All I'm saying brooksball is I really like landry. I trust him on the court more than scola. People like to talk about scola's post moves, but he tries to trick people in the post because he can't elevate over people. He plays hard, very hard, he's just maxed out on his potential. I told people that this summer and was told how much better he wasgoing to get. I also told people how I thought yao had plateaued and now its was a matter of how long he was going to stay at his level. My bad for the thread derailment. I thought they lle should have been offered to someone like elson. It doesn't sound sexy, but he's 7fter that can play 4/5 and he's been on championship teams with the spurs. Also at the start of free agency, management should have made landry an offer, given him 7 days to think about it and move on. Then go after Rony. If that didn't do it Mihm could have been had or even making a trade for Nazr, Calvin Booth or Steven Hunter or even bringing in Chris Anderson. These were moves I screamed about, was hated on and now we really see eventhough its early. If they had any of those guys mentioned above, you could afford to play Yao 28 mins until he gets his 2nd wind from the olympics. As it stands, they can't afford to have Yao out because the team is too small.
I trust Adelman more than any persons argument for replacing Scola with Landry at this point. I think scola is a better all around player personally.
All in all, I think Morey has done a fine job and is moving the team slowly but surely in the right direction. At the same time, he likely made some mistakes along the way. Looking forward, if Morey finds a way to address our frontcourt needs by midseason, I think we'll be ok. The fact is that Morey was dealt a hand and change takes time. We certainly have more depth and young talent than we did 3 or 4 years ago and have finally gotten out from under several of those bad contract hangovers from the CD years. Brooks, Landry, Artest and even Barry, despite his poor start, were nice pickups, in my opinion. And we haven't been totally wasting draft picks on players like Head, Novak, Eliyahu, etc... I am frustrated by some of our still present weaknesses but I have to believe Morey is still planning to make a couple of small but significant moves this season that will make us more of a complete team and possibly legit contenders.
I think morey has done some good work. The "bad" contracts are a bit overrated to me. Swift contracts expires this yr as well as Howards . Its like we pulled a all star out the air. One thing he does is homework. He's probably crunching numbers and seeing who works and all this other stuff which is cool. I guess I'm a aggressive guy by nature. I believe in action rather than reaction. I also think the current economic situations and les in his ear has something to do with it. The artes move shouldve been done at last yrs trade deadline imo. The big backups shouldve been done this summer. I guess he moves to slow to me, but he will get it done hopefully. We'll see.
You would have given up Artest for Brooks? That was part of what they were asking, if I'm not mistaken. And if we got him last year for half a season, we may not have had him this year. So, we get Artest for half a year, lose Brooks and more, and what would we have to show for it? Without Yao, and with all the injuries, we probably weren't going deep into the playoffs anyways. I think his patience, in that circumstance, was for the best. I will say that, in the early going, you've been proven right about the need for more athleticism/size in the front court. That's been a glaring weakness for us. I'm just not sure who we could have gone after that would be a better player than Carl Landry.
A small trade, Luther Head for Sean Williams, would address the deficiencies you pointed out: add length, athleticism (translating to defense & rebounds) at the backup PF/C while clearing the logjam in the backcourt However, Houston desperately needs an upgrade at PG. Acquiring a starting PG would likely have to involve Shane Battier, or even Tracy McGrady. Trading Tracy may give the Rockets the biggest boost, or blunder. Does Chicago still covet McGrady? Does Portland still want Battier? Both teams have a dearth of young talent (youth, athleticism, length, speed, etc.) which may be better complements to Yao and Artest's game.
Well at least we have some talent to realistically trade for another big guy. For years it was just Yao and Tracy and perhaps Battier.
Raptors thrown into the trade rumor mill: http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/LAC.20081110.RAPANALYSIS10/TPStory/Sports Landry +Head +Hayes for Andrea Bargnani (5.17644M) +Hassan Adams (711,517/non-guaranteed) Rockets save $1.553938M - (amount owed to Adams) Move allows Rockets to add Deke now. Adams is currently injured, Jawai out indefinately with a heart issue. Raptors have 13 player son their roster? Rockets are 1.7M over LT. Alston, Brooks, Francis McGrady, Barry, Wafer* Artest, Battier Scola, Bargnani, (Artest/Battier), Dorsey Yao, Deke, (Bargnani/Dorsey) *Waived before January 10 and replaced with a pro-rated rookie min contract. Rockets finish the season under the LT threshold.
I think Bargnani would be a great pickup. I'd rather give up something other than Landry though. Bargnani is a 7'er who has inside skills (rebounding, shotblocking) as well as shooting range all the way out to the 3pt line. He can play PF or C. I doubt the Raptors want to get rid of him but if they did, what are there biggest weaknesses right now? Maybe Scola and Head for Bargnani: http://games.espn.go.com/nba/features/traderesult?players=2763~1781~2987&teams=28~28~10&te=&cash= That would give them Scola as a big to replace Bargnani off the bench and Head as another perimeter shooter. They are still kind of a soft team, even with O'Neal, so Scola's aggressiveness would be good for them. They love outside shooting, esp. now with two bigs down low sucking in defenses. Head can provide that off the bench.
We really really need a banger-type of PF. We haven't had that since Kelvin Cato. A strong, thick PF simply compliments you well. He can cover for you, take charges for Yao and rebound. Is there anyway we can sign Chris Wilcox? I think he will be the perfect fit for Yao. We can add landry to lure him away (it's worth it, you bet). Additionally, we should trade Rafer for PG who can make shots when wide open. Rafer is a great ball-handler.But if I were the opposing team's coach, I wouldn't guard him for the game. He may have spurts of scoring, but statistically for a whole game, he's most likely to shoot below 38%.
Durvasa, I like Brooks, but with the way the team was playing last yr even without yao, I would have given them brooks. The rox wouldve beaten Utah in the playoffs with Artest and compted very well with La. I said it then, I say it now. Then u probably still have ur 1st rd pick this yr.
Landry's questionable knees are risky though especially if the Rockets end up with a firm 13 man roster if it is what it takes to get under LT. IIRC, it was Brooks and a 1st round pick.
Let's just do the Luther trade and sign Deke. These moves will really boost our lack of height and shot blocking in the front court. Daryl, get this done. Stop crunching on the efficiency ratings. Chuck is very efficient in the defensive end. Still a liability in the offensive end. Coach Rick, let Luis and Carl handle their foul troubles with tapes and just let them play it out. Rest Tmac and Yao.
I agree in that I don't think we're gaining athleticism by losing Landry. Yao. Scola. Hayes. Even Battier to an extent. T-Mac when he's not trying or hobbling around the place like he's done so far this year. Those are our weak spots rebounding-wise. We've just got to wait it out. Hopefully Tracy magically transforms into his alter ego sometime in the next two months. He did it last year when Yao went out.
Plus, some of those guys who signed this summer has to wait 90 days before they can be traded I think. So guys like turiaf and elson can be traded in december. I think they can start by getting Booth for who makes vet min or elson/allen who make 1.7 and 1.3m perspectively.
The real problem is that during the Tracy and Yao era, the Rockets have never really been good at anything other than defense and that was almost entirely due to several years under Van Gundy's tutelage. We have never been a good offensive team. Our shooting % is always in the bottom half of the league. Our ppg is always in the bottom half of the league. We are usually one of the more TO prone teams (I believe we improved slightly last season). We have never been an athletic team capable of running and consistently getting easy buckets. We have never had a good PG capable of penetrating, creating for others or scoring. We have never had tremendous talent and McGrady has been on a steady decline since becoming a Rocket. He simply can't carry a team any more. He steps up a bit in the playoffs but in the last two series, despite putting up gaudy totals, his %s were horrible. JVG forced this poor offensive team to play lockdown defense and rebound well. That made us good enough to make the playoffs despite our offensive ineptitude. Of course, we lost in the 1st round every time we got there. In my opinion, it was more than just injuries holding us back. Even if it was injuries, at some point those injuries are no longer just bad luck. If we want to contend this year, not only do we have to regain our defensive discipline and dominance on the boards, but we also have to somehow magically become a better offensive team for the first time in over a decade. So far that hasn't happened. Hopefully, Artest, Brooks and Landry can give us enough additional offense to finally break through on that end. We keep wanting to believe that Tracy McGrady and Yao Ming are a great duo. The fact is that they are not - they are merely above average. Their names are bigger than their games. They are both overrated players at this point, especially McGrady, and there has never been enough talent around them to make up for it. Hopefully, this year it will be a different story once the new guys get acclimated and some of the younger players get more experience.
Booth is the most realistic of them all. Leeb,you mentioned Mihm earlier,his injuries have made him less effective than before.I like Turiaf,obviously hard to obtain.Elson and Allen are better than Booth but harder to get. Booth can function as backup 5 if we can't resign Deke.
