[REALLY LONG] The season is almost over and while it has been fun, I think we need to look to the future and plan for the offseason and 2012 and 2013…… here is my long-term plan for the future. Our current roster is as stands PG- Lowry, Dragic SG - Martin, Lee, SF - Williams Budinger PF - Scola, Patterson, Hill C - Thabeet, Miller With yao and hayes up for resigning. I would try to get both back on cheap contracts. I would love to have Yao back for his veteran leadership to guide thabeet and other young center prospects and from a pure business perspective he brings in a ton of money. Hayes, I would pay quite a bit to have back, aside from his exceptional defense, he is the heart and soul of this team. I view Hayes and Lowry as the future captains of the rockets, they play the game the right way without flopping, and work extremely hard to try and constantly get better. Resigning both fills up our roster but I’m not finished yet. With our roster pretty much the same as last season I would not expect a different result. I do not trust Yao to regain form and lead us into the playoffs, which has been tried too many times and has failed. While it would be nice for Yao to play again, I brought him back mainly for his leadership and economic benefits. The question now is whether to try and base a team around Scola and Martin or to blow it up. I am in favor of the latter. Regardless of how well we played down the stretch this season, I don’t believe that this team as currently built, even if some of our young players improve can truly contend. That in mind I would try to trade scola and martin during the offseason. We will start with scola. Trading Scola lets Hill/PatPat/other potential PF develop. PP played really well when he started for scola and despite the haters I still have some hope for Hill. He has played pretty well down the stretch and I think he really turned people off at the beginning of the season. At the beginning Adelman was being a fool and played him out of position at center. Hill is skinny for a PF, of course he was going to get demolished in the paint as a C, with an offseason of hard work, I can see Hill start to live up to expectations. As for Luis, lots of teams would have use for scola and I think he will be fairly easy to trade. The team I would single out is OKC. They still don’t have a low post scorer, Ibaka is more of a defensive player and he is not ready. If they want to contend next year then I think they trade for scola. The player I would try to get is James Harden. He reminds me of a Brandon Roy and has not really gotten a chance in okc. I would try to get Harden/Filler/first round pick( somewhere down the line) for Scola. I think that is a better offer than we could get from a lot of other teams. The fact that Harden will want to be paid soon works in our favor. Harden/Lee is an awesome replacement for Martin Next comes Martin. I have seen other posters warning not to trade martin, or that if trading him is a goal then to be patient. I feel however, that the sooner we trade him the better. I feel we have an adequate backup and possible starter in Lee, who I feel has a higher ceiling due to being a two way player. Those not in favor say that it would be hard to get fair value for Martin. I agree with that statement, but think that trading martin is necessary to becoming a better team in the future. I view martin as a nice guy and capable player, but personally I don’t like his style. He is a flopper and is soft and I think that having him as a veteran leader on the team could be a negative role model for our young players. The trade I would make is this. Martin to minny for Ricky Rubio/ future protected pick/ filler. Minesota would be insane not to take that deal. No matter how much kahn loves rubio he won’t deny a scorer as good as martin for him. With that trade Minny has a formidable line-up one that could bring excitement to Minnesota for the first time in a long time. Flynn/Martin/Beasley/Love/Pekovic with Wes J coming off the bench is quite nice. As for why we do it. I don’t even like Rubio but most of C-fans does and I think that since we aren’t going to be able to get a top 5 pick or an allstar for Martin he is the best we can do, Rubio does have good potential and could fit in houston .. plus I think we can try and squeeze a future pick … maybe in 2014 or 15 out of it. Our Roster is now PG- Lowry, Dragic SG - Harden, Lee, SfWilliams,Budinger PF -Patterson, Hill,Hayes C - Thabeet, Hayes,Yao, Miller We are not going to be able to get rid of miller so I would embrace him as a spot 3 point shooter/ team benchwarmer. With an offseason of hard work it is plausible for almost all of the players to improve their games. Especially our SF’s budinger needs to take a class on toughness and Williams could learn some control. With that said we now move to issue of coaching before moving on to the draft. I would not keep Adelman, yes he is a great coach, and probably the best one we could hope for next season…. But I don’t want him back. If we bring him back that means that Morey thinks we are capable of going to the playoffs and that is something that I don’t want to happen. I would let one of Adelmans assistants take his place. Maybe Sikma, or maybe a coach from an entirely different system. I don’t really care. I trust Dmorey in this issue. Its clear that Adelman and Williams have issues and this is the 1% of the time I choose to keep the player. Out of all the players on our roster he arguably has the biggest potential and I think he eventually matures. In the 2011 draft we have the 14th* and 23rd picks… Again I trust Morey to draft and I like the suggestion of another C-fans member to try to trade back to the next draft but I think It might be hard as most Gm’s also know that the next draft is gonna be stacked in comparison. Btw I would allow the use of the 23rd pick as a sweetner in any of the trades if martin or scola are not enough. In the upcoming draft I expect Morey to swing for the fences maybe by picking the Brazilian Nogeuria or another high upside player. Here comes the bad part…… without Adelman, Scola, and Martin we suck next year. But I am willing to take a year of youth and inexperience to get a high draft pick. If the alternate situation is keeping Scola, Martin, and seeing a marginal improvement from last season and possibly getting into the playoffs 7th or 8th seed. New jersey owns our lottery protected pick in the 2012 draft so it would be disastrous to lose say the 16th pick in a stacked draft. In this scenario we get a high( probably top 8) pick/ the knicks pick ( top 5 protected) / and hopefully manage to trade at least one of our 2011 picks back. Here comes the good part. With a whole season of playing our youth (2Pat, Williams, Hill Bud, Draftpick, Harden, Lee, Thabeet), they improve dramatically or at least we know what we have in them and if they are worth keeping. In addition we could have up to 3 first round picks in a projected deep draft. Hopefully one in the top 5. This is what we could be looking at come 2012 PG- Lowry, Rubio SG - Harden, Lee, SF - Williams Budinger PF - Patterson, Hill C - Thabeet, Hayes Plus our 2011 pick(s) .. nbadraft.net has us taking terrance jones SF. Also we could take a center prospect like Lucas Noegueira either with the magic pick … or if he doesn’t come out this year, with a 2012 pick ( the knicks is projected to be right around 20) and a top prospect from that draft. We could end up like this. PG- Lowry, Rubio Plus a random top prospect. SG - Harden, Lee, SF - Williams Budinger,Jones PF - Patterson, Hill, Hayes C - Thabeet, Noeguira That is a Young, Hungry team with a boatload of talent.. some of it all-star calliber, with the added element of solid veteran leadership. That is a team I would look forward to.We get rid of players that are solid but arent cornerstones and turn them into possible allstars ( Harden Rubio, first rounders). Basically this offseason decides our future I hope whatever direction we choose that we fully commit. We cant choose to rebuild and keep Scola and Martin .. they would take up too much time from our youngsters. That is all guys. I know this is extremely long. Thanks for reading. Yeah Right like anyone read the whole thing.
Dragic -> Rubio Any center in this league -> Thabeet Martin will not go anywhere, the chance of him getting traded is small This team is packed with fire power, we just lack a center. Scola will stay, I hope Adelman does too. I don't see your post going anywhere.
It was just my opinion.... but do you really think that this team + 2011 draft (14th and 23rd pick most likely) + a FA center the best of which are Marc Gasol and Deandre Jordan will really make this team a contender. Assuming scola and Martin stay then the output from those two positions is euqal to this season... and the backups wont get that many minutes to improve either so thier growth will be stunted. Our SF situation will stay the same since Adelman will be back and Williams will probably never get a chance to prove himself. A starting lineup that has absolutely no defense at the 2,3, and 4 spots may make the playoffs but will not be a serious contender. What next then ? If we make the playoffs we wont even get our own draft pick in 2012... i just think that we need to blow it up. And despite what you said about Thabeet he has more potential than either one of those 2 centers. Morey traded battier for him not the pick that we might not ever get. Rubio was just a suggestion, one that i thought most people would like ... i dont particularly like him .. but as for becoming a better player than dragic it is certainly possible. I just made the thread to see what people had in mind for the offseason. Your plan and mine are just different.
Total jumble mumble. About the only thing you got right is Scola is most likely going to be traded. We are not going to waste a season tearing it all the way down and starting over and re-signing Hayes for that.
First let me say I appreciate your effort. It's clear you put a lot of thought into it and that is something I can always commend a poster on. That being said I don't agree with much of it. Which of course means didly squat since I have no say in the team decisions. But I disagree with your assessments mostly. First off the team that finished this season is not the team that started. Lowry Has improved drastically Martin improved and proved he can play almost a whole season. Budinger went from crap to a solid backup(too bad he's starting) Goran Dragic is a great backup PG who accepts his role. Chuck Hayes improved in almost every area Jordan Hill went from inconsistently crappy too consistently not so crappy PPat emerged as out next starting forward Courtney Lee emerged as a legitmate 6th man of the year player All of those things were not true at the beginning of the season. That alone would have made us at least a 50 win team. I think LA is still the team to beat in the west outside of that the team we ended the season could compete with anyone else in the west. Yes including San Antonio. And I can say that because I watched them do it in against those so called better teams. The west across the top 9 teams and I am including us is very close. There is a Gap between LA and everyone else and then it pretty much is splitting hairs who is better. I will say Dallas gives us match up problems with their height but we still compete. SO you might say okay but 50 wins just gets you a 5th seed and early exit. Well one of the quickest ways for a team to turn around is if they have a glaring hole and they fill it. ANd one of the hardest ways for a team to turn around is if you are good all the way across the board anything less than a superstar doesn't really help you get better. Some people would suggest we are the latter. But I say we are the former and are gaping is a lack of athletic bigs. it is why we have such a problem with Philadelphia and Sac Kings and Dallas. (I would add the Lakers but they are probably the one team that getting bigger would not matter much) So are solution is simple. Fill are gaping hole of lack of bigs and we jump to the head of the pack. Of course that is easier said than done. Accept we have a wild card and that is Yao. We will be a playoff team next years without Yao. With Yao we are a contender. He gives us the best big to play the game if he can comeback to his old self. Yes there are reasons to believe that will never happen but I say there are reasons to believe it will happen again. Unlike his previous injuries which seem to show a deficiency in his feet this last injury seemed to be more of a freak accident. His foot was injured in the same place and was not a result of pounding but rather the flex of his ankle as a result of 250 pounds falling on his foot pinning it down while it is being stretched out while he falls back. FREAK ACCIDENT! Yao is smarter about his body and has learned so much since his first injury. He knows better how to take care of it. If yao comes back strong and stays healthy he will be a forced to be reckoned with. He is in the prime of his basketball life and he has not had to take the pounding for the last two years that so many other bigs have had to. Adding Yao will imediately fill a gaping hole for the Rockets but we don't have to stop there. replacing Scola with PPat makes as bigger and more athletic at the 4 immediately. Not to mention he will only improve over the off season. That helps fill the gap also. Jordan Hill has emerged as a more consitent player these last few weeks than he did previously in his NBA career and I expect that he will also improve next year. There is a slim chance Thabeet might be a contributor by the end of next season (by the way if he is not he never will be) that may also help fill the gap. I don't expect much help from the draft but if we can somehow trade into the top 10 we may be able to pick up a athletic shotblocking big. (I love this Biypmbo guy but I expect him to be gone by the 14th pick). SO thats it. That is how I can see us fill a gap and be improved next year and remember this is a team that after the trade has played at about 55 game win pace. So that is why you don't trade Martin. He is a big part of that winning, contending team. Perhaps the biggest. (Maybe Kahn would do the deal but I think not. he is building for the future and a borderline all star Martins age doesn't help. ) As for Scola I am all for trading him for James Harden or a ANdre Iguoadala. Unfortuantely those team aren't. Scola is a scorer and he plays hard but everybody in the league knows he is a weak defender and he is not getting better and he doesn't block shots and he has to have the ball in his hand to help the team score but he is not the most efficient scorer. They know that as do you and that is why you want to trrade him. You think someone is stupid enough to overlok all of those deficiencies and give you a great young player whose future is ahead of him. It's not going to happen. WHat Scola gets you is Battier or Ariza or Hedo Turgolu maybe. That's the kind of player you get for a guy like Scola. Maybe a team like Orlando that afford a little less defense from the 4 could use someone like Scola but not to many other teams. So you want to trade Scola because he just isn't as good as PPat and then you want a team to give us there PPat for him. Sorry will never happen. Scola becomes much more valuable next offseason when he and Miller can be bought out for pennies on the dollar. Miller and Scola plus a Hill or bud and a 1st round pick might get us a granger or an Iguodala. That gets some struggling team off the books for a lot of salary instantaneously. Not in a year. The last thing I will say is this off season barring a trade for a big or a all star three I say we remain pat. I see us with 4 1st round picks this year because TWill and Thabeet or basically in that same boat. Plus we got 2 other 1st's. If we can move into the top ten doing a 2 for one I jump on it. So that's my take on your take.
Nice post Old Man Rock. I like the Scola to the Thunder idea, because it would make a WHOLE lot of sense for the Thunder who still don't have a back to the basket scorer. Kevin Durant Luis Scola Kendrick Perkins is nasty... I wonder If a guy like James Harden is worth it... Maybe Cole Aldrich?
Thanks for the response Old Man Rock. I do agree that this team from the second half is a playoff team. And with Yao a contender..... but i just dont have faith in Yao to come back and be the player he once was. Because a healthy Yao is a superstar player.. or at least he was. I know that this last injury was a freak accident.. but you can only have so many "freak Accidents" before they become a trend. Frankly put in my plan i retained Yao to allow for the possibilty that he regains form. I think that even if he comes back fully healthy it will take more than a season to do so. He hasnt played real basketball for about 2 years now... and asking him to get healthy, and then return to allstar form in just one season is asking too much. As for trading martin ... You are right i wouldnt do it if we were trying to win this next year... which you are obviously an advocate of... i gues it is just that i am a pessimist by nature that i would rather start over and blow the whole thing up. Though you did think that trading Scola was a possibility because you think that Patpat is better..... then why not martin. I know not everyone here thinks so but i think that in 2 or 3 years ( when he is Martin's age) Courtney lee will b,e a superior player than kevin martin. Not only is he already nearly as good of a shooter. He also actually plays defense. I completely agree with you on the matters of Kyle lowry, Chuck Hayes, and Jordan hill.... in fact I want to trade scola partially because i believe that jordan hill can become a good player. I dont actually think that our biggest hole right now is Center.... chuck hayes and whoever else it may be ( thabeet, miller, Hill Although i think Hill should only be played as a PF) Are adequate.... not good but at least they can sometimes slow down an opposing C. No first we need to adress SF.. chase budinger needs to really step up. You are right .... as of right now he is a marginal backup ... and unless he gets a kick in the ass and learns some toughness he wont improve. Fortunately, i hope that the SF is already on the roster. His name is terrance williams. He needs a lot of work and should spend the summer working on shooting and learning the offense.. But i think that there is a rift between him and adelman and that unless adelman is gone he wont get to play.... He has huge potential he just has to learn to use it. So going by your prefered method we need to fill the gap at center.. Neither of us think that thabeet isthe answer.. i think that maybe one day he eventually might be. I would have us enter next season giving him a full opportunity to play every night signifacant minutes and see whether or not he has it in him. Either way he wont be the answer next season. But like you said we need a legit center to truly contend. I dont believe in Yao and Morey knows that we cant enter a season hoping to contend and lay all of our hopes on yao it is just too foolish. The best the FA market has to offer is a bunch of mediocre centers. Marc Gasol and D Jordan are ok .. chanlder ? Dalembert? none of those guys are even on the same level as a healthy Yao who we would need to contend ... plus a few of them are restricted and probably wont be let go. So barring a miracle by Yao coming back full strenght i think it really is almost impossible for us to contend next year. were just not going to see improvement from any of the players in our starting 5 besides possibly lowry. Martin while he played a full season this year .. has been injury prone in the past.. Plus if the goal is to win as meany games as possible Rick will just play the starters more minutes and some of the players you and i both like (patpat, hill, lee, dragic, and thabeet ) will all see less minutes than if we decide to take a year to let them grow. Imagine a full season of 2pat starting of Lee starting .. think about the improvements and experience they will gain . It could be on the level of when Brooks was given a starting opportunity or even like Lowry's improvement. That is why i would trade martin and scola .. those two trades were just example of scenarios that i thought would work for both teams... i still think OKC would take scola .... the post after you describes why .. they need low post scoring and if they need defense they could just put in Ibaka... The NBA is changing for the worse, nowadays you need a superstar to win . A post in a different thread layed out 3 ways you can get one ... trade for one , do great things in the playoffs, or draft one. I think that with Moreys track record. That if we have 4 picks in the first round in these next 2 drafts that we can land some pretty good players. At this point our "assets" arent enough to trade for one. Plus 2 were just traded so i think the likelihood of a superstar deal going down next year aren't good. Thats really all for right now im going to go to sleep.. thanks again for your feedback , you are just a lot more optimistic than i am
This is r****ded. I mean really martin for rubio?! The team wouldn't get us anywhere BUT the lottery for years to come. I seriously doubt hasheem being anything but a backup C that plays 8-10 min. a night. I want to trade scola too but to somewhere else cuz do we really need another SG? NOOOO, we need a center and you cant rely on brad and hasheem to do anything. As long as adelman is here williams wont start unless chase is injured. You have an okay plan but some parts really needa get fixed.
Like i said before, i really dont care who we trade martin or scola for as long as we trade them. Those trades were just example of trades that i could see the Front office doing. Keep in mind for my plan we would definantly try to get into the lottery next season.... if not get all the way to a top 5 pick. Also im not sure Thabeet is the answer at center either... but i would give him a season to prove himself ... he has alot of potential and we will never know how good he can be if he doesnt get any minutes. Keep in mind with both of the trades... both with both Martin and Scola we would try to get 1st round picks as well. Im sure my plan has plenty of flaws and plenty of alternate trades i just think something like this neds to happen otherwise we are gonna be stuck in mediocridy or become a 1st round playoff exit with no hope for improving... and by the time that people realize it, we will have lost a golden opportunity to rebuild.
The Rubio love is unwarranted. The dude hasn't played an NBA game. For all we know, he could be the second coming of Matt Maloney. Not really, but don't hype this guy up so much. VSpan part 2 maybe.
i dont really like him either... it was just a scenario that could work. LOL the main reason why i put rubio in wa because i though the majority of C-fans liked him .... i guess i was wrong
Thats a great start to rebuilding... both of those guys are high potential center prospects.. but why not commint all of the way then. Sure they theoretically fill a void at center but they are also rookies. We cant rely on rookies if we seriously want to contend. If we get thoe two prospects i would like to see scola and martin traded soon afterwards. A year of a first round playoff exit hurts us far worse than another lottery campaign.
The only one i see as a 1 or 2 year project is Nogueira. I'm thinking Biyombo can come in and start contributing in his rookie season next to Chuck or Patterson. Also, with a summer of good hard work, maybe Thabeet can help out a little on defense. Key words, a little.
I see biyombo as more of a Serge Ibaka than anything else.. He will show some flashes but i still think it will take him a year or 2 to become a real contributor. Thabeet needs only to learn to use his huge size to alter shots like Yao... he is much further along than either of those two prospects ( even at his current level ) Plus he has the whole offseason to work out with the rockets big men coaches. Biyombo first has to be drafted by us and then can get to work... Thabeet has a huge head start and the advantage of size. Biyombo is more of a PF size right now ( 6'9'') Also i agree that Nogueira is a 2 year prospect at the least. Frankly put i just dont see us being able to overcome our defecit in the center this offseason so i would take a step back and start over. How much of a downgrade is Lee and Patterson from Martin and Scola and how much could we get for Martin and Scola.... I'm thinking plenty to help make our rebuilding effort go faster. Everyone seems so adverse to going to the lottery. One of the teams that we all admire in OKC was in the lottery for 3 years. 3 !! ...... I think that with the young prospects we already have in place and the Draftpicks that we have over the next 2 drafts we would only need to suck next season and we would be well on our way to becoming the next OKC.
LOL ... dude it was just a sugestion... its kinda wierd. About a year ago, to the best of my memory nearly all of clutchfans was on Rubio's jock proclaiming him the next great PG. What has changed so much in a year that he is now hated ? Look i dont even like rubio that much but what other top 5 pick from a year or 2 years ago could you get for Martin ? Plus we would be getting a first rounder in the deal as well. Look the point of the trade was'nt as much to get rubio... but to get rid of Martin .. i dont care how it is done i just want it done. And btw it was nice of you to even get to that point when reading.
Don't like that first sentence; for the money that they're making, we better get some real value of them.
