I'll save my overall grading for the end of the season after I have seen the TEAM play together. After watching that Rudy Gay video the kid can dunk, I'll give him that but can he play basketball? You know, its a game with five players on the flooor working together as a cohesive unit....I didin't see Gay even look to pass the ball once. I do like the moves we have made, your not going to get All-star calliber players as role players so I'm not sure what some of you guys are asking for here, but if Yao and T-Mac are back to normal the game will become real easy for the rest of the role players. So sans the addition of another PF or SG if we can get one our trade exception and a draft pick......I'm ready to go to battle!
Grade so far would be a C+, but when and if they trade JHO would jump up to a B+ in my mind. I just have a good feeling that something good will happen by August 1st.
Come on guys...have you forgotten that we have arguably two of the best 10 players in the NBA on our team? What the hell did Kobe and Shaq have on their teams that waltzed thru the playoffs, Rick Fox...a homeless mans Shane Battier. I mean I know we dont have the best role players in the league but stars when championships, this team is going as far as Yao and TMac will carry them, dont fool yourselves.
While I am optimist and a rockets fan, to consider this offseason good so far is a little presumptoues. Let's back away and look at this thing realistically, basically all we have added is question marks (beside battier). Lucas, Snyder, V-span, and Novak have yet to prove anything substanial in the NBA, if anything at all. They have proven nothing yet that puts them in plus category as to make us realistically think that our team is any better than when the season ended. Battier is a proven comodity that we can confidantly put in the plus categorty as far as our team being better, but he was not some great acqusition by the Rockets Staff, more or less our reward for being in the lottery. Our bad season last year garunteed us atleast one projectabley upgradeable player. Should we be better than last year, Yes! Just like Carrol and V-gundy consistently state, just having a healthy Ming and McGrady make us worlds better. The aquisition of Battier also should make us a little better, but once again he was a solace prize from a bad year. To think that V-span, Synder, Novak, and Lucas are acquisitions that make us confidantly better, therefore making it a good offseason for our team and GM, is hopeful at best. I agree with some of the other posters, lets wait and see how things finishes out this offseason. Until then though, here's to hoping! because that is all we can really do about it being a good offseason.
Onlooker, Snyder is not unproven. He played well enough last year to earn significant minutes. Not that I get overly excited over Snyder because it is possible for him to regress with increased minutes. I've rated the season poorly because the Rockets didn't acquire James, but I have a higher opinion of James than most of this board. I do acknowledge that the Rockets will be better with increased health, but do not consider this in grading the offseason moves so far. Welcome to the board.
Dude V-spans on ball D is sick i posted that in my scouting report thread for him. He needs work on team D but he is just nasty lindsey hunterisc pressuring the ball. And yes for all you haters i have seen him play on the internet and no not just highlight clips full games.
I just want to make clear that i am against trading Luther but if we traded Jho and Luther for Kwame and in a separate sign and trade Devan George that would be alright.
thanks Joe Joe, appreciate the welcome. I have been around for quite a while, even longer than the June 2002 listed, but just sort through the board for helpful info. I hope Synder does become a solid contributor on a good team consistently. Mainly, excited about the potential of V-span, his skill set will help our team if he pans out. Hopefully by the end of the offseason we will be able to pick up a few more solid guys who we know what they will bring to the floor every night.
EXACTLY how I feel. I find it quite laughable how excited and confident these homers are about Novak and JLIII being big contributers this season but then turn around and down Rudy Gay cause he's a rookie who hasn't proven anything on this level and wont be factor for another 2-3 years. The world of a homer must be a lovely one.
I see your point on Snyder (Though I'd argue the Pistons recieved Rasheed Wallace off the discount rack), but I don't see how it applies to Vassilis Spanoulis or Little Lucas. We drafted Vassilis Spanoulis. No other NBA teams could have signed him. Further, he didn't come at a discount price as all as far as that goes. He's the highest paid second round draft pick in Rockets history. It's not uncommon for international players to be drafted and remain overseas for a few years before being signed. John Lucas III has been offered contracts by five or six teams, including well respected scouting teams such as the Suns. I don't think any of us think JLIII is going to fight it out for the starting spot, but there is a lot of reason to love him as your third string point guard. Incidentally, players such as Mike James, Ben Wallace and former Rocket great Mario Elie all had to break into the league just like JLIII is doing now. Regardless, what is beautiful about each of those moves is it's very difficult to imagine any of them hurting us. If Kirk Snyder pans out, it's a huge coup! If he doesn't, he's cheap and he'll only be with us two years TOPS! Vassilis Spanoulis and JLIII will both be signed to cheap 3 year deals. If they aren't quality backups, how does that hurt us? But honestly, I expect both of them to be quality backups and I'm hoping Spanoulis has the potential to develop into a starting NBA pointguard in the next few years. We'll see. Better than all of that though, is that the Rockets finally have some young players with potential we can watch develop. I think the reason we all felt so cheated when the Rockets traded away Gay is that it's fun to watch young players grow and evolve. It's also fun to fantasize about them being the steal of the draft and becoming huge contributors. Maybe none of our young guys are ever going to be stars, but I think they can all become solid contributors for years to come. That's exciting.
I think this offseason has been pretty good, if we can get JL3 and maybe even Korver than this can be a great offseason
Well I'm not sure about JLIII becoming a big contributor, but he seems to be a great 3rd string PG. The difference between Rudy Gay's contrubution to this team from Novak's is much to different to compare. Novak is brought in here to be a role player. Rockets expect nothing more than hitting his open shots consistently, which is what he has been doing for years. Rudy Gay on the other hand would be expected be a 3rd scorer, a much bigger and important role to play. Both Novak and Gay are unproven but Novak is a senoir who shoots lights out and logically he should do it easily off the double teams from T-Mac and Yao. Rudy is a sophmore, who IMO played incosistently, and would be expected to come in for 82 games and contribute consistently as a third scorer. Novak's defenition of a big contribution is hitting his 3s with a great fg%, nothing more than that. Rudy's defenition of a big contribution would be a third scorer who can put up good numbers all around. Which one do you think is ready to step up and make a bigger contribution depending upon amount expected?
your logic is extremely flawed and quite frankly unfair. First you say Gay is a sophomore who isn't ready....yet you say he "has" to come in and be a 3rd scorer as a rookie. You dont see how ass backwards that is???? Then you say how ready Novak is but state his role being nothing more than coming off the bench a hitting 3s. Explain to me how Gay can be so raw and in your words "inconsistent" yet is expected to be a heavy contributor as a rookie??? Thats one huge double standard that the homers have been spewing since this trade was made. In reality Gay was considered to be one of the more polished and skilled players in this draft who lead a team with 4 1st round picks in scoring while make 1st All Big East and 2nd team nationally.
Eh. They also had Phil Jackson. I refuse to believe we'll get far, if we don't support our tremendous defense with a very good offense, I'm not saying top 3 in both. I'm say top 5 defense, I think we are #1 or #2, and top 12 offense, like #11. Not just that, I also would love to see how we compete and act to go far, if we have quite a little bit of athleticism. I'm very happy with the depth we've added, and the funny thing is we are capable of adding more depth with our options in TE and portions of the MLE remaining, so we've done good with that. We do need some more athleticism however, and a more physical PF. If we can get Lorenzen Wright, by signing him with the remaining MLE after Vassilis and John, I'd say we've had quite a damn good off-season. I think our team is very capable of going far, but we have to get better on offense, which comes from the coach's playbook too, and athleticism, that's just by the personnel you have. Tracy, Kirk, Luther are our most athletic players. It's not shabby, but consider it's our ONLY athletic players, that's quite sad. On top of that, health plays a role. I think we can matchup with any team though, honestly.
Novak will be nothing more than a role player with his current skills. Novak is ready to contribute in terms of coming off the bench and making his shots because that is why the rockets drafted him: to improve shooting. Rockets weren't looking for a potential superstar or a super role player in Novak. Gay has to contribute right away because rockets weren't a team with much depth, didn't have trade bait, and their 8th pick was their biggest asset to improve the team. Rockets want to win now, so of course Gay would've had to contrbute right away because he was the 8th pick (although I doubt rockets would draft Gay if they wanted a player to help out right away). Rockets want to "win now" Their biggest asset to improve the team is the 8th pick, therefore it must be used to help improve the team right away. No projects or potential.
LOSE: 8th pick Stromile Wesley Bogans GAIN: Battier V-Span Snyder JL3 Only one that really excites me is Snyder. My excitement for Battier is cancelled out by my disappointment about Gay/SS. But I do think Snyders a player, can't wait to see what he can do.
I've thought that a couple of times since we signed VSpan and have gotten close to signing JL3, than I remember I'm getting my hopes up over a mid 1st round draft pick who hasn't shown much, a 2nd round pick who didn't make the NBA after he was drafted and has been playing in the Euro leagues, and a guy who went undrafted. Then I think about how bad we were last year and think about the potential Gay had, and then I go back to being depressed.
This information I am about to give you is worthless, but.. I'm going to give it to you anyway: I am the proud owner of EA Sports NBA 2004. Okay, maybe not proud, but I do own it. I bought it used and hadn't played it yet. These summer changes got me all Rocket Red inside and out, so I made the trades to give us our current 2007 roster: Rafer Alston Tracy McGrady Shane Battier Juwo('a' for superden)n Howard Yao Ming Dikembe Mutumbo Kirk Snyder Ryan Bowen Bob Sura (I left off Luther because creating characters takes more than I wish to give) Rafer is rated 70ish Tracy 92 Shane 80ish JuwOn 80ish Yao 75 No one is a 99, but combined to form Volrocketstron, the team is a 99. Yes, Dik, Howard and Sura are older today and not as good, but the team is still ranked 99. - - - What does this mean? Nothing. It's worthless. Just like I said in the first sentence.
