I thought this was exactly what this thread was for. Trading Battier is a very logical option to address our weaknesses. He’s the only player of value we have, outside of Mcgrady and Yao. Seems everybody here knows what the Rockets problems are, yet nobody is willing to give up anything to get the players to fix those problems. Newsflash: everybody already knows Rafer Alston sucks and we have no starting caliber power forward. We’ve known that for a couple years now. If it were so easy to solve those problems, they would have been solved already.
The cold sting of this playoff loss is one of many, many reasons I didn't want to trade for Battier. Mr. Super-Duper-Hustle made sense if--and only if--we were that close to a championship, and if Yao and T-Mac's window was almost closed. Neither of those things were true. Now that we're knocked out of the playoffs, the sober truth is right in front of us: our roster doesn't have a lot of upside. If we had Gay, it would.
Winning 52 games in the regular season. Coming within 4 points of advancing against a really good 1st round opponent. We don't do either without Battier.
I'd rather have 52 wins and a close series with Utah than 45 wins and a series with Phoenix and "upside". We would be a worse team with Rudy Gay than with Battier.
Your expectations are really low. People in Dallas are committing hari kari over their exit and we think we were successful for making the playoffs and losing to a "really" good 1st round opponent?
No, I have higher expectations. But I don't want to sacrifice a lot of our success for a little bit of upside. I saw Rudy Gay enough this year to know that he wouldn't make us better this decade. Battier has.
So you’re pretty much satisfied with the Rockets performing at the same level as Shane’s previous team in Memphis. Win 50+ games in the regular season and get bounced in the 1st round.
Guess what? This team has no upside with Shane Battier. Is Shane battier going to attack the rim and score 20+ points. Can you trade Shane Battier for a good veteran PF or PG? No Shane Battier's value is limited. Do you even know what the definition of upside is? Let me give you a clue. You see Phoenix's bench. You see Leonardo Barbosa. he's 10x the player Shane Battier is. You see Raja Bell. He's better than Luther Head. You see Boris Diaw. He could b**** slap Juwan Howard. You see Steve Nash. Rafer Alston couldn't sniff his jock strap. And Phoenix hasn't even won. Do you know how far we are from a championship? But be happy we have Shane Battier.
I'm much more happy with the success of Shane's team than I would be of the success of team of the guys we traded for him. (And that's the relative value you get if you trade Shane.)
Battier is a nice player to havecoming off your bench, he can play good defense, hit some threes, take some charges, but he the only thing he can really do on offense is stand in the corner and shoot a 3. He is a nice player, but not a starter on a great team playing 40+ minutes, unless we get scorers at the other positions and some scoring depth off the bench.
Rudy Gay is 20 years old. He's the equivalent of a Junior in college. His talent is tremendous and finished 3rd in the ROY voting. He could develop into the 3rd all-star scorer we desperately needed.
Upside is a fancy word for a player who's not ready yet. Fans and draft analysts throw the word upside around. When GM's make decisions based on upside they get players like Stromile Swift or Al Harrington or J.R. Smith. GMs should take advantage of other GMs who make decisions based on upside. They shouldn't fall in to the trap of chasing it. (I have no clue what the Suns roster has to do with this topic.)
Shane Battier is better than Rudy Gay will ever be. Mark that down, quote me in the future on it. I've seen both now enough to know that.
hell NO! Trading anyone out would be stupid before we get a NEW COACH. Do some of you still remember the praise u gave to Shane during the regular season? Don't be a flip flopper, make up you mind! IMO, Shane is a solid player, definitely a keeper! We are OUTCOACHED in this series. WE NEED A REAL CHAMPIONSHIP COACH to bring all the talents we have out on the court!
Yes you keep Battier, but in a smaller role off the bench. If we can significantly improve and get scorers at PG, PF and a guy off the bench, then he can start.
I agree. He is probably the only tradeable asset. We need an all around player as our third guy. Offense must not be limited to three pointers set up by Tracy.
http://www.82games.com/dpoy.htm In their analysis for picking defensive player of the year, in one of the categories they used: Nice to see according to Plus/Minus that the dumb rookie Rudy Gay out-intangibled Mr. Intangibles himself...
How do scouts describe Greg Oden and Kevin Durant? How did Don Nelson describe Dirk when he was sucking wind his first year? How did the Pacers describe Jermaine O'Neal when they got him from Portland? How did Orlando describe McGrady when they signed him away from Toronto? How did the Lakers describe Kobe when they traded away Vlade Divacs?
