first the jazz lose stockton and malone. that opened up a spot in the postseason for one of 5 teams (us, lac, sea, mem, gsw). GS gave away any hopes of making the playoffs, by trading jamison and fortson. LAC lost kandi, miller, and now odom. so its down to 3. we need to get a little better just to edge out the compitition. the best way to do that is to use the rest of our exceptions(we still have half of the MLE and half of the $1M). and to put rice on the block and see what offers come in. realistically, who would you lik to see braught in using our exceptions and rice?
We could do that....or we could stay put and rely on our biggest free agent signing in recent years. I would like to see what Vangundy can do with this 43 win team. With the right coaching and discipline, he could account for atleast 6-9 more wins this season. If they use the mid-level, I personally think they should sign or trade for a decent back up point. My opinion....
Mark would be a nice addition! I said 6-9 more win because that was essentially the number of games that slipped away because of bad coaching decisions or undisciplined actions made by our young players. I just believe that Jeff could be the missing piece that will get us over that 9th seed hump. I know a lot of people believe that Sharef (SAR)is the answer among with other various trades, but this team has a great nucleolus with Yao and Steve and the supporting cast. I love Rudy just like everyone else, but he was burned out and tired....basically needed a break from these kids. Jeff will make a nice difference and that difference will amount into a few more wins landing us the 6 or 7 spot in the playoffs.
I'm thinking that we end up around the 7th position, unless of course the Blazers begin having a yard sale, in which we would be 6th. We are better than the Suns, they only beat us out by one win while our coach was sick with cancer, and we've added a new coach and some new role players. The Sonics are too small to play in the west. If they can get SAR, they may have a chance to keep up with us, but I doubt it.
Two words for us... Stephen Jackson. I mean, we're without a true starting three right now and there's SJax, fresh off of starting for a championship team, without a freaking job! It's not "Rocket" science here folks (pardon the rediculously bad pun), we need a better option at SF and he's exactly that.
I think we shouldn't be looking at what it takes to make us the 7th or 8th best team in the west --- what would it take to move us to the next level. We need a power forward who can bang!!!
You guys are SO selling the other lower eschelon Western Conf. teams short. Just because Jamison and Fortson are no longer in G.S. doesn't mean they are going to drop completely off the map. NVE will make it his personal mission to screw the Mavs 'cause of the trade. Also, that team has a better young coach than anyone not in the top 5 in the W.C. (yes, I think Musselman is better than JVG). Also, Seattle will have a full season for Houston to blend with Shard, and the mad Hungarian Radmonovic, and they now have Nick Collison, to go along with Brent Barry, and several other decent complimentary players. If they can play defense with some intensity (like we're expecting the Rox to do...) then they are going to be in the hunt for an 8th seed as well!! And we already know the Suns have the potential to beat us out for a spot, because they did it last year!! I think they are going to be better this year. So, to just write everyone else off and say the Rox are a shoe-in for either a 7th, or 8th seed (much less anything higher...) is folly!!
I believe you made a ridiculous post like this about the Sonics a few weeks ago. The Warriors: lost their two best players in Arenas and Jamison. That's like Houston losing Yao and Steve and got Nick Van Exel to replace them, except that Arenas and Jamison probably contribute a larger proportion of their team's offense. They wouldn't be better even if they had those guys back, much less without them. Your opinon that Musselman is better than Van Gundy is not based on performance. Musselmans resume is what, 2 losing seasons? Van Gundy's is taking an average at best knicks team to the finals and having a winning % around .600? Next. The Sonics: I've been over this before with you. First, Radomanovic is Yugoslavian, not Hungarian. If you followed his development a little closer, you would know that he is pretty much their version of Eddie Griffin at this point: a disappointment. Guys going into their third season who have achieved something don't spend their summers in the Long Beach summer pro league with rookie free agents. Their bigmen? Nick Collison, Calvin Booth, Predrag Drobnjak. Ouch, that makes Yao, Taylor, and Eddie look like Wilt, Kareem, and Russell. They sucked last year and added some guys who might be rolepalyers one day. No thanks. Phoenix: they may be better than us, they may not be, nobody can argue that the two teams weren't extremely close last year. However, making hte playoffs doesn't hinge on them anymore given Utah's plummet from grace.
I'll say this we do have a much better chance of being caught by Seattle or Memphis (yes, Memphis) for the 8th playoff spot than we do of breaking into the top 5 in the west--this is the reality for anyone with any sort of objectivity IMO. Further, we haven't made the playoffs in what 4/5 years--we should take nothing for granted, especially given our starting 5 is weaker than last years (both KT and JP were our 4th best player when they were here and our replacements are less capable players). The only reason we may be better than last year are because of Yao's natural improvement, EG natural improvement, and JVG getting more discipline in the guards. It certainly isn't because we brought in any more ammunition or player additions to support our core players, which is too bad, because had we brought in a quality forward or even kept the best one from last year we might really have some really positive synergy going (maybe gun for 6th place). Phx is in a similar situation (young players/system at their core who/which should only get better)--but they had bad injury luck last year (while we had few injuries) and at least kept all their key starters and back-ups from last year's team--more than I can say for us. Now however I do believe GS is not a threat at all. I think them, the Cavs and the Jazz are going to fight for the bottom 3 league spots. Denver IMO is better than any of these 3 and maybe in a couple years could be a playoff threat if not after next year.
I say we wait till next year. we will have one more year of experiance and hopefully look more attractive to the bigger free agents. by then van gundy will have the rockets playing better in his system and will know what will help the team out most in the long run instead of trying to make a quick fix that will hurt us even more.
OHHH man i started rolling on the ground and laughing.. its so funny to hear that ppl think Memphis is going to make it to the playoffs... HEH... i dont think theyll make it this year or next year... Maybe if the can have a Stromile Swift do some stuff maybe they will make 9th seed... MEMPHIS?!?!... HAHAHA... sorry no offense... but ehh thats In your Opinion... this is my opinion...
Screw this talk about improving just enough to edge out the competition for the 8th seed, we can be 5th or 6th seed. I have total confidence in the Rockets getting a better seed than 8th.
Pheonix is going to have bad injury problems again, too. Penny cannot stay healthy - he just can't. He'll miss a minimum of 20 games next year. Googs should have retired 5 years ago. He makes the old Glen Rice look like the Glen Rice of old. The Suns are not locks for the playoffs and neither are we. It'll probably be a matter of who starts out stronger, and who fades quicker.
