Because I have seen all 3 guys play enough to know. Canaan is the best player of the 3. And because Morey just verified that part of the reason for trading Brooks was to make way for Canaan. They're confident that Canaan can cover any need at the PG spot if Bev or Lin goes down.
When did Morey say Brooks took less money? Brooks was quoted by Chron.com that he had other offers at the league minimum and chose Houston. Aaron Brooks hasn't made the kind of money in his career that allows him to turn down money at this point, especially coming into a situation knowing that there is a high probability that he wouldn't play. He is a guy who can do a couple things: shoot from the range, move fast with the ball. But he also has many limitations: small, not very good on D, not a good finisher when he does get into the paint-- He is shooting under 40% from the 2 point range. Brooks has served a role as an insurance and I don't think it was necessarily a steal to trade him for Hamilton (another guy who didn't really work out for his first team). But there are ways to fill Brooks' role fairly cheaply-- perhaps a buyout guy signing (how we got Brooks last year), perhaps Canaan is ready, perhaps guy finishing his season in China can be obtained from Europe. In the end, we are talking about a couple of borderline rotation guys being traded. No huge gain or loss.
I don't know if anyone has posted this one yet Morey talks about the trade http://www.nba.com/rockets/news/rockets-acquire-jordan-hamilton
Yea I've seen this guy at my rec center tear up the competition more than anybody on the rockets... How did you come to the conclusion that say, Canaan is better than Lin, when you haven't seen them both play in the same context (1 NBA minute doesn't count). D-league competition is also not a very reliable metric.
Comparing Lin and ABs situation is pretty far fetched. Lin is getting 31 minutes per game and has played every single game he has been available. Brooks is getting 17 minutes and has only been used as an injury replacement. Guarantee if Brooks had 2-3 more guaranteed years on his contract and had the choice to stay he would have vetoed the trade for sure. Brooks is getting towards the end of his career and is without a contract next year. Lin on the other hand is young and will be pocketing 15 million next year alone, which is more than AB has made in his entire career.
Kind of sad considering he was one Manu injury away from a big payday after sustaining all that for a season and a half and Lin got his for a stretch of 10 games. AB has made more than 15 mil in his NBA career by the way. Not counting taxes though.
1. Canaan is the superior shooter. 2. Canaan and Lin are on par right now defensively and Canaan is a green rookie. 3. Canaan is just as good a finisher and just as aggressive drawing fouls as Jeremy. 4. Canaan takes care of the ball better than Jeremy.
Let me say this again. Against D-league competition. You can't cite any of that against NBA level competition. You will find D-league superstars all over the place. There is a reason they are there.
Canaan has played well at the DLeague, but there are a lot of guys who do well at the DLeague but are not ready for the NBA. Remember Tim Ohlbrecht? Even Marcus Morris was scoring 20 ppg in the DLeague when the team didn't find him ready for NBA duty (played like 140 minutes, was not good in them). When Canaan did get to play in the NBA, he mostly looked like a deer in the headlight rookie. IIRC, there was one game when both Beverley and Brooks were injured and Canaan had to play some. Didn't really do anything on the court and the team pulled him pretty soon and Lin played a 40+ minutes. We'll see if he is better now. The trade is really injury insurance at PG for injury insurance (and possible rotation bench guy) at SF/SG. Not a huge deal.
I'm not going to say you are completely wrong, because absolutes like that would be incorrect, I'm merely pointing out the fallacy in your argument. For both our sakes I certainly hope you are right.
Yeah and Lin in DLeague averaged all-star to super-star numbers. Please tell me how Canaan is better.
Why are people discussing 3rd PGs when the Rockets currently lack 2nd string wing players? There may come a time when Aaron Brooks would be very useful, but currently there is potential for Jordan Hamilton to be useful. I'm pretty sure he's not that good given that he's a 1st rounder with his option rejected and everything. But he can hit the 3. As long as he can do that and work hard on the defensive side(use the FA payout as carrot), he can contribute enough to overtake any potential loss of Brooks. Also, Cannan has had almost a year of seasoning and was a 4yr player in college. If he's any good, he can contribute as a 10mpg guy should Beverley or Lin get hurt.
And we're not even talking about Chris Paul's endorsement here. That should mean something to you Canaan doubters. He was the only player to take Paul 1 on 1 and Paul says he's gonna be a star. Chris Paul knows how good this kid is. That should mean something to you if you can't scout the kid yourself and evaluate his skill set.
I'll stop now with this. I hope Canaan becomes a great player. I hope that Hamilton does good and replaces Casspi/Garcia. We need it. It is fruitless to debate about the past so thats that.
