Why do people on this BBS continue to deny the reality that the most likely move the Rockets will make will be to dump Luther's and Steve's salaries (plus cash to cover those salaries and then some) to a team with trade exceptions and enough room under the luxury tax threshold to absorb those expiring contracts for this season. The only holdups are (a) the other team still seeing if its trade exceptions can get it something of more value than our scrubs and (b) the Rockets waiting long enough into the season to pay less cash into the deal to cover the players' remaining prorated salaries. I fully expect a February trade where the Rockets trade Luther, Steve and cash to Oklahoma City using OKC's trade exceptions. No pipedream scenarios where the Rockets get a legit rotation player. No big package deals for superstars. Just financial reality hitting us Rockets fans square in the face. But I'm okay with that. The Rockets have the horses to contend for a championship. They just need to play better.
Bimathug- That sounds nice and dandy, but you don't try to win a ring without trying to beat the best team. No matter what kind of fan you are of the rox, they are not as good as the Lakers. Its a bad matchup and unless they get lucky like the 94-95 team did ducking Seattle, we will say we're one player away. If they can get that player, they should. If it takes mulitple backup guys they should do that, but you can't feel comfortable with the matchups vs La.
leebigez, I don't disagree with you. The Lakers are the team to beat, and it's highly doubtful that the Rockets would be favored in a playoff matchup against them. However, the Rockets are definitely in the discussion as a title contender. Still, the reality of the situation is that (a) Les Alexander does not want to pay the luxury tax, (b) Daryl Morey has strict instructions to get the team back under the luxury tax threshold, (c) Luther Head and Steve Francis are expiring contracts with little to no trade value at this time, (d) another team would want something from the Rockets for the BURDEN of taking on their contracts for a few months. Add all that up, and the natural consequence is a salary dump where the Rockets have to pay another team to take their excess salaries in order to save a greater amount in luxury tax and lost shared revenues. You may be right about not being able to beat the Lakers, but there is no trade out there that (1) the other team would do AND (2) that makes the Rockets SO much better, for which Les would be willing to pay luxury tax.
I hope we win! we were able to pull one off at Miami with Tmac scoring only 6 points. I also pray that Landry gives the Pacers problems again like he did last year
Just like i talked about getting artest before 2 yrs before it was done, i can talk about a couple of trades that will close the gap and make the team better. Whether or not they do it is another thing. My issue with this team is the logjam at guard and the redundancy at 4. Head,Francis, and dorsey arent going to play at all this year. So what the point of keeping guys that are just taking up roster spots and not helping the team to win a title? Of course we've had the Camby discussion. To me he's perfect for this team and frontline. There are some that would argue that he's old, overrated or whatever, but I've always thought his skillset was perfect to play beside Ming. A better version of Cato as i think of it. He would cost you at least Scola and some more filler, but for the next 2 yrs, the rox would have the best 4/5 combo in the league. Yao's minutes would go down, Landry's minutes up, and Hayes would be strictly a situational player which is what he is. If Yao was to miss some games, Camby could play center and landry start. Overrall it would be 32 mins a night for all 3 which works out fine. Other guys that have been discussed for cheap are F. Elson, Chris Mihm, Malick Allen, DJ Mbenga, and Calvin Booth. There are times when these "minor" trades come back and become major trades. Brent Barry and David wesley all paid off. Of that list above, Mihm makes the most at 2.5m which is Francis contract, Elson at 1.7, Allen at 1.3, Booth at 1.2 and Mbenga at 787k. So basically we're talking about dumping head(1.7m) can get the rox any of the above except mihm. I know its beating the hell out of that horse, but having 1 or 2 of those guys would make this team better in the playoffs. The lack of a 7 ft guy backing up Yao can be done without taking on more salary. Francis 2.6m and Head 1.9m for Mihm 2.5m and mbenga 880k drops the teams salary by 1.2m. There are ways, they just need to do it.
Yes. It's called dumping Luther and Steve like I said and re-signing Mutombo for the veteran minimum, which seems to be the Rockets' actual gameplan.
With all due respect, you would have traded Battier for Artest rather than wait for the right deal. You've also advocated picking up Ricky Davis and Tim Thomas, two absolute dogs who are some of the worst character guys in the league. You and a lot of people around here equate making moves with getting better and that is not always the case. The Rockets have not had *this* team in full play a single game together. Why would they move somebody before they know what they have right now? They already have one of the three deepest rosters in the league. Packaging Luther Head and expiring contracts and draft picks will not get anybody anyway. I am not willing to move the major pieces that would be necessary to trade to get a front court, or point guard upgrade until we actually know how this roster plays together. I still want to see Battier, Artest and a productive McGrady get on the court together before I concede anything to the Lakers.
Send Yao to lakers and get back Bynum. lakers get Market and Rockets get good Center. Chinese like to see Yao plays with Kobe.
javaris will be awesome for us. just dunno how we can get him away from the grizzlies for the right price. I've always been an advocate of Javaris coming to the Rockets-good size, good speed, good rebounder, but I'm afraid the Grizz will want Landry or Scola which is pretty unreasonable
NICE. Great thinking. Hmm... Behold the Rockets: DUMBER THAN THE GRIZZLIES. Congrats. You just gave the Lakers the most dominant team EVER assembled. Yao/Mihm/Mbenga Pau Gasol/Odom Rodman/Ariza/Walton Kobe/Sasha Fisher/Farmar WOW. Drools*
This is not a deep team as you might think. Deep is when you have high quality players that are versitile and can play multple positions. Case and point, Lakers. Now whether you believe it or not, but who is yao's backup? I mean Lakers lost Bynum and went to the finals. If Yao goes down for 25 games who is going to fill the void? If the lakers lose Radman, they've got odom,walton and ariza. They lose fisher, they have sasha and farmar. They lose bynum or gasol, they have odom,mihm. That's depth. Back to wanting Artest, whenever you're trying to win now with high milage declining or balanced out stars, you have to what you have to do to maximize the window. Artest is a better player now and was 2 yrs ago. Now, everyone on your team might not be lucky enough to be boyscouts, so taking talented players works out if the leadership is strong. When I talked about moving Rafer and getting a guy like thomas or davis it was for versitility and depth. 2 guys who can play and defend multiple positions. I guess you would rather have a old slow Barry instead of Davis now because of character, not what he can do on the court. Top that off, Davis hasn't had any problems on the court or in the lockerroom for 4 yrs or so. Thomas was the matchup bench guy. I thought it was time to move on from Rafer, give the job to brooks and as much as I like landry, he and scola are too much alike. I'll tell you that now, I'll tell you that later in the year. To me thomas is that Horry type of guy that would play well off the rox bench. He's atheletic and good enough of a shooter to pull those 4's out the paint and quick enough to beat them off the dribble. So when the rox play a team like Utah or even La, Odom comes in, thomas comes in. Against Utah, Boozer can't stay in front of him on the perimeter. Its all about matchups. I know we've discussed this before and it comes back to the same thing. As a championship hopeful squad, you have to b able to matchup with everyone or you can't win unless you get lucky like we did in the mid 90's missing seattle.
Trade Yao for Chris Bosh and Jose Calderon. That would fix the 2 loopholes of our current rosters - PG and C. PG Calderon/Alston/Brooks SG TMac/Barry/Head SF Battier/Artest PF Scola/Landry/Hayes C Bosh/(Deke)/Dorsey
