I have been a proponent of trading KT because I felt he was the odd man out in the glut of PFs on the Rockets. I think I have changed my mind, I would rather trade Mo T. KT is a legitimate 14 - 7 guy while Mo was only a 13-5 guy last year. Both shot around 49%, I think KT is quicker and more versitile then Mo, and has a bigger upside due to his attitude on defense. Seattle wanted Mo earlier, do you think we could package him to land Lewis this summer? DaDakota
Is there interest? There wasn't much when he was a free agent. Now, he's damaged and a drug suspension, too. Sure, if you can package him for a good 3, great. More sal. $$. What is Seattle going to do, anyway? What a messed up org. Payton - bye Baker - bye Lewis - ? Kobe stopper ? Mason ? Who else? Glad I'm not Seattle fan. Karma. Definately Karma. p
I think KT and Mo are basically even players. With that being said, KT would bring in much more as far as trade value goes. Mo has a reputation for being a whiner from his LA days, and the drug thing doesn't help either.
I'm for trading Mo T. He's eating up our cap and not averaging anymore than KT. Although Eddie has hit the rookie wall, I think we're all confident that he will be our future 4. In all honesty, I don't think starting KT and Eddie really works well, so I think KT can be his backup later on.
Mo. Bigger contract, coming off an injury, weight issues, rebounding issues, and he's likely not going to be a happy camper once he's on the bench in favor of Eddie. If Seattle would trade us Rashard I'd give them their pick. That would be a great scenario for the team IMHO.
I would have to go the opposite way and trade Kenny. I just think that we can get more for him because the league is high on him while Mo is coming off of a drug suspension and injury. We can probably package Rice with Kenny and maybe some other young talent/praft picks to get a quality player, since Rice's contract will be running out soon. I fear that trading Mo at this point would bring back a lot of Scottie Pippen trade quality players instead of Steve Francis quality players. Maybe Kenny, Rice, TMo, and Oz or Langhi for Odom and Olowokandi.
It's not likely we will trade, or anyone will accept, MoT coming off a pretty devastating injury which typically takes about 1-2 years to truly "get back." Personally, I think this might have been a kind of breakout year for MoT in that he was in great shape, and much lighter. He is a pure shooter and was just learning how to go to the rack with authority late last year. And his rebounding was improving. I'd like to see both of them kept around...with our injury curse there is never too much quality depth. But more importantly, let's see how MoT develops over the summer and into next season; we may really be surprised. Nothwithstanding KT's improvement, I'm not sure that MoT won't be the more valuable of the two in the long run. Not many 6'10" bangers with his offensive skills! A happy problem, but less of a real logjam in that KT really is playing more like an offensive 3 rather than a 4. So let's not jettison either player unless $$ forces our hand in re-signing KT or we have the chance to acquire a proven SF who can fill it and take it to the hole. Dallas Rocket
There's no way we can trade Mo alone. He's not gonna play till next year, and teams are going to want to see him play at least half the season injury-free. So that's in a long time. Unless. Mo plays this year beggining March, then we make a huge trade to land a SF/PF type. Odom or Rashard are the likely candidates. either Mo T plus one protected pick plus one future pick for Rashard or KT, Mooch, protected pick, future pick for Odom and Dooling Anyone hear about Chicago's deal? They're so so so stupid. In case you're wondering: Jalen Rose, Travis Best for Mercer, Miller, Artest Oakley would be retained to play C the rest of the year. I have a feeling that all Krause wants is to get more minutes for the high-schoolers. They can do much better than this though. Very stupid.
Mo has had an injury most players don't recover from ever. If I were a GM for another team I would only take on his contract if it offset some big payoff in the rest of the trade. Like Mo and Francis for Jason Kidd. And then buy out the rest of Mo's contract. KT has some value as a backup 4. But if we trade him away we will have even less depth at the 4. I would only trade him if we expect to pick up a 4 or 5 in the draft. We really have more depth at PG & SG. If we make a trade it would make more sense to trade one or two of those for a SF,PF,C.
Well, KT is more versatile in that he could play SF or PF. Its always good to have a player with that type of versatility. Taylor on the other hand is striclty a PF. I can almost guarantee that Rudy will start Taylor next year over Griffin at PF, unless the injury has significantly affected Mo's game. Rudy didn't sign him to a long term 50 mil contract to have him come off the bench. I kind of hope they will try to trade him, but I don't think its going to happen. They obviously feel like he is a big part of the Rockets future or they wouldn't have given him all that $$$. I think its more likely that the Rockets will trade Kenny.
Dallas, I agree with you. I would not trade either. The only one with trade value is KT, anyway; but I want KT around. My only problem with him at the moment is that he needs some more touch on his passes. As far as I am concerned KT has passed all the tests this season and has earned a spot on our team. The quickness he brings to any position he plays is hard to replace. MoT brings size and a proficient low post game which we do not have now. I like the pieces on our team and we just have to wait out their development. The last thing we want now is more draft picks, etc. Williams is going and we will need the cap room that that creates. The same may be the case for Willis. We will need all that room to keep KT, OT and Francis. A frontcourt of Cato, MoT, KT, EG, Tmo, Collier and Langhi is good enough for me, especially if you factor in further development and refinement across the board with this group.
KT is a 14-7 guy on a team with one of the worst records in the conference. Mo's numbers were on a 45-win team. Big difference. As for shooting percentages, Mo gets most of his points from the outside, which makes his percentage look a whole lot better than KT's. I would not trade either player. I don't see KT commanding a whole lot as a free agent this summer. The Rockets should be able to retain him at a reasonable price.
Good point. It might be too early to tell yet, but in my opinion, KT at the 3 might not be an "experiment" for long. That is the only position right now that is not set in stone. The trading of Anderson and injuries to Rice and Walt have left it up for grabs. Kenny definitely has the quickness and outside shot to be effective there, and not only as a temporary solution. I think everyone here agrees that he is a bit undersized to play the 4, but his size and quickness is definite mismatch in our favor at the small forward position. Mo hasn't even played yet, so unless a deal emerges which is too good to be true, I don't see him going anywhere soon. Although there's a definite interest in Kenny right now, I really don't see how we could possibly get anything of value for him-- the guy's working for peanuts right now... So why not keep both? x34
It is a problem you like to have: having too many quality PFs. Obviously, Griffin is untouchable. After that, I think they can go ahead and shop both KT and Mo Taylor. If a good deal materializes for either of them, pull the trigger and keep the other guy. If nothing good comes along, keep them both: we'll find court-time for all of them, I'm sure.
The only problem thinking of KT as a part-time SF is Rudy's system. Rudy loves playing 3 guard line-ups and when Taylor, Walt & Rice return - who is going to play the 4th quarters in the future? (moochie, steve & cuttino). Except for the wizards game, the 3 guard line-up has killed us. But after the Wizards win, Rudy will probably want to start (and end) the 3 guard line up for now on. Which means that Griffins time will slowly diminish back down (like in the wizards game). Can you imagine if we had everybody back, and Rudy continued to worship his 3-guard lineup. Who would get the minutes? Future lineup PG - Steve, Moochie, Cuttino SG - Steve, Moochie, Cuttino SF - Steve, Moochie, Cuttino PF - Steve, Moochie, Cuttino C - Steve, Moochie, Cuttino
Patterson has been on the Blazers since the start of the season so you can cross him off your list already...
