I don't think we could have gotten T-Mac without losing Francis. However, I am dissatisfied with the other players outside of T-Mac and Francis involved in the trade. Because of salary cap reasons we probably could not do a T-Mac for Francis straight up trade. But I felt that we lost a solid power forward and terrific two-guard and gained a so-so point guard, unproven point guard, and washed up power forward. In Kelvin Cato, we had a power forward who did a great job of rebounding and defending the post. He was not the greatest offensive performer but I still think he has potential to contribute more. As a matter of fact, I saw flashes of Yao Ming rubbing off on Cato. Cato was throwing creating passes, taking jump shots (a couple of games he made, but most not) and showing that he can improve on the offensive end. I think that he could have improved with more time. Maybe it was neccesary to let Mobley go in order to have the T-Mac-Yao combination in full effect, but I would have preferred to kept him. I remember seeing that we had a choice to trade Nachbar or Cato and sometimes I wished we chosed to keep Cato. If we at least kept Cato, refused Howard, then we would not have had as great of a deficiency in defense at the four spot. Maybe we could have trade Mo instead, but I think we need to keep him because he is familiar with the system and provides a nice offensive game.
rubbish. Steve leads that team in minutes played, points and assists. He's third in rebounds, and the contribtion from Cuttino and Cato is major. You've gotta have a serious commitment to ignorance to overlook how integral the 'Houston guys' are to Orlando's success.
We should have traded Yao for Shaq. 8 years of guaranteed dominance are better than waiting for Yao to grow a pair. I'm not entirely serious btw, before people go ape sh*t.
