team out of loyalty (like Mobley). Thomas may or may not have re-signed with the Rockets for something less than the money Philly gave him. Posey, on the other hand, no longer being a trade-virgin like Thomas would have been, is less likely to show loyalty. I'm not saying the trade was good or bad, only that those pointing at Thomas' deal in Philly are assuming too much.
We didn't lose Posey for nothing. Basically, we traded him for Piatkowski and Griffin, which, IMO, is a pretty good trade.
That's a hoooooorrrrrrrible trade. Adrian Griffin is irrelevant. I'll be shocked if he plays more than 20 minutes. Eric Piatkowski. Who cares. There's no difference between him or Jon Barry or Wesley Person or Voshon Leonard or anybody else who can't do anything other than jack up 3's. These 2 players can't beat out Glen Rice. Enough said.
So Posey is a better player than Glen Rice. If Glen Rice stays healthy, we definitly don't need Posey, so I hope they actually don't beat Rice out, because that would mean he is contributing. Besides defense, you trade off Posey's running the court for Piatowski's outside shot. And you got a good defensive back up. As far as the thread is concerned, Posey definitely helped us out down the stretch last year when he found his niche on the team so we lost the better power forward in Kenny but we upgraded at small forward since Rice couldn't be counted on.
EG sux hard!! im happy for KT, he's got more playin time and his team made the playoffs. Rockets had a decent record when KT was in the lineup, and he hussled unlike EG on pot. KT had game. EG got potential but I'll he can do is block a couple and his shot is too flat! he's too sloooow period, we need a PF with some tenacity and intimidation, id start MoT over EG anyday. he is young and has alot to learn...
