I hope I am wrong but I don't think Les will ever use that exception if it sends us over the cap. If that is the case then the exception is worthless.
HAHAHHAHAHAHAH MADE MY DAY A 3 POINT SHEER DRILLING VETERAN (glen rice) TRADED FOR A BURTISH TEA DRINKER AMICHI VETERAN PLUS IN EXPENSE OF 1ST ROUND DRAFT PLAYERS FROM ROCKETS TO THEM HAHAHAHA I THINK VAN GUNDY HAS BEEF WITH RICE GET IT? I EAT BEEF WITH RICE GET IT?
Bleh! Sorry for my outrage... I didn't realize we got a huge trade exception! w00t! Yay! Now who can we get?
I respectfully disagree with you Crash. This is to our advantage. Here's why: [ol] Jim Jackson or even Adrian Griffin would be better at SF for us this year, and if he's on the team, he'll require the ball, since he's a respected veteran and we have so much invested in him. Rice is just too slow now, with this fast young team. It opens the door to signing various good deal FA's, such as Oakley, Nailon or Hill at PF, and Jim Jackson (guess we already got him), Steve Jackson, or Steve Smith at SF/SG, and maybe even Kenny Anderson or Rod Strickland at PG. I wouldn't be surprised if Amechi was used in trade within 24 hours for a deal. We're only a couple million over luxury tax. This allows us to add a few players, without it getting extremely expensive over the tax limit. We'll have the 6.5 million exception now and NEXT summer, when we might want to make a trade, but we get the savings THIS year, keeping us from going over luxury tax. We can actually make smaller trades, getting rid of someone like Moochie. We didn't have much we were willing to trade, except Rice's huge contract, which noone evidently wanted. It was too much, in terms of someone getting savings, without giving us crap in return, which only loaded us down in the future. This has kept us stuck all summer long from doing trades. The most boring summer EVER. So many trades didn't work, because they put us deeper in luxury tax territory, where we are having to pay twice what a guy's worth, and lose all the tax dividends. [/ol][/list=1] I'm thrilled the stalemate on getting more players is over. Rather brilliant, if you ask me. Good grief. What are the downsides? Rice wasn't getting us anywhere. The Shandon deal was the mistake. We should have let him walk back then. With this, we aren't compounding our mistakes. We get under the cap, and ability to trade again. What's not to like?
Ditto that to 2K and TJ. So CD said the luxury tax was a factor. Of course it's a factor. This story isn't half played yet though. Crisco and crash: if you guys expect us to let the 6.5 exception pass without using it (keeping in mind we've got it til this time next year), I get your point. If not, I totally don't. I'm also not crazy about Amaechi being our primary backup at the 5, but with him on the roster we not only have the flexibility of the exception, but the flexibility of moving a valuable trade commodity in Cato. For the last several years people have been b****ing about Cato and Rice's bad contracts. Today's deal allows us to get out from under both without losing anything of great value and with the potential to really improve our situation. This story's not over, but it looks promising right now to me.
Would it now be possible that with this 6.5M exception, we can trade Cato for Ron Artest since Cato is now useless because we have Amaechi?
If we were to trade Cato, would it really be for a 3? We seem to have a logjam at the 2/3 position. Cat and Cato seem pretty tradeable right about now...
Sensible trade See, I first suggested this (similar) trade in July. Some of you guys blasted me for that. I think it is a great trade for the Rocks, albeit a bit late. Nevertheless the trade exception gives us tremendous flexibility. Amachi is also a better third string Center than Collier. I Jim Jackson bosters our 2 spot, which was already quite deep. I would suggest that Rockets also sign Mark Jackson for the veteran leadership. This will free up stevie to do spot duty at 2 and Jim Jackson and Adrian Griffin to slide to the 3 spot. True we have not improved at the forward position, but watch out for a future move. I bigger midseason deal is all the more likelly. Some of my favorites are: Moble+Eddie+Trade exception for Jermain O'neal. MO Taylor+Mobley for SAR Amachi+part of exception for Ron Artest Some three way deals involving combinations of exception and/or Cato/ Taylor/ Eddie/Mobley for significant upgrade at 3/4 spot is also more than likely. The bottomline is apart from Yao and Stevie no one can take his spot for granted and will have to earn it on the court or pack his bags. I bet alot of our guys will put an extra effort and we will see a better team chemistry and unselfish ball play.
Given that this deal allowed for the Jackson signing, I think it's a good thing. Rice wasn't the answer at the 3, and Jackson can still be valuable to our team.
As I said before, Cato is an expensive backup. Artest is a stud that is in the class of Francis and Yao. While we have many 3s now but none of them average 10pts a game. It seems to me bringing in Artest is a good move.
F*ck you, tw@t.. Go back and read you own posts to find out what stupid really is. Then after that do a google search, learn more about Amaechi and how "stupid" he really is.
aelliott - Now doggone it...why did you have to inject something as worthless as common sense in here? Were you not convinced that we should have been able to get SAR for Rice's expiring contract or at least Rasheed Wallace. C'mon...join in and commiserate. (I guess the board is loaded with checkers players and not enough chess players). QUOTE]Originally posted by MacBeth Stunned. I guess it's safe to say that the people ( ahem...and you, too Gater, you weree with me on this ) who said we should have let Shandon Anderson walk were pretty much proven right, several millions and draft picks later...A terrible end to a terrible move in the first place. [/QUOTE] MacBeth - I'm stunned, also. 2 years with a perfectly good sig and now I have to change it. It'll be a few days before I'll be able to deal with it. OK...Amaechi has a Player Option for 2004-05 so maybe I can get away with something like "2 years at $5.4m 0 down, 2 to go". I remember well the days of the Rice/Anderson trade discussions. There was you, Will, me and maybe 4 others tops. We took a beating trying to explain why we felt Rice was damaged goods. There were others than chimed in much later, but we were part of the original core nucleus. Truthfully, I am going to avoid a knee jerk reaction on this one. John Amaechi is real cheap and although not a dunker he does have soft hands around the basket. And he gives us depth. The trade exception is nice, really nice. We will get to participate in lots of trade talks that we would have been excluded from. The no guaranteed 1st pick $ helps, too...(hey, we're a WC playoff team right? the pick will be like #17+ and that's $1m/yr that goes to something other than a youthful project). Overall, on the surface...I like the move. Although one thing does puzzle me...if Van Gundy's prior teams have a reputation for defense and running an offense thru the post, how does this concept extend to include a player with Jim Jackson's style?
The rox let their last trade exception expire w/o a move. So you guys think we couldn't have gotten something better for Rice's contact other than a 6.5 exception and the loss of a 1st rounder?
