[Philly Inquirer] 76ers have to knock over Rockets with young talent (UPDATE: 1/13)

Plus when his contract expires you could probably re-sign him (if you wanted) at MLE type of money because I just do not see other teams offering him more than that.

 

Only thing is with his contract NEXT season...would we be able to find someone who would take his contract off our hands? It's kind of a high-risk, high-reward deal. It greatly improve our rebounding and shot blocking, but do we really wanna a BACKUP near or more than Yao?

Another alternative would be to maybe start BOTH YAO and DALEMBERT together to form TWIN TOWERS and bring ScoLandry off the bench...

 

I think Morey would be more willing to consider taking on Dalembert if Philly were to include a future 1st round pick for taking Dalembert off their hands which i think would sweeten the deal for us a bit.. We'll give them two exprings worth $26mil (mac+cook) and we take back couple of bad contracts but get a future 1st rounder out of it.

 

I'd do a TMAC + Ariza + Cook + Houston 1st Rounder for Iggy + Dalembert + Young/Speights/Holiday. If we were to land Holiday, we could let Lowry walk this offseason, which would hurt, but Holiday is pretty good defensively and is only 19. Plus, he's tall for a PG.

 

I'd do any of these two trades in a heartbeat:

http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=yj6v3s6

http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=ykk8amd

http://games.espn.go.com/nba/tradeMachine?tradeId=ylbxrbn

 

If we had to give up an asset to the sixers, it would probably just be taylor or/and Dorsey, plus cook's expiring deal.....Trade with Philly

and not to change topics, but if this rumor holds some truth (Houston int. in Randolph), and if the rockets could land Randolph & Maggette for some one like Luis & Battier and/or young asset, Trade with G. State..we would be sick

I would much rather prefer staying with Lowry and sign him this off-season and trade away Brooks, his ceiling at best is Jason Terry...Lowry is the better overall player, he offers so much more than brooks(who's game can be off if his jump shot is not falling)....and if the rockets were to get better weapons I prefer pass first point guard, who can attack the rim and draw a foul....

Line Up 09-10
Lowry(6'1)/ Holiday(6'4)
Iggy(6'7)/ Maggette(6'6)
Ariza(6'8)/ Budinger(6'7)
Landry(6'9)/Randolph(6'11)
Dalembert(7'0)/Hayes(6'6), Andersen(6'11)*Yao(7'6)

--RB

 

Agree on the high risk part but Dalembert has been very durable over the last few seasons and is a proven big man so I think a team would be interested in making a move for him. Honestly, the biggest reason I feel he is worth the risk is because I think Morey is the type of GM who can flip him into something valuable next year.

 

add to that that he's the opposite end of the spectrum in terms of big man when compared to Yao. You could conceivably play them together or use them in a heavy rotation when matching up with the bigger teams in the league, such as LA.

Sammy is not a bad player to have - he's just overpaid. i feel the same about iggy. but the truth is that if iggy and sam were that good, then philly would continue to build around them. clearly they aren't doing that, so the question should be asked - why should the rockets take on their problems and sacrifice the opportunity to get so many other players in the process if its not going to be a solid go-forward strategy for winning a chip?

 

I think it comes down to what this team needs as well as what this team has to offer incoming players. Those two guys really fill this team's two biggest weaknesses. I think part of the reason Philly wants them out is, of course, money but also just the need for a clean slate with new players. I have heard Dalembert gives inconsistent effort but I think that could be remedied by coming to a team full of hard workers. I've never heard anything about Iggy other than he tries to do too much at times.

I think coming to a winning organization that is loaded with high caliber guys would do wonders for both players. It's not like either guy is a bad seed either.

Of course, this is coming from a guy who doesn't believe the Rockets have a chance or necessarily a need for a guy like Bosh or Amar'e. I think when you look at how good this team already is and then consider plugging it's only two holes you have to feel good about that deal.

 

I just realized I spent most of that post not even addressing your question. My point was that I think those guys bring enough talent to the talent we already have to make this team a solid contender. They are a sure thing whereas trying to go grab a Bosh at $20+ million a year is a long shot, IMO.

I'm not sold that adding one great player is better than adding a decent one and a very good one when those two guys would instantly be useful here.

 

One thing to remember is that A.I. puts in heavy minutes, so his 18.0 points in over 40 minutes per game doesn't come out quite as good when standardized(per 48/36, etc..) to others. And putting up decent numbers as the primary option on a losing team doesn't always translate over well.

Another is that he, and Trevor are kinda redundant. With them playing the 2, and 3 together we are a very good slashing team, but not a good outside shooting team.



I do agree that we need to do something. I think it would be a mistake to just let T-Macs contract expire, and if this is the best option D.M. can find I will accept it. Who knows, we've had luck with tall shot-blocking Philly centers that have fallen out of favor before.

 

Great post, i agree with you 100%. There must be a better deal out there with out over paying.

 

i like the way you articulated that but i think theres a fundamental disagreement here in terms of what the rockets strategy should be.

I legitimately believe that in order to win consistently and at the highest level in the NBA, you absolutely need to have a superstar. not necessarily an A+ player, but at least an A player. Why? Because the benefits are immesurable of having multi-tool, multi-purpose, elite players on the court in a sport where your team is composed of 5 players, and the contributions of each affect each other. I looked at a box score the other day randomly to see what Bosh was doing, and he had something like 30 points and 10 rebounds. who on the rockets can do that? and do it while having length, agility, leadership, and no glaring weaknesses? the answer is nobody. the value of having that kind of versatility and elite performance in multiple aspects of the game is tremendous. because he enables you to fill in around him with guys with limitations, cheaper guys to play roles, to address the preferred play style of your coach and other significant personnel.

I think the chance at signing Bosh is worth potentially losing out on Iggy/Sammy. because both Iggy and Sammy are good, sometimes, and have their flaws, but neither of them is a potential league MVP like Bosh is. Neither of them enable the kind of roster building potential that Bosh does.

Simply put - i think assembling a bunch of B- to B+ guys is a great way to build a team that wins 45-55 games every season and gets you the 20-25th pick in the draft. that's not a good end game though. if you want your team to have a high ceiling, you must have A players, or at least players capable of playing at an A to A+ level.

 

Good point. I looked at his minutes earlier when I posted and realized he won't (or shouldn't be) getting those type of minutes here. What is encouraging to me is that his shooting percentage has been good throughout his career (although down this season) despite spending much of his career as the go-to guy on the team. He also has a 2/1 assist/turnover ratio which is good to see from a SG averaging almost six assists a game. He is a very effective slasher and finisher where Ariza is just horrendous at all things offense other than spot up threes (which he would get more of off of Iggy's drive-and-kick-outs).

The potential problem could be if he is McGrady-like in that his focus and entire game goes down the tubes when he isn't the guy dominating the ball offensively. I don't think that will happen, however. He played quite well alongside Allen Iverson and still managed to impact the game on the boards and defensively even when he was only getting seven or eight shots a game. Simply put, his efficiency, defense and overall game seem to be consistent regardless of if he is the first option or the second banana.

The fan in me has to think that moving to Houston and coming to a team with such great chemistry and a WINNING record will make the guy play better than ever before.

 

I don't follow the 76ers a whole lot, but why did Dalembert get a 15% trade kicker included in his contract, to me a player like Bosh or someone of the superstar power would get that, and I saw in another post they don't want to give AI up for just T-Mac's contract, would they maybe like Taylor to develop as their player? I know I'm asking alot of questions, but everyone here seems to know facts better than alot of other places.

 

lots of mediocre players get kickers if they want to discourage the team from trading them. teams hate acquiring players with kickers, especially if the player is overpaid to begin with (Mike James, Sam Dalembert, etc). It's the lowest level of anti-trade that a player can have written into his contract. The superstars get full "no trade clauses" where they can veto any attempt to trade them, like what Kobe has in Los Angeles. These are rare because they can only be included in the language of a new contract. So if you extend an existing contract with a team, they cannot write in a no-trade clause into the extension. the original contract must expire, then a new contract must be drawn up to include that language.

 

If we can find someone to take T-Mac's $23 million contract off our hands i'm sure we will find someone will to take a $12 million expiring contract off our hands as well. It'll be even easier to get rid off.

 

I would agree with you most of the time about needing a superstar. I happen to think the Rockets are the exception. What other team could lose it's three best players from the season before and be five games over .500 after playing the roughest first half of basketball in the league? This is a special team that already has two guys who can get you a bucket in crunch time (Brooks, Landry). It's also a team that happens to have two glaring weaknesses that, in my opinion, are the reason this team isn't a top 4-5 team in the league. Those weaknesses happen to be filled perfectly by Iggy/Dalembert WITHOUT costing our best players like Brooks, Scola and Landry any court time. The guys who would lose minutes are the guys killing us on offense (Battier, Ariza, Hayes).

As far as Bosh, I don't know that he fills the bill if what we really need is a superstar, go-to guy, down the stretch player. If we were talking Lebron, Melo, Kobe or Wade as guys we could get then I'm in agreement with you that you definitely go after one of them instead of settling on Iggy/Dalembert. Bosh just isn't on their level when it comes to getting himself or someone else an open look. He's like (young) KG-lite. Great player, great rebounder and fills stat sheets but do you really fear the guy when he gets the ball in his hands? I don't. I would prefer the ball go to the guy with the hot hand and that is likely going to Brooks or Landry nearly as often as it will be Bosh.

Great discussion, btw.

 

Andre Iquodala is an "A" player easily imo...


Great defender, great passer, runs the wing hard, durable...

 

And it's a slim chance. Rockets do not look that appealing. We are in some what of a limbo with Yao out injured. We also already have two Good PFs combined averaging 30 and 10.