+top scorer -dwarfed in every other stat for SG position apart from scoring -3 years left in his big contract. I'm sure Morey regrets tweaking players who already meshed well such as Landry, Artest, Ariza (proven winners) and getting rid of them. -Bad defender -disappears in the 4th with 7 or less minutes left -injury prone -inconsistent Landry +proven rockets 4th quarter winner day in day out (every game) +consistent +great defender -undersized Morey did a lot of good draft picks but he made a BIG mistake with this one. The moral of the story is don't change things that are already working well. And even if you do decide to change..view the pros and cons and you can tell that even in the kings Martin's +/- are similar to that with the rockets. More -'s than +'s and therefore too risky to trade. Landry on the other hand was a 4th quarter winner for the rockets and that says it all. Morey was too stubborn and ignored the countless 'kevin martin sucks' threads in the kings forums back then. He also ignored his injury proneness as if it was some kind of fluke that he keeps gettin injured every season. And now we're paying for his 4th quarter inefficiency dearly. Not only his offense in the 4th is gone but also his defense. The reason i pick Martin to be traded because he's the only trade asset since he's still perceived as a great scorer and he's got 3 years left which will be a liability to the rockets. He's better off as support to a stacked team. Rockets dont have a 4th quarter guy and AB can't do it all alone in the 4th.
Martin was brought here for one reason....to always give the team a chance going into the 4th, which has happened every game so far. The guy scores 23 a game mostly through three quarters. I dont see how you trade a guy like that.
that makes no sense. there's no players on other teams that are only expected to carry the team for the first 3 quarters and then mentally check out when the 4th rolls around. Great players, even 'merely' good ones carry their team for all 4 quarters. It's not like baseball where you can bring in a closing pitcher and even relief ones in between. Your go-to guys should be your go-to guys for the whole game, like Yao and T-mac was, like Brooks was last season. Maybe that's why people like Brooks so much. Despite all his shortcomings, he's willing to take the last shot during crunchtime.
I dont think its as a mental thing. Refs Swallow their whisles in the last few minutes of the game. Kevin's life dependes on the refs sending him to the freethrow line, when he receives contact in the 4th and throw up some awkward shot, refs not blowing whisle basicly results in a turnover.
just noticed the Landry tidbit there...what was the point of that? He wasnt a great defender and he was only a good scorer for limited minutes. He wasnt a very good rebounder, maybe avg at best. how were Landry and Ron proven winners?
Wow what a question. They've won games with the rockets even with Yao and Tmac out? They've actually won a good amount of games and got to the playoffs.
it's not automatic...my point was that he's always been mostly a 3 qrtr scorer, but a very very good one. You think Morey didnt know that ahead of time? I doubt he's ordered or tells himself not to score in the 4th, but like someone else mentioned, it's tougher for him because he uses fouls to his advantage. He's a guy who scores a lot for three quarters, efficiently, and drives up the other team's fouls. He's been that for a while and it was something that we needed and it has clearly helped us. If you look at the sligh increase in scoring we've since he came it's pretty much all extra free throws. And he's definitely not go to guy.....it doesnt mean he can't score in the end, but he's not someone you force feed the ball in crunch time so they can try and score. He's more Lamar Odom than he is Kobe or Pau.
That hardly means anything. Martin has probably won more career games than Landry, doesnt that make him a "winner" too then? I think your applying that label incorrectly here......maybe a better word would be "competitive", but not winners.
Yes my thoughts exactly. I stopped reading after that. Koopa it might be better top have a objective comparison. For example Landry is a bad rebounder for a PF. Furthermore in what way is Landry consistent? We had a very good PF but we didn't have a good SG. This was a logical good trade.
You're also forgetting the trade rid us of T-Macs contract and also netted us a Knicks pick and the right to swap picks with them. So add those as +'s to the comparison as well.
Landry was leading the league in 4th quarter points last season before we traded him. He was very clutch at the end of the game, where as Martin is the opposite. And considering that Landry and Ron were key pieces of the only Rockets team in over a decade to win a playoff series, I'd say they're winners.
The Knicks will probably make the playoffs in the East, meaning that pick swap is basically worthless because it looks like we'll have a worse record than them.
And being clutch is what matters. Not say, dealing with our complete disaster of wings that playing Battier and Ariza clearly was, or trying to finally do something with the fact that there wasn't enough minutes for both Scola and Landry. Not to mention, Landry, as good as he was, stopped being quite so clutch once teams really started gearing up on him, double-teaming him, not to mention there was one game right before he was traded where he was manhandled by Millsap. In light of the fact that Scola has shown himself to be even more of a badass since the Landry trade finally gave him the minutes he deserves, the fact that people could argue against this is one reason why this board just pisses me off these days. We frankly had a PF logjam at the time, and needed a good offensive wing badly. Fixing that problem was easily worth Landry.
Martin is OK if he's used as a complement player. Right now he's not. He's good at one thing -- scoring, but he's average at best in all other categories.
Not necessarily picking on you, but then one question. What other categories aside from scoring was Landry really good at?
Playing with heart and passion. I'd consider that a category. Martin and the rest of this team don't play with either.
You know, Morey needed to retain Artest and snag Ariza from the Lakers. Then trade Ariza for Lee and still be bigger than the Lakers at virtually every position. Yao / Miller / Hayes Scola / Hill Artest / Battier Martin / Lee / Budinger Brooks / Smith / Lowry Buyout: Jeffries Bench: Taylor, and Patterson.
