Summer leagues will allow ample player evaluation

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Summer leagues will allow ample player evaluation
JULY 5, 2001 Print it

The Rockets will get an on-court look at Eddie Griffin, when he and some of the other younger Rockets are in Houston for some team workouts in preparation for the upcoming California Summer League. Griffin was not brought in for an individual workout prior to the draft as he was expected to go much higher than the Rockets thought they could trade up to.

Each of last year's draftees, Jason Collier and Dan Langhi, are expected to join Griffin and fellow draftee Terence Morris for the summer leagues.

During this summer league and the Rocky Mountain Revue later this month, these are the players the Rockets need to evaluate: Griffin, Langhi and Morris -- who each can play small forward, which is now no longer a position of need. Add them to Walt Williams and potentially Shandon Anderson (free agent) and obviously there are just too many players for one spot. Williams has one year left on his contract and if Anderson comes back, Williams will likely be moved.

Rudy Tomjanovich has said he would like to be more flexible with his line-ups and the 6-9 Griffin, 6-9 Morris and 6-11 Langhi give him some interesting scenarios to experiment with this season.

Collier is the only 7-footer on the current roster and he needs to show that he can handle the banging on the inside. The Rockets like his shooting touch, but every other area of his game is a liability and if those aren't corrected, he won't be on the court. He only played in 23 games last year due to injury and the Rockets must find out if he can give quality minutes at the center position.

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Frontcourt help is all the Rockets are interested in and until Chris Webber has signed with somebody else, the Rockets are still in the hunt for his services. The theory that there aren't enough basketballs for Cuttino Mobley, Steve Francis and Webber will be thrown around, but the Rockets have been there before with Hakeem, Clyde Drexler and Charles Barkley. When healthy that was a pretty good trio. He is in no hurry to get things done and the Rockets are not going to just sit back and wait.

The Rockets are definitely focusing on their own long list of free agents. Maurice Taylor and Anderson both decided not to exercise the options on their contracts, to join Matt Bullard, Moochie Norris, Sean Colson and Olajuwon as free agents. Taylor and Anderson are testing the waters and gauging interest from other teams, but both have stated a desire to return to the Rockets. Taylor was pleased about the Rockets' moves on draft day and felt like he is still a good fit in Houston.

Norris will be back unless some team offers him a lot more than the Rockets and with zone defenses now legal, Matt Bullard provides the long-range threat Rudy T loves. Tomjanovich put a call into Olajuwon just after midnight on July 1, just as an extension of good faith. The staff has maintained all along that they don't want to see Hakeem in another uniform to end his career and while other teams (Miami, Indiana) have shown some interest, money could be a stumbling block and Hakeem will still likely get a better deal with Houston than elsewhere.



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