There is a potential deal to be had in Mickael Pietrus of the Golden state warriors, and would be worth exploring. For the 2006/2007 season, G-State will have over $53M of guaranteed money commited to its players (excluding Pietrus, their draft picks this year and Montae Ellis who they will have to give a better contract soon). This means that Mikael would be the odd man out with Davis, Richardson, Dunleavy, Ellis and Fisher in the fold. Mickael's contract will run out after the 2006/2007 season (RFA) and I am sure Chris Mullin or their GM then would likely NOT be willing to keep him around, so Pietrus could be had for part of our $3.4M trade exception (from the Moochie trade) this summer. Mikael's stats is not eye popping (which is even better for our cause) but so did Borris Diaw while he was in Atlanta. I believe a similar transformation can happen for Mikael here in Houston. With him being one of the better lock down defenders in the NBA (with legit length), we may not need his offense that much. I believe he could be the next hidden gem and a few folks have echoed this sentiment including Tony Parker (who was right about Diaw as well, although one has to account for some possible French bias in both cases). http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/profile?statsId=3714 http://www.nbadraft.net/profiles/mickaelpietrus.htm Adding Mikael could be huge. It will then give us flexibility in the draft as well as with our MLE. We need length (size), youth and athletism and Mikael checks off on all three fronts. Moreover, this is about one of the most realistic possibilities next to landing Mike James [again]. Another possible player we can land with our trade exception is Travis Outlaw especially since Paul Allen (IIRC) has stated that he would prefer to be under the Luxury Tax threshold. Now if you add the likeliness of them re-sign Joe_P as well their picks this summer, they would be over the LT limit. In addition, Travis' alleged character issues (which I attribute in large part to youthfulness & poor social environment ala Rasheed Wallace) could make him expendable in Portland.
I wouldnt mind having one or both of those guys here. I remember the way Pietrus used to guard Francis. He would get real physical with him and mentally take him out of the game.
Any number of players or trade packages can help us rght now. Petrius is one of them. Although anything involving GS would probably be a package deal.
Another french players, and a better option on my mind, should be Michael Gelabale, last year second round pick of the Sonics, he has a better shot(while being as athletic & as good the defender) and is curently playing for Real Madrid in Spain. I guess he can be had for 2 future secound rounders. By the way I also saw Venson Hamilton a former Sd Rd pick(PF) of the Rockets play ok in the Euroleague with the same team, Real Madrid this season.
hi. i'm french so i have seen him play many times, with Pau Orthez and France's national Team. and i cant say i will be happy if the rockets trade for him, he is very inconsistant and he is not the kind of shooter we need at the SG spot. that said, he is an excellent defender and is very athletic. if we dont have to give up too much (dont waste a first round pick for him please!), why not.
hi this boy is very good (his shot his awesome) but while he is very athletic (his vertical leap is impressive), he needs to take some weight before being effective in the league. he's an excellent defender by the way (with Bozidar Maljkovic, you have to play hard defense or you dont step on the court)
Fegwu, Nice find. I'm not one of those people that can tell you whether it would work or not, but I like the idea. Pietrus is young, long, athletic and plays low minutes. He seems to turn the ball over too much and shoots poorly though. Our weakness seems to be offense and I don't believe that Pietrus would mesh well with our needs. All in all, I like the find. There is something that sits well with me about this idea though. We have got to take a risk on a player at some point and hit the jackpot. This is the time for GM's to do what they do. They need to work overtime right now. The window for success is shrinking. It's been too long since we've been a tier one team.
Hi Boris I completely agree with you, I really like this player, any time i've seen him play, he seems so composed, so effective and at the same time so smooth. If the Rockets would have taken him last year with their 1st rd pick(they didn't have a 2d rder) I personaly wouldn't have considered it a great reach. this guy will surprise a lot of people once he comes to the NBA.
uhm, the rockets need to do a lot more than dangle a pathetic trade exception to land either of those players. Unfortunately, nba gms don't hold houston rocket pity parties.
pietris would be great, i remember wen he locked down francis in his rookie year twice within a week or sumtin
Hi Diaw. Thanks for the extra insight. As a matter of comparism, I'd like to point of Mikael was more rated than Borris in the 2003 draft. Though it does not matter much, it tells you something about Mikael and his talent arsenal - especially considering that both played for the French team then at the same time as well as club basketball at Pau Orthez. http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/players/stats?statsId=3724 Also check out Diaw's NBADRAFT.NET Profile from 2003 If you look at Borris Diaw's stats (the first URL above) from his days as a Hawk you will notice how similar it is to Mikael Pietrus'. They were both "pronounced" poor shooters among other things but we have seen how playing in a good organization and with good selfless players like Nash, Marion (and potentially Mac, Yao and Skip) could help certain players like these. We also saw this in James (the former Indiana Pacer who was sent to Phoenix for their TE). I believe that there are players wasting away in some teams and Mikael fits the profile of such players. As a great [or very good] lock down defender, he would take up the role Wesley did for us. Mikael is capable of defending PGs, SG as well as SF. In certain cases I will not be surprised if he could give us a few minutes in guarding Dirk ala Bruce Bowen. As we have now seen - finding great perimeter defenders is not very easy these days. He does need to improve his long range shooting though (though he seems to knock them down consistently against us). Not to worry though - he seems to always play within himself - never forcing anything. If this dream materializes, we could then really thank Moochie Norris for his part in making it happen
you're welcome lol i dont fully agree with you when you say that the improvement in Diaw's % are due to his teamates. i'd rather say that they have a pretty good staff in phoenix that did a terrific job correcting his shot. just look at his FT %, he was something like 3/22 at the euro 2K5, he's now a 80% FT shooter in the playoffs ! and he used to play in the backcourt with atlanta, but this year he played inside with the suns. so yes playing with nash must be helpful to have good stats, but he cant shoot for you, so there must be other reasons
