Kayman, My point was that most bench players could not put up those number consistently even if given the same number of minutes - that is why they do not start. Mobley does play defense, from everything I have seen.
I think a player like Lamar Odom or Rashard Lewis, plus a pure shooter like a Barry or Michael Redd, will put us in contention.
NIKEstrad: I'll go on record saying Glenn Rice is our SF next year and that heisgoingto have a good year. Myspace bar is screwedup, forgive me fornot editing this. I slugged my keyboard last week, and have been in hell ever since. Glen Rice is not done. CBFC
Rice will come back strong next year. He has been shooting lights out in warm ups. Shooters need their legs and he hasn't had that for the last three years. He will next year. Even if he plays a role, like Bullard used to, it will be a big role opening up the lane for Cat and Steve and the inside players. he will command respect when he plays the 3 point line. And, when he comes back strong, he will be big trade bait before the February trade deadline. Rice & Taylor and/or Thomas would be great bait for a major young center and/or small forward...
Jeff, I was just pointing out that I understand why someone would look at the Rockets' draft record and cringe. Obviously, they have come up with just as many Cassells as they have Colliers. There is no guarantee that the Rockets would have been able to acquire Steve or Eddie had they drafted Lewis. Still, imagine: Francis-Norris Mobley-Mason Lewis-Rice-Williams Griffin-Thomas-Najera Cato-Taylor-Thomas That second unit of Norris, Mason, Rice, Taylor, and Thomas is better than some starting lineups the Rockets have had this year. Oh well...
-With his $10 plus million a year contract, Rice is probably one of the most untradeable guys in the NBA.
The Best Lineup the Rockets could have had today : (only with draft picks) : Young Players from (98-01 ) T.MacCulloch/B.Haywood Z.Randolph/J.Magloire R.Lewis/A.Kirilenko C.Mobley/R.Davis J.Tinsley/M.Redd Past (84-97) B.Wallace(96)/A.Sabonis(86)/ A.Davis(90)/M.Rose(96) M.Jordan(84)/R.Fox(91) L.Sprewell(92)/A.Williams(97) E.Snow(95)/R.Strickland(88) The only good players that the rockets drafted in the last 15 years are : Dream,K.Thomas.Horry,Mobley,Cassel
Exclude Mike Miller and im going to say The magic. Uhg gabriel sucks on the draft. Passing tinsley For Jeryl sasser steven hunter. i like hunter but god....
Last year was our first full year at rebuilding. We won 45 games. So what is the major difference this year? Hakeem and Shandon are the only off season losses of any note. Neither of those players have been able to make even the slightest positive difference in with their current teams so surely the loss of Hakeem and Shandon is not our problem. The only real difference between this year and last year are the injury broblems. Last year we struggled early while we were experiancing injury problems with MoT, Cato, Hakeem and Collier. We had KT play center against Shaq for a game last year. When MoT got healthy we had him log some minutes at the five. Just before the all star break most of our team (excluding Collier and Cato) were finally healthy. We were starting to look like the hottest team in the league and it looked like we were even going to make the play offs until......the injury bug hit again. I was at the game in Dallas late in the year when MoT tried playing on two bad ankles. It was very obvious that he was in a lot of pain. Shortly after that he had to sit out some games. Dream once again started experiancing medical problems and missed some games. Even Cat missed a couple of games down the stretch. And suddenly we lost some games we thought were sure victories (N.J. late in the year). The season was ultimately decided by injuries. This year is very similar to last year in that respect. The year has been dictated by injuries. This years starting line up was suppose to be: Francis Cat Rice Mo Cato -We lost Mo before the season ever started. -Rice started out injured and tried to play through it before he was finally lost for the year. -Francis has played all year with Migrains and we even lost him for a major part of the year because of foot problems (22 games?) -Mobley started the year with bad ankles -Collier once again had early season injuries. -Walt Williams spent much of the year on IR before we lost him for the season. -Kenny Thomas missed several games this. I think Calvin Murphy said that Rudy had started 21 different line ups due to injuries! That is just un-believable. On top of that our first 5 scoring options (Francis, Cat, MoT, Rice and KT) will have missed at least 180 games due to injuries by seasons end . Where's the continuity? We can not possibly give Rudy T or the team an honest evaluation of the season. I prefer to look at last season as a much better indicator of how this team will perform when healthy and allowed to play together for an entire year. Instead of trying to determine how the team has grown as a unit I think it is only possible to look at individuals and determine how their game has evolved. -Cat seems to have improved in all phases of the game including decission making and defense. -KT has turned into a very underrated pf that can cause mismatches with his speed. His game has gone to another level. -EG has gotten noticably bigger from the first game of the year and shown flashes during extended stretches as to what we can expect from him over the next fifteen years. -TMo will be an exellent roll player either off of the bench or as a starter. His D is good and if he ever finds his J he could become a first rate 3. -Cato has improved a great deal. He has shown that he and Steve can play very well together. If he developes as much next year as he did this year then our 5 spot is good. If he just stays the same with out going backwards then we at least have a servicable big man that can rebound and but a body on you. -Steve can not be proberly judged IMO. He has shown flashes of brilliance mixed in with very poor decission making. How much of his problems is caused from the migrains? How much from the fact that Rudy T has started so many different line ups with so many rookies that no point guard could have possibly succeded in Houston this year? We sould give this team one full healthy year together before any of us decides to pass judgment on them.
Rice will be tradable in the last year of his contract b/c he will clear 10 million dollars of cap space to a team that needs it. Remember the Buechler- Outlaw trade? That was a simple cap move, and the same will probably be an option when Rice is in his last year.
