Who is sacramento marketing its international players to? Isn't Sac Town mostly white? I understand Dallas and its players. I can see Houston with Yao Ming. Houston has a large Asian Community btw, it's new years.
If we ended up with the number one ... I would like the Rocks to put Ming through extensive workouts to see if he is the real deal. If not, deal the pick to get a good sf or c(star or no, hopefully yes) and some change.
I don't see Trade #2 working out. Sac knows their window of opportunity to win is now. Turkoglu is a key player for them, who plays during the crunch time. From the Rockets perspective, I like it, since Artest and Turkoglu are solid players, who complement each other well at SF. We'd have a shooter/scorer in Hedo, and a defensive stopper in Artest. Miller and Cato are basically a wash. Since we do have Griffin to block shots, having a shot blocking C isn't a necessity as much as it is a luxury. I would highly doubt that Chicago would trade that much to move up 1 whole spot. So you would have Chi trading their #2 overall pick, Miller, and Artest for the #1 and Cato? If the Rockets have the #1 pick, the Bulls know that the Rockets would only draft JW for another team, in the event that the Rockets strike a deal with another team. If the Bulls know the Rockets want to draft for themselves, the Bulls are 99% certain that JW will fall into their laps at #2. If we do draft for ourselves, we will draft Ming over Williams.
Bill Walton has said that Ming is the best young center that he has seen since Lew Alcindor...That said, I would still trade the draft pick. We have a couple question marks on the roster already, we need some veterans on the team.
First off, I doubt we would keep the pick. I base this opinion on Oeilpere's comments in a previous thread, in which he indicated that the Rockets need some veteran talent to mix in with the current youngsters. If Chicago wants Jason Williams bad enough, then they would have to pony up to the trading table. Chicago, Washington, Orlando, Golden State, Atlanta, & the Clippers all want & need a starting PG. They would all be competing for the #1 pick, if it were made available.
Jason Williams is the next Marbury. He wouldn't work well with anyone. Get Yao Ming. With Kelvin Cato and Kevin Willis on the squad, he can develop at whatever rate, and learn all the little things with the coaches. In 3 years, we'll have ourselves either a dominant C, or a bust. It really won't be that big a loss since he's a big project and we don't really want anymore young players. If not that, then either Odom or Lewis. Get rid of either Mo Taylor or Glen Rice in either deal. We need a SF, we can't afford to wait and see what happens with Glen Rice.
Get a real point guard. Is Chris Duhon one? Maybe Tito Maddox from Fresno State or Clemson's Edward Scott. The Rockets need someone who passes the ball first.
Trading our #1 pick is much easier said than done. The Clips and Bulls were able to pull off their deal because both didn't teams didn't have any cap concerns, as they were the 2 teams with the most money under the cap. Teams would have to be willing to take on dead cap space like Rice or Mo, and the #1 for the Rockets to get an established borderline star who makes 7-9 mill per year. I don't think there are too many teams who are THAT desperate for JW. There are lots of teams who need true PG's (like us), but JW doesn't fit that mold.
Well the Bulls did trade away an all-star power foward in Elton Brand for the clippers lottery pick last year...I think there are a couple teams willing to take on salary (Glen Rice etc.)for our pick in a trade. An orginization like the Bulls who don't have to worry about signing their rookies and second year players for a while don't don't care about taking on big salaries as long as they don't last forever (Matt Maloney).
Like I said before, the Bulls and Clippers were able to do the deal easily since they were both under the cap.
Let's see where the chips fall. I know this is a dreamcast thread. If we get the #1 overall pick, we take Jason Williams, period. Then we decide which player we want to pursue (Odom? Rashard? Dice?) I'd like to deal with the Eastern Conference but who's out there that we want?
Roxtxia, Why would you draft Williams outright, when you could trade down a couple of times to acquire additional key players or future draft picks? You'd still get the same value for JW in any event. It would be like having the right to trade the top two (for now) players in the draft, instead of just one. The trades that I threw out in my original post were combined into 3 team trades for convienience sake. Technically (& more likely), each trade should be made separately, so that you don't get hung up negotiating between the teams & having to deal with jealousies.
Are you implying that teams won't be able to trade for the #1 pick, because they don't have enough cap space? If that's the case, then you're mistaken. If we assume that the cap will increase 10% this year, that would give each team a salary cap of $46.75 million. There are 13 teams that will be under the cap & 25 teams under the Luxury tax threshhold, assuming that it's $10 million above the salary cap. Here's the team salaries for next year, according to RealGM. http://www.realgm.com/src_teamcap2.php Team 02/03 committed Atlanta $52,149,893 Boston $53,510,270 Charlotte $42,116,602 Chicago $33,729,991 Cleveland $42,872,535 Dallas $64,750,959 Denver $39,539,833 Detroit $37,929,895 Golden State $45,949,606 Houston $44,309,810 Indiana $46,160,948 L.A. Clippers $24,936,805 L.A. Lakers $53,769,803 Memphis $51,989,147 Miami $49,911,525 Milwaukee $53,938,359 Minnesota $49,988,235 New Jersey $54,275,793 New York $87,956,800 Orlando $47,055,174 Philadelphia $57,164,729 Phoenix $48,038,986 Portland $95,603,544 Sacramento $55,398,562 San Antonio $41,697,640 Seattle $45,683,126 Toronto $52,633,064 Utah $40,292,895 Washington $36,916,073
Any interest in Brent Barry? He's having a career year with 45% 3pt shooting, 51% FG, 5.4 RPG, and 5APG. The last two stats are particularly high, but he's still a career 40% 3pt shooter. He's not too old either. Anyone know much about his game? How well can he handle ball, pass, set up his teammates, etc.?
I'm implying that it will be hard to get the "proven veteran" that people want to acquire. Let's say this proven vet makes 8-10 mill. We would have to give up the #1 pick, and hope they take our dead weight, like Rice, for that proven vet. The Rockets frankly do not have enough high-valued trade commidities that would allow them to trade for a proven vet. I said the Bulls and Clips could do it, because for one thing, Brand made like 3 mill or something, as well as the fact that the Clips were well under the cap, and could have afforded Brand, if he costed the max.
I wouldn't mind acquiring Barry. I actually think he could be a starter for us, with Cat off the bench. The Rockets need more players like Barry, who are very versatile. I don't think he plays much defense, but who does on the Rockets?
As long as they don't draft any white guys. I'm getting kind of sick of the rockets drafting all these slow point guards and mediocre 3 point specialist forwards who sit on the bench for a few years before being shipped elsewhere. This isn't even being all that racist, I'm a white dude who realizes that every time in recent history that the rockets draft a white guy, he ****ing sucks. By the way, I'm really glad we drafted Mirsad Turckan instead of Rashard Lewis. We really ended up looking like draft day wizards there.
