Yes that dude Mike James is also my first choice for the Rockets to go after. Besides, he has placed Houston as his first choice the same way McGrady did.
i'm kind of ambivalent, Ward would be a great backup, no doubt. He wouldnt be bad splitting minutes with Lue, Gaines and even Jim Jackson. If we don't have a solid pg, we can at least have diversity and energy to play stronger defense and push on our opponents weak spots. Ideally though, if we could get James, Sura, Jones or AD, we would be better off, but at least with ward we are better off than if the offseason ended now. plus, im optomistic about gaines.
No not Ward. i do not want Snow and i do not want Ward. i do not care who we get else but not those 2 (ok also not quitten) why why why why why why Ward. he cannot play basketbal. lets just play Lue he is not worse then Ward.
What's the problem with Ward as a basketball player? I've actually never seen him play but a few seconds here and there. Maybe I just answered my own question.
I only used his numbers with the Knicks because he was starting (half the time) for the Knicks, getting consistent minutes, and they had a shooting guard and a big man that were offensive options in front of him. I didn't use his numbers in San Antonio because coming into a game for 1 minute in garbage time kind of skews your stats in a negative way. There could be many reasons that Pops left him on the end of the bench. That doesn't really matter because the only way his performance would matter to us would be if he was playing a role similar to that he played on the Knicks (ie getting consistent minutes) If you are concerned about trends, then surely you would consider putting up career highs in ppg and 3pt% to be a positive trend. The 5 assists was not a career high, as he had previously put up 5.4 and 5.7 apg. I am fairly certain that Ward could be had for the minimum, and that is where my argument was coming from, I don't suggest signing Ward to a big contract, only that for the minimum he would be a great addition. I would rather not spend half the MLE on Jones or James, because then we would not have the full MLE to go after someone else, like a forward or backup center.
First, the minimum for a 10 year vet for 04/05 is 1.1 million. Signing Ward for this does NOT cost us any part of the MLE NOR the 1.6 exemption (formerly the 1 million exemption a team can use every other year). Having Ward for 1.1 mil, 1-year deal, or two year deal for 2.3 with a team option, is a good move. Then we can still look for a better PG than Lue or Ward via trade, if the market dries up for DJ/MJ, or try to develop rookie prospects (and Gaines), but the Rockets don't have to make any desperation moves. I'd much rather have DJ or Mike James, but Ward is a better fit than other vets like Sura, Mark Jack, K And, or Rod S. who have gigantic holes in their games that would show up in our offense. This would be a reasonable deal assuming DJ and MJ right now are asking for the full MLEs, or very close to it, in long term deals.
Is there any possibility that there is a trade already agreed on with another team that would involve Lue and/or Howard which can't be announced in any way until those players are allowed to be traded? (ie: MoT & Lue for McInnis & big man, since they would need a backup for Snow after trading McInnis) Maybe this is why we are contacting guys like Ward to be our backup to whoever we trade for? Just a thought.
Nick Van Excel is supposed to make $11 million this year. And he has bad knees. Is that what you want?
Didn't the Rockets want Charlie Ward last year and he said no to us to go to San Antonio? So why shouldn't we get Damon Jones or use that trad exception for something. We still have our two exceptions. Come on CD and Jeff Van Gundy.
This guy showed up in one of the Yao's childhood photo in another thread few months back. I hope somebody can privide that pic again, it was really hilarious.
I know that the games were much more watchable when Mark Jackson was in the game. The offense ran so much more fluidly and you could tell he just saw his teammates positioning and could get them the ball better than Francis. I would say Mark Jackson was the reason I became convinced that this team could not win a championship with Francis at PG.
The FSU war chant in the TC? Sweet! Remember, Cassell sat on the pine once football was over at FSU to allow the starting, better passing, better ball controlling pg, CW, to play. And some would take Cassell right now... so why not his superior? He knows his position and distributes the ball well. And, he can hit the x back on the crossing route for 6. Bring him in!
