Rocketman It's no more idiotic than fretting over the use of exclamation points. Oh that was in sarcastic jest. Exclamatory titles are fair game. I can certainly target them for abuse for the same reason they use cap-locks and !!! to make their threads stand out. It is game. Who has the most provocative thread title gets the most looks? I choose to abuse them for that tactic. But, both sides are having fun.
heypartner, I'm assuming you know that I was being sarcastic as well. Haven, if we would have for sure still signed Anderson, I would lean towards agreeing with you. However, I don't think we would have. I would rather have Mobley and Anderson, than just Dickerson.
yeah...I really couldn't tell, though, after thecabbase, whose opinion I like, didn't get my sarcasm, yesterday. Know the reason I respond to possible misunderstanding is cause I like posting with you and don't want any misunderstanding. That goes for anyone else who I jaw with and later concede.
heypartner and rockets34's points just can't be overlooked here. Most of the indications at the time were that the Grizzlies wanted Dickerson. The idea of pairing him with Bibby was too appealing for them. Without that deal we don't get Francis. Or probably Anderson. That's all there is to it, really. Dickerson is a good player. In all honesty, at the time I wanted him more than Mobley. But Mobley is far from a scrub. We lost the pure shooting and kept the competitiveness and agression. I think most of us in here last year were of the impression that if Dickerson was more aggressive he would have been averaging close to twenty then instead of now. A shame, but hey you have to give a little to get a little.
Do you think that we're a very good team? I think the very randomness of our box scores indicates that a consistent scorer like Dickerson would have PLENTY of opportunity to have a high average. One night Kenny scores alot, the next 'Los, then Mobley, then Cato, then Shandon... etc. The one constant in our scoring seems to be Francis... and even he's not *very* consistent. I think that Dickerson could put up the same #'s for the Rockets as he is for Vancouver for that reason; he's consistent. As for Cat being an emotinal leader... uhhh... what sort of emotional leader do we want? I prefer one who leads by example... or at least has a better shot selection. If the *leader* of a team doesn't play intelligently, what can you expect from a team? I don't think Mad Max was ever a leader on the Rockets... I'd give that role to Elie... or Dream (who, like MJ, led by example). Also, *we already have slashers and one on one players*. Mobley is redundant. Francis is great in the iso, Anderson can post his man up, and even Drew can cut very well. We DON'T HAVE A GOOD PURE SHOOTER. And don't even mention Bullard. Dickerson is one of the rarest types in the NBA: he's a terrific shooter, who also has a driving game.
Tim Floyd said, "Dickerson took over the game [with the Bulls last night]... I have never seen a quicker guy with or without the ball." I think Tim has seen Francis and Mobley dance around his slow guards, too, so he should know quickness. Just ask Iverson how quick Dickerson is -- he said no-one has played defence on him as well as Dickerson did this season. You Rockets fans are in denial. I have said it before and I'll say it again...Stu Jackson fleeced the Rockets big time. He told us Vancouver fans at a season ticket holder meeting before the draft how good Francis was (and Odom) but that it was a higher priority to get proven talent in three areas -- he wanted experienced upgrades at SG, PF and backup PG. He got all three. Michael Dickerson was tested out by the Grizzlies during his draft year as having the most pure athletic talent of anyone the Grizzlies had ever tested in five years. Jackson held out for him for over a month with the silliness over Francis not wanting to report while he looked at other options (he could have had Stackhouse). With Bibby solid at the point, Jackson would have taken Francis and played him at the SG if he couldn't get a deal he wanted but Dickerson was known to have all the natural gifts you need in a shooting guard. Dickerson has the best bench press on the whole team --look at Grant Long's arms sometime and be amazed at that. Cuttino Mobley is a nice player but Dickerson will be a dominant player in a position the Grizzlies needed badly plus we got Harrington on a sweetheart 5 year deal and a reasonable backup PG in Price. Jackson just laughs at Harrington now when he says he doesn't like the rain. He's said he won't even consider trading him. Even Harrington realizes it. For our next game against the Kings, Harrington is doing radio ads promoting the game saying he doesn't like the rain but if you're among the first 5000 fans you get a free Grizzlies umbrella. We're having great fun watching these former Rockets in Vancouver and I believe if you check the standings you'll see the Rockets have 33 losses this year versus the Grizzlies 36 and we're closing fast now that we got rid of Brian Hill (Dickerson's average shot up to past 20 points as soon as he left. His last 10 games, it's been 23.6). You guys are going to be stuck in the low middle of the league with some very talented, raw players who love to showboat (okay, Cato is a nice pickup, too). We're on our way to a .500 team with 3 awesome very young, quiet, hardworking talents (Bibby, Rahim and Dickerson) plus some nice role players. You had to tear apart your future to get a point guard to build around but we are actually further ahead of you in our building process and you guys make inane comments like Dickerson just gets his points because he is on a bad team or Mobley is better (he is way better at flash). Dickerson rarely gets plays run specifically for him, he' just so talented that he bails us out continually as the shot clock winds down with a nylon-only 3 or a non-styling but brutally quick drive. He is absolutley fearless and has been undercut many times when he dunks over much larger guys but he doesn't beat his chest afterwards. He's shooting .417 from the 3 pt. line (uh, what was Francis' average, .316? and Mobley's, uh, something like .330?) Dickerson is apparently deeply religious but quiet. Francis said God talked to him personally and told him not to come to Vancouver. I guess God likes Vancouver after all.
Overall Francis kicks more ass than dickerson. but comparing Dick and mobes I would have taken Dick and given away mobes. i like dick. he would have brought not only an offensive presense but the more important defensive presense. he could have done great and become a more consistent bench player. than mobes and i believe would have quickly molded with francis and anderson to create one hell of a defensive lineup. anyone think that the trade could have been done with price and orthella? and mobes and they could have kept tmass.... then we could have gotten some nice exciting power forward with heart. those are easy to find..... and plus francis has enough heart to thump through the team
You had to tear apart your future to get a point guard to build around but we are actually further ahead of you in our building process..." Vancouver's been building now for what, 5-6 years? The Rockets have been rebuilding for a few months. I should hope you'd be ahead of us. Oh wait, you're not. It's pretty sad when a team like the Rockets, that consistently fields a starting lineup of 4-5 guys that weren't even on the team the year before, most of which have never even started NBA games in their lives, still has a better record and a brighter future than the Grizzlies, who've been rebuilding most of the decade of the 90s. Oh, but you've got a 2-guard that can't create his own shot.....damn!
Hey Shake your Head, or whatever the name was, you did compare losses, and it is true that we have 33 and the Grizz have 36. Now let's compare wins: Grizz - 17 Rockets - 21 OK, so you are only 3.5 games back. But you are still looking at our asses. I don't think anyone here will deny, refute, or even think twice about the trade with Vancouver being anything but great for the Houston organization. Sure, we loved Dickerson! But we love Steve Francis more, and he is just a better player and the best PG we have had in....I can't remember a better PG in Houston, at least in my generation! You run your Canadian mouth, but get back to us at the season's end and let's compare notes then, shall we?
Shake your head, Are you really saying, given the chance, you would not make the Francis trade if you where CD? Good luck convincing anyone else in this world of that.
I'd rather have Dickerson than Mobley and Anderson. I'd rather have Francis than Dickerson, Mobley, Shandon, Cato, Othella, Rogers, Pippen, and Brent Price. In fact, I'd throw in Hakeem just for kicks. If Francis stays with Houston, the Rockets are set for 15 years. Shareef Abdur-Rahim *cough* *giggle* *cough*... any year now, man .
I'm not saying that the Rockets shouldn't have made the trade for Francis just that you guys can't seem to even consider the possibility that they gave up too much to get him. Look, every team thinks their own guys are wonderful. You've got Stevie and you get to admire his awesome talents every game and you love what you've got. I'm trying to wake you up to the fact that for us, Michael Dickerson is damn near the same in our hearts but getting the emotion out of the way, one has to evaluate a trade based on what it did for the team. Jackson cranked your need for a central building block to the max (2 good young starters, 2 backups and a first round pick) -- a dispassionate look at this trade can easily be had by listening to the comments of others about how bright the Grizzlies future is. Almost every coach whose team gets "surprised" by the "lowly" Grizzies comments how much young talent we have (including Jerry Sloan, Pat Riley and Phil Jackson). The other day, I see you guys got all peeved when a poll didn't have the Rockets as one of the up and coming teams. The poll got it wrong, you should have been in it and not New Jersey (which named older vets Marbury and Kittles along with players like Rahim, Bibby, Odom, etc.). Nonetheless, if you had been in it, your young core should have ranked second to ours -- Francis is the only one of your three (Mobley & Cato) who starts/plays big minutes on a regular basis (Anderson doesn't make the criteria for a "young core player" and neither does Harrington or Reeves -- both 26). In your rush to look for reasons why your future has absolutely got to be brighter than ours, you ignore the fact that the Grizzlies are a legitimate low mid-range team now (we are 6 and 5 on the road against the East). So are the Rockets (if we both played in the East we'd be fighting for playoff spots). Our record would be virtually the same or better than yours if Brian Hill had been gassed earlier (we were 4 and 18 then). Stu wanted to axe him earlier because he wasn't letting our young stars run and create. The ownership kafuffle with Bill Laurie made him wait for three weeks. The Grizzlies you see now are the Grizzlies Jackson foresaw after the trade. In regards to the Grizzlies being on a "re-building" project, that implies there was something there to begin with. Perhaps a history lesson is in order for people who think the Grizzlies are in a re-building phase. The Grizzlies got the worst deal any expansion franchise ever got from the NBA 5 years ago. We were restricted from any low picks for 3 years and we got absolute dreck in the expansion draft (Anthony Avent was one of best guys in year 1). The Raptors were 3 wins behind us in year 3 until they lucked out on Carter in year 4. If you want to compare the Raptors to us to prove that we're lousy, you must believe all Lottos winners are smart. There was only one way (other than the lucky pick route) and that's to do what we've done by building (not re-building) a young core. You know this was a rigged deal by the league to prevent an Orlando (Shaq & Penny in successive years) situation. We had nothing to rebuild with. You guys were looking at championship teams that you waited too long to re-tool with. Francis was a no-brainer for you guys but if you had acted earlier (gotten value for Barkley and maybe even Dream) you wouldn't have had to give in to Jackson's demands (our Assistant Coach said he held you guys off for over a month while he fished the rest of the league). I hate to tell you this but Mike Bibby is a better pure point guard right now than Francis and he is only 22 (Jordan calls him Jason Kidd with a jump-shot). Francis will have a Marbury-like career if he doesn't learn to subdue his need to be the star attraction -- great point guards like Stockton and Kidd know they need to feed the top scorers on the team more than be "the man" all the time. Payton's wonderful talents would only be amplified if he had a star up front (even he knows this, that's why he lobbied so hard for Baker). Even Magic Johnson was more of a stir stick at his best. My point is that Steve Francis needs other great players to bring out his true greatness and I just don't see them on the Rockets roster yet. Vancouver has got the right mix thanks to Houston. I think you guys have got some really nice players (Mobley, Anderson & Cato) but they won't get you as far as I think our young 4 will. If Reeves ever gets back to his 16 ppg form, watch out. Now this "running Canadian mouth" will shut up until next year at playoff time when I hope both our teams meet to settle this (the Rockets were my favourite team before we got a franchise).
Vancouver's problem: you Still don't have a dominant player who can carry your team. Shareef doesn't fulfill this role. When Houston drafted Hakeem, they began a streak of winning records that still hasn't ended (probably will this year). Many of those years, he didn't have much talent around him-arguably less than the Grizzlies have now. Yet he won... because he could single-handedly carry a franchise. Shareef has had 4 years... and is still unable to make them anything more than ABSOLUTELY ABYSMAL. Teams with great players don't lose 70% of their games. Francis, with less talent around him by YOUR OWN ARGUMENT, has won more games for Houston than a 4 year supposed superstar. We have a player who can take us to the promised land in a few years... role players are attainable to complement Francis... but a truly great player occurs rarely, and is hard to get. You don't have one. We do. We're further along.
All right!!! Shake Your Head, I can feel the elbows flying to see who gets first cracks at this one. There'll be some Blinebury wise-cracks about you igloo bubbas, some historical cracks about how a title-bound team must have a superstar, some ugly cracks regarding your deathwish remark about Bibby and pure-guard comparisons, some easy cracks regarding whatever your point was about Mobley/Cato and starter minutes, but let's first settle this "who's the better team thing". Vancouver is playing their starters at high minutes. You guys are losing because you cannot sustain focused play from 4 guys averaging 37 minutes (Othella is down now, but was high). We will crush you with our bench. You don't have a chance to maintain the level of speed the Rocket's can muster with fresh runners like Mobley/Rogers/Cato/Drew coming off our bench to pound you in the 2nd quarter and for crucial play in the 3rd/4th. You guys have zero ability to change the make-up of your floor. We can go big and small. Fast and long-range. There is no way Vancouver is anywhere close to having the bench and the flexibility that the Rockets have. The moment Rudy fixes our defensive woes, we are instantly an playoff team, cause we have way more quality fresh legs than nearly every team in the league, especially the 5-man grizzlies. Plus, did we mention we have $4.5m trading exception by pawning Othella, Price and Carr off on you. SUCKERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! This called for some exclamation. whose got NEXT on Shake Your Head!! FINAL POINT: What was the rationale for picking Bibby ahead of Vince, again? Just think...you could have Shareef, Carter and Francis (he would have stayed) if your organization really knew how to create a champion. ooh--I know that hurt... [This message has been edited by heypartner (edited February 24, 2000).]
Bravo Heypartner....smashing! I am shaking my head right now, Headshaker. I cannot believe someone had the gall to say Bibby is a better PG than Francis. You could not be farther from the truth. It is comments and "Homer" points like this that make the rest of your arguments, and you may have made some decent points, completely void and unfounded. You give me one aspect of Bubby's game that is better than Stevie's, and I will shoot it down easily. Shareef is a nice player. Reeves, even though he is fat and soft, is a decent player. Bibby is a pretty good young point guard, and Dickerson may be the diamond in the rough.....so what is Vancouver's excuse for being in the f-ing cellar in the standings? Sure, it could be that you have NO bench. Sure, it could be those ugly ass uniforms (and I don't think Houston's are all that pretty), or maybe it is the fact that Vancouver has no superstar, and very little talent to surround the aforementioned "decent" players. Toronto has become a good team. But not because of Vince alone. They have made deals to get a great mix of veterans, budding young players, and at least some depth off the bench (see Kevin Willis, Doug Christie, Tracy McGrady, Antonio Davis, Charles Oakley, Dell Curry, Muggsy, need I continue?). Vancouver has not accomplished what Toronto has, and why? You got screwed by the league? Well here is a tissue for you. Nobody believes the league screwed Vancouver. What would be the reasoning behind it? I didn't think you had any. As for your challenge of shutting your mouth until next year at playoff time when we face each other......well....I don't expect to hear from you for a long, long time. Vancouver won't be in the playoffs for years to come. But hey, check back with me when they do. I would love to swap stories and highlights. Peace, ------------------ HOOP-T Hey Shaq, Acme called, and they want their bricks back!
You have to admire rabid fans who swallow everything their management says without question. ESPN just reported that Vancouver was involved in trade discussions with the Knicks and Clippers and that Othella WAS being shopped by Stu Jackson. OOPS!
Give Your Head A Shake You can say your chasing us all you want just remember you havent beaten us yet, you are still behind in the standings, your free agents have a 1/2 chance to leave cuz of goofy tax rules, and u have a porky white center in the middle who couldnt box out calista flockheart. dickerson is and will be an excellent player, and the trade was pretty equal. your bench still sucks, your coach will be fired in 2 years, and Othella wont produce nearly as much as he would starting in houston. doesnt matter what your team does ur team still hasnt won 30 games if im correct. ------------------ --TEX
Because I was curious, I computed CM/MD's numbers based on 37.3 minutes a game, the amount of minutes Dickerson plays: Dickerson -- 17.8 pts, 2.4 asts, 3.4 rebs Mobley -- 17.6 pts, 3.1 asts, 3.7 rebs Percentages: Dickerson -- 44% fg, 84.7% ft, 41.8% 3pt Mobley -- 41.6% fg, 84.3% ft, 34% 3pt I was surprised to see Cuttino up close to 42% fg (had been in the 30s). Dickerson has definitely improved his free throw shooting, kudos to him on that one. The main difference between these two players (outside of good spot-up shooting vs. good ballhandling skills) is that Mobley creates a lot of his team's offense, while Dickerson is the beneficiary of opponents keying in on his teammates. Defenses pay much more attention to Mobley than they do Dickerson. I think the shooting percentages would be a bit different if it were the other way around.
"Stu Jackson fleeced the Rockets big time." OH MY GOD I'M LAUGHING SO HARD I THINK I'M GONNA CRY oh wait YEP THERE I GO YOU DID IT I'M CRYING! I've got that silent-dog-laugh going on now. My day just got better, Thank you so much for that joke. Oh wait, you were serious... I'M LAUGHING SO HARD I THINK I'M GONNA CRY, AGAIN. What a Maroon, what a screwball, dingbat, he he he he. I need the X-Files staff to find your brain. he he he he HA! ------------------ The truth is out there.
You guys are forgetting one thing. houston is nearly competetive every game with a few exceptions and blowouts. vancouver is not. they get some wins, but they arent in nearly as many CLOSE games as houston. dickerson gets alot of garbage points when his team is getting his ass kicked and the other team is putting their bench warmers who play No D. mobley cant do whatever he want like dickerson can because the rockets compete better and are in many more close games than the grizzlies. dickerson can shoot shoot shoot and shoot some more because he has more freedom to do so and his team is often getting blown out. also vancouver has 4-5 guys who can score . thats it. the rockets have about 6-9 guys who can score. so its not as if cat is our #1 or #2 option like dickerson is most of the time. these two guys are equal almost in every regard, with dickerson being a little better all around. as for the BS that vancouver got a better trade? othella is unhappy, price and carr dont produce at all, and we get the 4.5 trade exception and steve francis who puts up equal or slightly less scoring #s and many more assists in HIS ROOKIE YEAR. dickerson and mobley will both be two excellent players, and this trade was equal as hell. ------------------ --TEX
