Sacramento reporting Rockets very much after Webber...

Very interesting information! I hope it is true .

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Rockets' offseason tasks in order of priority:

• Get rid of Cato under any circumstances.
• Sign Chris Webber.
• Re-Sign Hakeem.
• Re-Sign Moochie and AirBullard.
• Pick up the Langhi option for another year.
• Trade for Bo Outlaw and Raef LaFrentz.

.....-'-.
../`.....|__
/`....--`-,-`
'-|`...o.'<-....[]
..\....._\__).\=`
...C_..`....,_/
.....|.;----'

come back with your original name...now that everyone is changing their screen names anyway

 

I'd wouldn't mind loosing Hakeem, Taylor, Moochie and Anderson, but I'd hate to lose them!

We need a CENTER!!!! Someone who can do some damage!

With the addition of GriffIn, I think that makes us that much more of a contender for the Webber race.

This seems like a nice line-up.

<legit center>(Cato)
Webber
Griffen
Mobley
Francis

I feel Cato will eventually will get over his immaturity and start playing some real ball. I think we should grab Webber, Taylor and Moochie, gel for this year, and give Cato one more chance to earn his buck. The only problem is in 3-4 years, we will be too far over the salary cap. If we can keep this team together for 4 or so years, we could become like Utah, in the sense that we have a young, strong core of players who know each others game.

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"Bada Bing!"

 

Why would I do that when I'd much rather tell you to shove it up yours? You sure have become an antagonistic little **** lately, achebe. Personally, I hope the Rockets don't pursue Webber just to piss you off.

laugh-out-loud...

Now, the legitimate discussion...

The Rocket Guy points to the most difficult issue. Webber is not in a hurry from all reports and why should he be? He is the most coveted player in free agency and I'd milk it for all it was worth if I were him.

The problem is that waiting for him could mean losing depth at key positions. It is a precarious position for the Rockets to be in waiting on one guy while encouraging their guys to wait on them.

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How the hell should I know why God would allow the Holocaust. I don't even know how the electric can opener works. - from Hannah and Her Sisters

 

Bill, what kind of offer does Chris have from the Spurs? Just curious.

Also, do you remember the name of a website that collects newspaper sports stories from around the country. I think you mentioned it here once, or it might have been someone else from bskball.com

thanks in advance

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I hope, when they die, cartoon characters have to answer for their sins.

 

Awwww.... the sensitive guy's approach: become offended whenever someone disagrees with you. He... he, he... he hurrrttt me, he he, hahahahhaha. j/k

Jeff, sorry if you see the 'Webber/Mo Taylor' disagreement as a personal affront. Last time I checked, they actually get to walk away with the loot.

But this does bring up the question that several posters here have posed: isn't the smokescreen cute? The chronicle writes it, Doc Rocket posts it, your friends with the Rockets say it, Clutch's friends with the Rockets say it... on and on. It's quite effective, for a few days...

probably until Murphy, 'looking for the water fountain', catches Les on the phone in the backroom.

Certainly. It may very well be the reason why Mo Taylor comes back. But if there's a chance... I think that it is safe to say that the Rockets will in fact take it.

 

Jeff--but doesn't Webber waiting on his decision actually hurt whatever team he ends up with? Unless it's Sacramento (which odds are it is), the longer Webber waits, the less likely his final destination will be in getting ADDITIONAL free agents, much less its own. If a team knew Webber were coming, it could tie up the MAX and go from there. That team could arrange trades and make offers to other free agents from what's left of their cap space. It just seems like Webber might be hurting himself indirectly from waiting too long.

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No problem. I'll be honest. I don't want Webber. I don't like the level of control he has over the Rockets decision-making process and the thought of him becoming a Rocket doesn't excite me.

I feel EXACTLY the same way about Webber I did about Pippen. I think he is a cap burden that removes our chance to create depth at key positions and takes the ball out of the hands of younger stars like Francis.

When the Pippen trade happened, I told quite a few people that I felt like it was a bad idea for many of the same reasons. I wish I would've been wrong and I hope I'm wrong now.

The fact is that no one knows anything about what is going on with Webber at the moment. The fact that he has said he wants to make his decision quickly is encouraging but it still leaves us with awfully uncomfortable questions.

Assuming Webber does come to Houston, it will mean the Rockets either re-signed Hakeem to a MUCH smaller contract (that probably won't happen) or renounced him. If they renounce him, will they still be able to re-sign him? If not, is everyone ok with Collier and Cato as our 82-game centers?

Second, if our only re-signees are Norris and Bullard, how do we deal with depth problems at shooting guard. And, what happens if Moochie also bails. We are left, literally, with two guards in our rotation.

My fear is that we'll sell ourselves out to get Webber and then be forced to deal with the fallout.

I honestly hope I'm wrong, but it is hard to ignore that feeling especially considering how things ended with Quitt...err...Pippen.

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How the hell should I know why God would allow the Holocaust. I don't even know how the electric can opener works. - from Hannah and Her Sisters

 

Jeff you speak my mind brotha! I agree 100% with you! Now I would celebrate if we got Webber because he is a superstar coming to the Rockets that can help NOW, but what about down the road!? How are we going to get a bench? Webber ties up our cap, so we lose Dream, and we lose our backup PG, and don't have the money to do so. It's like the Golden Goose, the reward might turn out to be awesome, but if we fail the fallout could be disasterous, and could set us back, literally, 2 or 3 years, maybe more! With Webber, we don't have a center, backup at the point, and added punch off the bench. And if Webber decides to spurn us we could, potentially, lose our key backup PG, our starting PF, our starting center, and could be so far behind in the market that we can't fill the holes. So we go into next season WORSE then we were last year! I say re-sign our own free agents and make a go.

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"Win if you can, lose if you must but always cheat!" - Jesse Ventura

[This message has been edited by RocksMillenium (edited July 05, 2001).]

 

Agreed. The problem I have, plain and simple, is that the Rockets are missing key pieces to their rotation. If Anderson doesn't come back, they have a hole at back up 2. They have a hole at center even if Hakeem returns because no one is sold on Cato in the long run.

Webber addresses a specific need, but he also creates a specific problem. He gobbles up cap space that will be needed to bring in key depth. Francis will get the maximum in two more seasons. Before then, if we sign Webber, we cannot afford to make any significant additions to the team without trading away salary.

Since it has become fairly obvious that no one is beating down our door for Cato, who exactly will we be able to trade to acquire new talent? All of our money will be tied up in one guy.

When Francis re-ups for the max, we will be WAY over the cap for years and years.

I agree that Webber is an upgrade over Taylor, but I have a philosophical problem with tying all of our money up in a free agent. If you are re-signing a current player who has proven himself under our circumstances or a legend like Dream, fine. But, to commit that level of resources to one guy is extremely dangerous.

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How the hell should I know why God would allow the Holocaust. I don't even know how the electric can opener works. - from Hannah and Her Sisters

 

Jeff, I see where you are coming from, but I view the Webber situation and Pippen situation very differently. For the maximum length of a FA contract, Webber will be a very formidable player (say great for 3 years, merely very good for 3-5 more). He is far younger than any of our major acquisitions (Drexler, Barkley or Pippen) and has the skills + physique that are effective long after he has lost a 1/2 step. That couldn't be said at all for Pippen (athleticism is all he relied on to get an advantage on other players), but also applied to the other guys somewhat. You can also make a case that 2/3 of these acquisitions worked out well anyway, yet these involved older and shorter players, plus we had to give up something for them.

When you look at leaguewide contracts, Webber (or any of the truelly elite players with at least 5 highly productive years left--this leaves out maybe Karl and Payton off the top of my head) at the max is total, total bargain.

I think it would work our great, but if it doesn't in 3 years a 32 year old Webber with 3 more years on his contract would still be very, very marketable, in all likelihood. There just are many players of his caliber coming available the next few years. I think our next chance at a great player would be a much bigger risk because we would be limited to a much older player or have to offer a lot to get him. I am assuming our unbelievable draft karma 2 of the last 3 years cannot continue.

 

Granted Webber would produce for 3 to 5 years at a high level, but how are we going to fil our needs? The Rockets need a legitimate center who can be serviceable for 2 or 3 years, a backup PG since it would be hard to re-sign Moochie after getting Webber. And even if we got Moochie, the center spot is amazingly glaring. Besides we don't need any more great players, Francis and Griffin can be those great players, and Cuttino can be a very good player.

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"Win if you can, lose if you must but always cheat!" - Jesse Ventura


[This message has been edited by RocksMillenium (edited July 05, 2001).]

 

"Taste great...."

"Less filliing...."

"Taste great....."

"Less filliing...."


Is anyone seeing a theme here? Guys (and gals), relax and let's just see what happens. We all can go back and forth on the pros and cons of having Webber in Houston. We will all know in a couple of weeks (three weeks max, I'll say around the 25th) what the Rox and Webb will do. Any the mean time, let's bask in the warmth that know matter what (C-Webb or no), we will have a great team that will grab everyone's attention.

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"...Do you hear 'em? They're everywhere!!! AAAHHH!!!"

That's what the other teams will be saying after being shellshocked by Steve Francis and Co.

 

A couple of things...

There is no reason we can't keep Moochie after signing Webber if Moochie will accept an early bird deal. He probably would do that.

Scar: I never said I felt that way about Barkley or Drexler. Both of those guys were acquired in the final years of their respective contracts. They were the same basic age as Hakeem and contributed to specific areas of need. I actually liked BOTH of those deals because they did exactly what they were intended to do:

Drexler gave the team new life and athleticism.
Barkley helped us eclipse Seattle in the playoffs.

The Pippen deal was very different from those. Granted, Webber is young. There is no question he can contribute for many years. The problem is, at what cost. Does tying up about a third of your payroll in one guy on a 12-man roster make a great deal of sense in the long-term.

Also, who is to say this team is prepared this year or next to eclipse the Lakers even with Webber? Griffin is an unknown commodity. Francis is still young as is Mobley. None of those guys will reach their prime for 3 or 4 more years. How do we know that Webbers need to touch the ball 20 or 25 times a game won't create problems for Francis, Mobley and/or Griffin? Will it slow their progress? Will it create chemistry problems?

Like I said, I hope I am wrong about Webber, but bringing him in seems to create as many problems as it solves. We are going from known commodities to a complete unknown so much as a player but as a teammate. We saw what happened with Pippen. I don't want to see that happen with Webber.

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How the hell should I know why God would allow the Holocaust. I don't even know how the electric can opener works. - from Hannah and Her Sisters

 

Please forgive the grammatical errors, there are fireworks still going off in my head. The party that we had last night, well was a blast and I am really paying for. So again, please forgive the misspellings and other errors. Thanks.

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"...Do you hear 'em? They're everywhere!!! AAAHHH!!!"

That's what the other teams will be saying after being shellshocked by Steve Francis and Co.

 

It's all about rebounding to me. I'm not convinced Dream will last. I'm not convinced Taylor can learn how to rebound. I'm not convinced Griffin will save our rebounding situation. Cato isn't a real strong rebounder. Collier can't mix it up. We've got nothing when Dream goes down. Webber is a given. All we have now is a big question mark and a bunch of hope. Nothing substantial. I don't think we can cover up this glaring weakness and hide it. If we could, that's another story, but we can't. That's why I'm in Webber's camp.

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humble, but hungry.

 

Is Moochie eligible for early birds? I didn't know if you had to be part of the team for 2 years completely or not. And I'm more concerned about interior defense, rebounding, and low post scoring from the PF AND center position.

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"Win if you can, lose if you must but always cheat!" - Jesse Ventura

[This message has been edited by RocksMillenium (edited July 05, 2001).]

 

With 16 million + in cap space, we could sign Webber at around $12.8 million (the max), and save the early bird cap space of 2.86 million for SA and .68 million for Moochie. We would lose Taylor and Hakeem. We could resign Bullard to the veteran minimum after signing Webber. Maybe we could then work a way to get the Haywood draft rights from Orlando to have a third center.

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Why is everyone so high on getting a center? Getting a center doesn't guarantee us a championship. Besides, what will any center in the league do to Shaq. Shaq will continue to abuse every center in this league until he retires. Also, why is everyone saying that we won't have the money for Moochie? Did yall forget that we have the 4.5 exception to offer him? So i say if there's any realistsic shot at getting Webber in the next two weeks, go after it. Surround him with mediocre centers that's able to use fouls on Shaq because good center or not, Shaq will abuse him. Re-sign Moochie to the exception and lets hope that Krause is dumb enough to take Cato for Miller.

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Jeff, I guess most of all we disagree in our confidence about Webber as a team player most of all. I see him always passing to the open man, playing hard (including D and rebouding), and backing up his teammates on the court and off of it. I think he would really help the development a the 19 year old Griffin to not have to have a big offensive burden for 4-5 years and learn from a guy (playing with him in games and against him in practice) with the best court vision of any big man still playing. When Webber declines and merely becomes a role player, hopefully Griffin will be in his peak and can now be our #1 low-post option. To me this is an incredible fit (mix of talented youth and a tremendous all-around player in his prime). Overall, as a team guy I see Webber a lot more like Barkley than Pippen, but by some of his actions I could see why you might see him differently.

The money thing isn't that big of deal to me. Every good young team gets over the cap pretty quick as their guys' contracts need to be renewed. Locking up Mo or any other young good-to-great player is going to eat up much of our cap space as well. I see our window of signing this caliber of player as pretty short if Giffin/Mobes/Franics at all keep on developing as I think they should and get the contracts they will deserve. Unless we really think Francis, Mobes, Griffin and Taylor are all the key pieces we will need (I am not convinced this is championship caliber, though it has great promise), I don't see us having many oppertunnities like this one.

[This message has been edited by Desert Scar (edited July 05, 2001).]