Paghett played well here last season and it is unfortunate that we have to let him go. There is no reason to hate him, guys! Don't be as childish as Magic or Lakers fans!
what's with the resentment? the guy played well for us and had an extremely good plus/minus of +9.4. he was very valuable to us. in fact, his skill set (hitting 3's) was about as good as you could hope for from a minimum contract guy who is the backup PF on a team with two guys, yao and tmac, who can create open looks for others. on offense, either the pf wouldn't come out to guard him and he drained 3's, or the pf stayed with him and the middle was opened up. on defense the backup pf usually didn't have any offensive skill and thus couldn't score on padgett. it was the best of both worlds, and why he was so valuable and had such a good plus/minus. maybe he isn't good enough to be a backup pf for a championship team unless you have a kg or td already at pf, but he was damn good for us and did all you can ask. with swift around, it was unlikely there would be any pt for him, but with phoenix's thin squad, there should be the 10-15 minutes per game available he was getting with us. plus they should be a successful team and it's also a team loaded with guys to draw defenders and leave him open for 3's so it's a great situation. if they gave him multiple years, even better. i hope things go well for him. p.s. i presume PT is why we kept bowen and not padgett. bowen isn't good enough to get any and thus can accept not getting any from us, whereas padgett is good enough for a little and thus probably didn't wanna ride the pine all year. it certainly wasn't bowen's magical playoff performance full of dropped passes and blown layups that got him back on the team. we even stopped using him to guard dirk after the first 2 games.
None of those guys are going to be on the bench this year most likely so why does that mean we should have re-signed Padgett?
I would not have second-guessed management for so doing. So, assuming you are right about the bench-clearing for roster spots, yes I would have kept him because we need those types of smart players who can come off the bench and provide a steal here, a three there and a little grit over yon.
No resentment whatsoever. He's a nice guy but this is a very small story to me. Losing him will not hurt our team one iota and that's all I'm concerned about. If Sura, Wesley, Barry or James get traded or don't re-sign, I will miss them and say so. Padgett is just lower on my totem pole and there are no warm and fuzzies. I wish him the best except when he plays us. I would have taken the money too.
Wasn't it the Suns game in which he made all those threes? It is interesting how a one game splash can sell a team on a player i.e. Swift's dunk on Ming.
I am OK for his leaving, but I really liked his attitude on court. I am sad he will sigh with SUNS though.
I liked Padgett. I'm a UK fan, so I was thrilled to get him. I was hoping he would stay, but he needs to feed his family so - oh well.
The people who are overly unconcerned about the departure are makign a mistake. No, Scott Padgett isn't a great player. But he is a useful one. We lost a useful player. Whenever you lose a useful player, you get a little worse that day. And they're not as replaceable as you think. There are too many guys out there who don't work hard enough, don't know their role (Jim Jackson!), or just don't quite fit for whatever reason. I'm sad he's gone. The Rockets aren't quite as good without him as they were with him. Hope they can find a good replacement.
