Try to get Francis, keep Battier, trade Alston and Lucas - possible destinations?

I lost affection for bringing Francis back after the Howard/James trade. M.James brings everything Francis does to the table and I don't agree with giving up Rafer if Francis is signed.

I like the rotation of Rafer/M.James at the point guard spot because Rafer is the better ball handler while M.James is the better scorer, they look to compliment each other very well.

Trade Lucas though, try and get a pick or something so maybe to a team like Golden State or Seattle who have a trade exception.

 

whats with all this Donyell Marshan infatuation? You're the second person to bring up his name. He freaking sucks. I hope we dont get him...

 

Justin Reed, John Lucas III, Bobby Sura, and Rafer Alston should all be shipped out ASAP IMO. Just get rid of them already.

Sign Francis with either the LLE ($1,830,000), Sura's injury exception ($2,080,000) or the remaining part of the MLE left over after the Scola signing (about $2,260,000 - similar to Bonzi's deal), whatever Francis wants.


PG Francis/James
SG McGrady/Wells
SF Battier/Snyder
PF Scola/Hayes
C Yao/Mutombo


Adelman uses a 10 man rotation and that's a team that's 10 deep. The starting lineup of:

PG Francis
SG McGrady
SF Battier
PF Scola
C Yao

would be in the elite of the NBA, this combined with a suddenly top notch bench of:

PG James
SG Wells
SF Snyder
PF Hayes
C Mutombo


plus your 3 point bench snipers of Novak, Brooks, and Head, plus a couple of young bigs in Landry and Butler with potential and the Rockets would definitely then be a team that at least on paper is BETTER than San Antonio, Phoenix, Dallas, Utah, Denver.

Considering Adelman uses a 10 man rotation and actually subs players in for offense this is a perfect team for him. He tries to beat the opponent with 6 to 7 players having plays run for them instead of 2 like Van Gundy.

I feel that potential above Rockets team is superior to the Kings team in 2002 that came within one quarter of beating the 3 peat Lakers (a team that was better than last year's San Antonio team) and then remember that Lakers team swept the Nets (a team that was better than last year's Cavs team).

That is how close Adelman came to going all the way with that 2002 Kings team, well that above Rockets team is at least on paper better than that Kings team was. And guess what? Now there is NO 3 peat Lakers team with prime Shaq and Kobe on it. There is no NBA team in that level now.

The Rockets team above would probably become that team. Prime Shaq and Kobe might have been more "dominant" than Yao and T-Mac, but that potential Rockets team would be way deeper and better players 3 through 10. Derek Fisher and Robert Horry were the next best players on those Lakers teams. I think you could very well argue that Steve Francis is better than Robert Horry at player #3 and that Shane Battier is better than Derek Fisher at player #4. Players 5-10, 5-12, 5-15 you could pretty much say overall the advantage goes to that Houston team over anything those Lakers team had.

And really the difference between prime Shaq and Kobe isn't anything near as much as people say to Yao and McGrady. The production will be much closer under Adelman.

I think at this point, now that Luis Scola is on board, that Steve Francis is the FINAL PIECE to a CHAMPIONSHIP TEAM in Houston, which IMO is quite fitting because after all he is nicknamed "The Franchise."