why is it that JL3 didn't get more chances/time with the Rockets? he seemed to do a decent job scoring and distributing. he was bada$s in undergrad. bonzi wells would be great as our starting SG. he can do a little of everything, and can absolutely take over when he's on [i.e., he can get (& make) his own shot if we need another offensive weapon]. of course, like someone above said, he'd be a great CONSOLATION prize - our focus should first be on getting brandon roy somehow. what can we do to somehow end up with brandon roy AND shelden williams? both seem to address our needs at our weakest positions, and both would obviously do well, considering the attention that Mac and Yao garner. 1 - Rafer / Sura 2 - Head / 3 - Mac / 4 - Juwan / Stro 5 - Yao / Deke I believe Bogans, Lampe, Hayes, Wesley, Frahm, & Brunson all come off the books this year. RyBo does too, but he has a Player's Option that he will likely exercise to stay employed one more year. Re-signing Bogans is a no-brainer. Brunson will end up coaching somewhere, probably Temple, so he's gone. Morey will definitely push to re-sign Rubber Chucky [Hayes]. I think we should re-sign Wesley as a backup 2. I dunno if Sura's career is over. If it isn't, great, he can be our 1/2 combo guard. If it is, let's ask the NBA for an injury exception. I like Rafer with a healthy Mac & Yao. He can be inconsistently selfish sometimes, but he still racks up assists better than anyone we've had in a while. Let Deke stay. He does what he has to when he actually gets minutes. He's definitely a capable 10 min/game backup. Head is fine. He hit the rookie wall early, but fortunately, due to the injuries, JVG showed a lot of confidence in him by giving him a lot of the responsibility on the floor. I'm not too confident that he'll be the best PG or SG ever, but he'll definitely amount to a quality combo guard. JuHo just doesn't do it for me anymore. He did at the end of last year, when our winning streak increased as JVG got him to rebound more. But this year he just seemed to be so-so. He plays much shorter than he is, as opposed to Hayes, who plays taller than he is. He makes a little too much for my liking, and I wouldn't mind trading him for a nutcase with a shorter contract. Stro, in all of his inconsistencies, is still as good [or as inconsistent] as advertised. Considering how he makes the MLE, he's pretty much what we expected. I could see him being an average backup 4 & 5 for us in the coming years. Badman aka Malick Badiane isn't gonna amount to anything. So forget him. And I don't hear enough about V-Span to be confident that he will amount to anything, either. It is IMPERATIVE that we draft Brandon Roy this year. If we do that, as well as everything above, we get the following :: 1 - Rafer / Head / Sura 2 - ROY / Bogans / Wesley 3 - Mac / RyBo 4 - ____ / Hayes / Stro 5 - Yao / Deke PLUS - whoever we trade Juwan for What do we do with Richie Frahm and Magic Lamp? I say we invite them to training camp, along with Dion Glover and John Lucas III. Stro seems to be much more attractive to other teams than Juwan, mainly b/c of his age and reasonable contract. In the event that we are too low to draft Roy, I say we move up to get him. We could use Stro + our 2nd Round Pick to get Roy, and draft Shelden Williams with our 1st Rounder, or something like that. Who do we look at with our 2nd Rounder if we don't trade it? Craig Smith? Steve Novak? Pittsnogle? Gansey? If Big Baby decides to come out, I say we pick him up. He was incredible during the tournament, and he can do amazing things with his size. It's true that if we get Glen Davis, then that will add to our collection of undersized PFs, but you can't pass up on somebody that talented at that size, IMO. He may be undersized, but you can't back him down, and he somehow plays bigger than his height. Just some of my thoughts..
go after radmanovich or cassell from the clips other players you might be able to trade the lottery pick for: jamal crawford hedo turkoglu all are young with the exception of cassell, have size, and are good shooters, but arent that great defensively
Get Quintel Woods from FA. Hes talented and cheap. Sign V-Span. Trade second round draft pick(s) or any player not named Yao or T-Mac for JR Smith. Go after Chis Wilox if Juan could be dealt...
Although I probably wouldn't want him on our team, one guy that Jeff Van Gundy might want to go after is Justin Reed of Minnesota; he's a very good defender and a big time hustling/effort player with very little offensive game. He should come for about 1.5 million/year, and if we sign or draft a deadeye shooting guard, he's a guy that could be brought in as a defensive stopper (think about the Eric Piatkowski and Adrian Griffin signings in 2003). One other guy I'd like to see the Rockets pursue is James Singleton of the Los Angeles Clippers. He's a great offensive rebounder and highly athletic. His game reminds me of how Hassan Adams was two years ago; lots of tip-in dunks and energy plays. He's also a solid 6-8 at the small forward, and shouldn't be too much of a liability on defense. He seems like a great backup for Tracy, and I'm wondering if he'll be squeezed out of the rotation next year, with Quinton Ross, Corey Maggette, and Yaroslav Korolev ahead of him at small forward; heck, Coach Dunleavy was even playing Shaun Livingston at the 3 sometimes. I'm not sure if he's a free agent or not, but I'd give up a future 2nd rounder for him. I don't believe that we'll be major players in free agency this summer, most likely using part of the Mid Level Exception to sign Vassilis Spanoulis, and the rest of it to sign our 15th man, saving the trade exceptions for a deadline deal. I'd also expect us to sign an undrafted big guy as training camp fodder and possibly as a replacement for Mutombo. Keith Bogans should draw some interest from other teams; I'd go with a 2 year deal for about 2 million to start, for Chuck Hayes I'd offer a 2 year deal starting at 1 million. I think we'd be foolish to invest more money in the power forward position at this point, so unless Juwan Howard or Stromile Swift is traded, I wouldn't hope for a power forward. While I realize that the 4 spot is a weakness of this team, at the very least you can say that we do have depth at the position. For next year, the only guards we have signed are Bob Sura, Rafer Alston and Luther Head. It is clear we'll need to focus on the backcourt first.
At least someone here is making sense. Not sure about our chances with Cassell but i am one of the few here who thinks Alston will be just fine Tmac and Yao are on the floor together. We could nab JR Smith or Josh Childress for Stro.
Does JR Smith really have a bad attitude and is he someone who doesn't like to work hard or play defence? I think he is a pretty good shooter and can dunk.
These two things can't possible happen. Either we sign Cassell for MLE and leave Spanoulis over seas one more year, or we bring over Spanoulis for partial MLE and forget about Cassell. The two things happening at the same time is not a possibility unless Cassell comes in a sign and trade.
What's up with ragging on J-Ho? He's the best PF we've got. He's way overpaid, but he has been a very solid and dependable starter on this team. We'd be hard pressed to get a better starting PF through FA unless it involves three teams. Plus, we need veteran shooting.
Everyone keeps mentioning Sura as if he will be back and 100% next year. He's 33ish, and I haven't heard anything about any recovery! Just curious if ya'll know something I don't...
Howard is a decent but inconsistant spot up shooter. He can't conribute anything else to the team effort! He isn't even worthy of a back up position, especially considering the amount of money he is being paid.Let's get real if we are going to rebuild for a Championship Team!
I thought I heard that Sura was probably done. But he may have just shut it down for the year, anyone know? DD
Wasn't Kareem Rush and James Posey on the FA list for next season? They can both shoot, and Posey could definitely defend pretty well. Our priority should be shooting guards who can put the damn ball in the hoop and play some pretty good perimiter defense. If we can't get any, a backup/starting PG, a backup SF, a backup C, a backup/starting PF are all on the wishlist.
dude, tell me u r joking ... JHO is not only the worst PLAYER in the team (maybe after Lampe and Rybo).. but he's probably in the top 5 suckiest PF's in the whole league... JHO sucks ... Jho cant do anything.. PF's are not for midrange J"s .. I've said it a 100 times.. a PF (POWER forward) needs to rebound, DUNK, post up..... not shoot freakin midrange J's and slow down the whole game.. Jho's injury was the reason we got to the playoffs last year.. and his comeback this year was one of the reasons (even though we have a lot of them) for the terrible season... JHO cant pass (he fakes everytime even if the passing lane is 100% empty), he cant post up, he cant rebound, he cant defend worth a crap.. the dude should be a SG in the NBDL .. he has no skills .. I've never analyzed his playing before he came to the rockets, but I dont know how he gets paid all the big bucks.. was he good or something /??.. I dont know, I dont want to bash the player's skills .. but in his current situation (age), he sucks so bad... and HE NEEDS TO GO...
...except average eleven and a half points plus six and a half rebounds per game. He led the team in scoring eight times and had a game with 28 points. Not exactly what I would think of as the "worst PLAYER" on the team. Except that when you have a post up center, you don't want the PF (and his defender) clogging up the lane. You would much rather have a guy that can make teams pay for sagging off into Yao's lap. BTW, in case you haven't noticed, JH is also our best post player not named Yao. His jump hook is money and while Yao was out, he used it well. Dude, you need to wake up. Losing JHo kept us out of the second round last year and he has been one of the few consistent players on the Rox this year. I agree with you in that I wish he rebounded a bit better and further wish that he was more of a shot blocker, but what he gives us with his 15-18 foot jumper makes up for it. I would say that it takes some "skills" to average 11.6 and 6.7 in the NBA. Most guys never sniff those numbers in their entire careers. I have pointed it out before and here goes again... We need a superstar PF like Chucky Brown in '95 to win a championship. What we need is to keep the chemistry consistant and keep JHo. If Swift starts playing better, start him. If we get a deal for someone better than JHo, trade him. However, claiming that JHo is anything other than a smart, hardworking, and seasoned veteran is simply refusing to face reality.
JVG disagrees with you. "If I had a chance to sit down and talk with him, I'd much rather talk about the importance of having three point guards on a team, the importance of having bench depth, the importance of having more firepower, the importance of adding a range-shooting four-man. All those to me are of much greater concern." 13-3 prior to JHo's injury. 10-6 after JHo's injury. Its hard to make the case that we got in the playoffs BECAUSE of his injury. Really? How so? I'd love to see him go if we can upgrade him. Most here hates him so much you want to trade him for a bag of peanuts. I think that is a BIG mistake to dump him for nothing. You gotta get an upgrade ...not an even swap or downgrade. ...and getting an upgrade for JHo is easier said than done.
