HOUSTON - The Houston Rockets have signed free agent forward Lonny Baxter to a contract, General Manager Carroll Dawson announced today. Terms of the agreement were not released per team policy. The 6-foot-8, 260-pound forward has averaged 4.3 points, 3.0 rebounds and 0.4 blocks in 121 career games with Chicago, Toronto, Washington and New Orleans. This past summer, Baxter participated in the Rockets summer league in Minnesota. Baxter averaged 21.0 points, 6.2 rebounds and 1.2 steals in five games, helping Houston go undefeated in the contests. Before being selected by the Bulls in the 2002 NBA Draft, Baxter played at Maryland for four years and was one of the key performers on the 2002 NCAA championship team.
WOW, Baker, Moochie or Ward will have to be waived soon. I guess the cut down to 15 players is the start of the season but this definately means one of them is gone.
He would be a good 3rd big man..hope CD would soon address our guards who were mostly useless (Ward,Norris) or injury prone
DCballer like yaomania is a proven insider. Now what I'm wondering is whether they are just signing him for training camp or is someone going to be cut. We probably won't find out officially until training camp ends, but personally I think the writing is on the wall for Ward.
http://www.***************/article_14120.shtml Last Updated: Sep 8th, 2005 - 12:21:52 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rockets Sign Lonny Baxter -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Official Rockets Media Release for *************** Sep 8, 2005, 12:19 HOUSTON - The Houston Rockets have signed free agent forward Lonny Baxter to a contract, General Manager Carroll Dawson announced today. Terms of the agreement were not released per team policy. The 6-foot-8, 260-pound forward has averaged 4.3 points, 3.0 rebounds and 0.4 blocks in 121 career games with Chicago, Toronto, Washington and New Orleans. This past summer, Baxter participated in the Rockets summer league in Minnesota. Baxter averaged 21.0 points, 6.2 rebounds and 1.2 steals in five games, helping Houston go undefeated in the contests. Before being selected by the Bulls in the 2002 NBA Draft, Baxter played at Maryland for four years and was one of the key performers on the 2002 NCAA championship team.
if they don't cut Mooch - Ward can, at least, shoot but I suspect that Ward would get a gig as a coach b4 JVG would let him walk completly
Ward's contract is a lot less usefull for S&Ts than Mooch/Baker, I think he is flat out waived, retires, injury waiver, etc. Big thanks to Deke!!!! I think him signing for about 2 mil a year (1-2 mil under his market value) allowed us to take on Baxter's 900K or so. I have to add a few notes: For the 1st time I give the Rockets an A+ offseason. I honestly can't think of a single thing this offseason we should have done differently. (Well, maybe we didn't need Bowen, but since he didn't cost us Baxter after all I don't care). We are in great shape in our roster, salary and value for the short term, medium term and long term. I wouldn't trade our franchises positioning over ANYONES's, including the Spurs. I am not saying we will be better than them yet, but they still have Rasha and Barry as potential deadweight contracts and an older roster who if we don't catch them next year we will a few years out.
I don't see it unless it is something before the deadline to address weaknesses or injuries, or an absolute gift of someone dumping a good vet player to go into a new direction. I like our roster as is.
he played for the raptors............... too small for PF......... too slow for SF........ will be cut early
