You might want to take your blinders off. Francis has never been better than Alston as a PG. He's only had one year in which he finished with a higher than 1.964:1 assist to turnover ratio, & that was last year (2.143:1) when he only played in 10 games. His career average is 1.705:1 compared to Alston's 2.712:1. Now, if you want to claim that Francis was a better SG than Alston, then you have a leg to stand on. Francis has a much better FG% than Alston has, but Alston has always been a better 3pt shooter. Francis has been a better FT shooter & rebounder than Alston. So, in my opinion Alston is the better PG & Francis is the better SG. The problem with that is, Francis is an undersized SG that can't play defense & has really bad hands. As a PG, Francis (2nd pick in "99" draft) has to be one of the most colossal busts of all time. He was fun to watch at first, but his "me first" game got old after a while. Francis's Career Stats Alston's Career Stats
Well regardless of whether or not you agree that Francis is the better "P.G." I guarantee you that if Francis had been able to do what he had done for Houston in his first go round or for Orlando, Adelman and Morey would have started him and given him about 35 min. a game. They were both hoping that Francis could return to his old form. Morey didn't give him a contract just for Rockets nostalgia. He doesn't throw away money like that. Steve Francis is a legit P.G. in this league which is why he was given the All Star nod 2 years in a row over a lot of other very talented Point Guards at that time while Alston was probably at the bottom of the polls for the All-Star game every year. I agree that Francis plays more like a 2 guard, but he does all the things we need out of our point guard position right now which is getting by his defender and creating mismatches,attacking the basket, hitting the midrange jumper and taking the pressure off of TMAC and Yao. Alston can't do any of that.
Ok so i was thinking about it randomly and i came up with this trade. It's my first ever so please don't call me a huge r****d or anything like that. Tracy Mcgrady, 09 2nd rounder (from Mem) for Yi Jianlian, Vince Carter, 09 1st rounder Reasons Houston does it: Yi provides you with a young developing big who has legit offensive game, plus he brings in a ton of revenue which appeases Les. Vince can replace some of the scoring that you lose with T-mac leaving. We acquire a potential top 5 pick to stop complaining about how old we are. Reasons New Jersey does it: Tracy Mcgrady is a giant 2010 expiring contract that could help them make their offer to Lebron that much better. They escape the albatross that is Vince Carter's contract, and also get a better wing who can actually set up teammates. Not to mention that they could potentially re-sign Mcgrady following the '10 season and pair him with Lebron to have a lethal 1-2 punch, so that they are more than competitive in his first year there. They may be somewhat hesitant to part with that '09 1st rounder but Lebron isn't going there to wait for young guys develop even if they are top 10 picks.
That's why we need a 3rd scorer. Francis' strength was always in his legs, but he's 31 years old & doesn't have the spring he once had. I agree that Morey signed him thinking he still had something in the tank, but even Morey's not right all the time (Bjax for Wells/James). Bonzi wells would've helped us a lot more than Bjax in the playoffs.
We won't call you one, but New Jersey probably will. I'd love the trade, but it's weighted in our favor far too much. Even Memphis wouldn't make a trade like that. It's all good, just keep 'em coming.
A couple of things: Firstly: the trade wasn't all about who would help more (Wells/ BJax). Secondly: I completely and 100% disagree that Wells would've helped more in the playoffs. Had we NOT made the trade, then Brooks would have been the only player eligible to play PG on the roster in games 1 + 2. (unless you think Mike James was worth playing...) Thirdly: it was all about ditching James' horrid contract (and really, that was all about making up for previous mistakes).
According to all reports, JR Smith has no other offers on the table other than a 3mil qualifying offer to return to Denver. We should really throw half our MLE at this guy. Which would only be marginally more than he can get from Denver, but at least he'd know we wanted him. I dont think he's the knucklehead some people think he is - he did some dumb things along the way but he's been a kid and now I feel like he's ready to mature and develop. His outside range and athleticism is just sick, and i dont mean sick in the head.
Heck no, toss it all at Smith and juggle the other contracts to sign Landry. No team is going to give Landry their MLE, and we'll match an LLE. If we lose Landry, we have a tall, athletic SG, moving T-Mc to SF and moving SB to Sixth Man, the role to which he is best suited. Dorsey can take Landry's place and there is no overcrowding at PF.
Wouldnt mind that scenario either - but if no one else is offering him anything why bother throwing the full MLE if he'll accept a first offer of 3.1 (ish) million.
The deal may have been all about ditching James's contract, but it doesn't change my opinion that Bonzi would've made a huge difference for us in the playoffs. We didn't have anyone that could post up effectively & as a result, we got beat up down low. As for Brooks being our only option at backup PG, I disagree. There were any number of veteran backup PG's that could've been traded for with a 2nd round pick (McInnis, Darrell Armstrong, Anthony Carter, etc. etc). They might've been old, but they could still come off the bench for backup minutes.
I can agree with this scenario. By the way, didn't we use the LLE on Barry? Going after Smith would be walking away from Landry all together, & anything less than the full MLE would most likely be matched by Denver.
Smith would be someone we need, but Denver will match. They aren`t going to give him away like we aren`t going to give away Landry. If it means giving up Landry to get Smith, we oughta think about it, Smith does bring more of what we need, a legit scorer and someone who can create their own shots.
Do the Rockets have both the MLE and the LLE and also a trade exception? Can the Rockets use the LLE on Landry and still use the MLE on another free agent. By the way how much is the LLE?
i think we used the lle on barry, which is about 1.9m so we still have the mle and some trade exceptions
but but but If we'd kept James/ Wells, then we would have had no roster spots free to make a trade to bring in another PG!! And Alston only got injured in the last few games -well after the trade deadline closed. So we could not, in fact, have brought in anyone else. So keeping Bonzi would have given us a post up option - how did he go for NO in the playoffs? The answer is: terrible! Keeping Bonzi meant keeping James, which meant Brooks as only PG option games 1+2, and an extra SG (who didn't even attempt a 3 in the playoffs) wouldn't have made up for the fact that Luther couldn't hit a 3. We lost to Utah because of poor outside shooting - Bonzi doesn't help there at all!! Anyway - we shouldn't have this argument in here - and it doesn't really matter either way because what happened is what happened! Let's get some more random trade proposals going! Here's one: Hayes + Harris + Novak for Pachulia. Hawks save some money, we get a really good backup C and sign Leunen to replace Novak.
