Better be good?? no sir, he better be more then good, he better be the next Moses Malone.. we traded the T-Mac of Greece for this guy for crying out loud
Scola chose the #4 He will get to Houston tomorrow, to sign the three season deal, and get to know the city and the Rockets facilities. He will be back to Argentina on Friday to give a press conference. He already asked for the #4. The Rockets will not make the announcement until Scola is free from his contract with Tau. http://www.ole.clarin.com/notas/2007/07/17/01458958.html
Because they poeh and they don't want to seem like an ass to internationals, esp when they have 2 of Scola's national team teammates as pivotal players on their team.
Scola is a great player, tough , quick and most of the time makes his shots,constantly moving with or without the ball. Sure he's foul prone but that's for europe, prolly in the NBA it won't be a problem for him.Ofcourse he's gonna need some time to adjust, you can't expect him to dominate from his rookie year, definitely got potential more than Oberto if u ask me ( but the spurs wouldn't hand him over to us if he was the next D.Wilkins and we shouldn't expect him to be one and stress him that way). huge addition 4 the Rockets great move from Morey. *Oberto used to play 4 my fav greek team OLYMPIAKOS when he was younger and he was good but he's no Scola. * kakiouzis another greek international ranked 1st in the spanish league in fg % playing for Barcelona (prolly not so homesick like spanoulis )
How old is this scola character? I think this guy looks pretty good but there is always a chance that a player goes bust. A lot of players come over from Europe and turn out to be great...others do not. Let's hope for the best.
Some things I got to know through the years: The Spurs never offered him a contract. The Spurs didn't want a player who plays at PF and can't play at C, since Duncan doesn't like to play as a C. They got Oberto, a player who filled their needs better (C, defends, hustles, passing, IQ), and with less money (when the Spurs signed Oberto, Scola's buy out clause was higher). They drafted Splitter, who will join them next year, plays at C rebounds and defends well (fits their needs better), also have drafted Ian Mahinmi (who could join this season (although he is not ready to contribute yet), both of them are much younger than Scola. Scola was going to sign a long term contract with Tau if he wasn't signed by the Spurs or traded to another team this summer (putting an end to his NBA dream). The Spurs had to trade him for whatever they could find.
Oberto is really a different player now. His days in Greece were mediocre at best. Then he moved to Tau in Spain and developed his game and had much better performances, then moved to Pamesa, another Spanish team. Oberto went to Greece right after his workouts with the Knicks. His agent told him he was going to play in the NBA (the first Argentine player in the NBA), but then he got depressed when that didn't happen. He was probably the Argentine player who wanted the most getting to the NBA. Well, he did it but like 10 years later.
Actually through 2005 Spain was considered the best league other than the NBA, but from 2005 onward it is considered the 2nd best. Greece is now ranked higher by NBA scouts, although FIBA has Italy, Spain, Russia, and Greece all pretty much close to each other. But actually Greece is considered higher than Spain right now by NBA people.
Greece? Russia? I'm talking about National Leagues here. The Spanish and the Italian Leagues are clearly (and have been for many years) the best outside the NBA, they have the best players. Greece only has two competitive teams in Europe and Russia only one. Just look at how many teams from each country participate in the Euroleague.
Plus Spain and Italy have competitive teams that don't get to play the Euroleague. Euroleague teams: Spain - 4 Winterthur FCB Tau Ceramica Unicaja DKV Joventut Italy - 4 Benetton Treviso Climamio Bologna Eldo Napoli Lottomatica Roma Greece - 3 Panathinaikos Olympiacos Aris TT Bank Russia - 2 CSKA Dynamo Moscow France - 2 Le Mans Pau-Orthez Turkey - 2 Efes Pilsen Fenerbahce Ulker Israel - 1 Maccabi Tel Aviv Slovenia - 1 Union Olimpija Lithuania - 1 Zalgiris Kaunas Croatia - 1 Cibona Zagreb Poland - 1 Prokom Trefl Sopot Germany - 1 RheinEnergie Serbia - 1 Partizan Sorry, I went off topic.
Have heard that Scola was supposed to be introduced to the local media today. Is there going to be a press conference?
yes, according to the reports I've read (like this one, in Spanish), he will be in touch with the press.
