That's amazing, it's like you read my mind. I would love to make that trade, although I don't think Washington wants anything to do with Juwan anymore. They also have Caron Butler and Deshawn Stevenson, who are both looking pretty good right now. But Thomas would be a nice player to put 10 minutes at the 4 and 10 minutes at the 5. Grab lots of rebounds, get a lot of putbacks, block some shots. He's like a young Brian Grant. Antawn Jamison would be a terriffic addition to this team, although that's off-topic.
Why do you say this when you know that Novak could be doing wonders for the Rox if he could only get NBA playing time & experience, just like Millsap
Hey, nothing against Deke. I just don't want Deke to get injuired when he actually should have been with his grandchildren
I would take Skinner too. I think he is the type of player exactly JVG wants. Defensing, rebounding, hard working.........at least we know that he will have some playing time
How about Raef Lafrentz? I was looking at his numbers, and he'd be a good fit. He has a big contract, but he mayb e worth it. He's been a good rebounder throughout his career, with some excellent rebounding seasons here and there. He's always been a good shotblocker, something we lack on this team. He can hit the 3 - consistently! His 3pt%'s show that he has been a very good 3-pt shooter with consistency throughout his career. Those are 3 KEY things that this team still needs up front. When you combine them together, he makes a TERRIFFIC fit as someone who backs up the 4/5 positions gobbling up all the minutes based on matchups. He basically eliminates two things from our team that haven't really worked out: Playing Padgett and Juwan at PF. He cannot possibly be less productive as he's the best shooter, rebounder and shotblocker of the bunch. He also can't possibly be a worse defender. He's also the biggest player of the 3. Again, he has a large contract, I know. However, I think that in our system, on this team specifically, his value per dollar is MUCH higher than Juwan Howard's. Now think about the numbers. Howard makes around 21M over 3 seasons (including this one). Sura makes around 4M for one season. That's a total of 25M we're dishing out. In return, we take Lafrentz, who has 3 years and 30M left. A net loss of 5M. For that 5M price tag we're getting better. We're also setting our PF/C positions for a few years with Yao/Lafrentz/Hayes. Meaning, we won't have to spend much or any money on acquiring players at these positions for the next couple of years. When Deke retires, he eats up the minutes.We get to surround Yao with either a shooter/shotblocker or an interior-scorer/rebounder. Great deal IMO, and management has said they're willing to spend if it means a championship. I think getting Lafrentz to play 20-25 minutes a night would definitely put us a small notch higher and closer to a championship.
No, no, no! Lafren is exactly the anti-JVG type of player, he won't be off the bench under JVG. We are talking about someone who can give us SOLID 10-15 minutes a game, especially rebounding and defense. Deke was serviceable last year, but he doesn't have it now, maybe 5-8 min, but definitely not 10-15 minutes. We have been getting away because Yao has been playing great, and he hasn't been in foul trouble much so far, except the game against NOR when he was limited to 27min. Deke only played 3 min in that game, which tells you how urgent the Rockets need a backup 5.
LOCK THIS THREAD AND STOP DISRESPECTING THE HALL OF FAMER DEKE WOULD START FOR HALF OF THE TEAMS IN THIS LEAGUE HE WOULD START OVER dampier
Very true, but obviously hindsight is 20-20. Not too many people would have predicted Deke would play this well (especially for 35 minutes). He's had a great stretch and I hope it keeps up, but please don't act like we all should've expected this.
I'm pretty sure Rockets will focus on getting a good backup center during this coming off season and maybe a starting PG.
I'm all for getting Raef LaFrentz. I don't know what his contract is like, but can he not still spread the floor and block a few shots? I think he'd be a good backup 5 and good back up 4/5 when Yao gets back.
