Who wants to play the waiting game?.....the Houston Rockets

agreed.

we already see that the FA's left are starting to sign for "normal" deals.

doleac - half the mle

chris anderson - the million dollar exception

damon jones has miami on his list of possibles even though they only have half the mle left.


there are still a lot of players that can help us that haven't even gotten their turn at being looked at by teams, because teams go after big names first.

if we don't make a trade for a PG then i will bet right now that we bring in either damon jones or mike james for half the mle.

 

Finally a thread that isnt started by Chicken Little.

The sky is not falling, folks.

 

I often wondered why the Rockets didn't push to have Stephen Hunter SnT'd and added to the McGrady-Francis trade. Hunter arguably has more value than Gaines and we were losing Cato's rebounding and shot blocking. Perhaps it was too complicated given that ORL did not extend Hunter (ala Eddie Griffin).

Probably related to not extending, NBA.com has Hunter listed as unrestricted. I believe ORL still has his Bird Rights but are limited to what they can offer given they didn't extend. By my estimate, Year 4 for a #15 pick in 2001 is ~$2.2m. Antonio Daniels or Damon Jones or Lindsey Hunter with part of the MLE and Hunter with the remaining part works for me.

IMHO, Hunter would be a poor man's Stomille Swift as a WC C/PF sidekick for Yao. Less talent than Stro, less cost than Cato.

 

The Rox are probably playing the waiting game, because they're hoping that any remaining free agents will lower their contract demands.

The downside to that approach is that another team might snatch up what's left, but who cares.

At this point, there's not much left anyway, and the Rox could do a lot worse than going into camp with their current roster.

I don't think there's a FA left available that's worth the entire mid level, except maybe Dampier, and he'll probably want six or seven years, so bleh.

 

Well, Bigs have more value over guards. The probably didn't want to relinquish Hunter's services. Plus, Salaries have to match and not sure if they would've.

 

Hunter turned into a bust for Orlando. complete loss.

 

I think it's smart that CD has done nothing. We still have a MLE and TE, and now NJ and Cleveland both need PFs.

With players like Darius Miles, Stromile Swift and Eric Dampier still unsigned, and players like Vince Carter and maybe J. Kidd demanding trades, we can be potential players with our TE and MLE. I am not saying we'll get any of those players, but we can play a third party role.

I am sure CD and Les Alexanders aren't dummies. At least, I hope not. They know if they expect McGrady to resign an extension, then they better surround him with a solid team. Otherwise, McGrady and Shaq in Miami is feasible in a year.

 

I like that reasoning.

Plus Hunter is what? 22? He is still very young and has upside.

Damon Jones and Hunter for our MLE would be very good IMO. That would still give us our TE to land an impact player for our starting rotation or a high quality back up.

 

The Rockets probably wanted this deal done before the moratorium. A sign n' trade deal would have to wait until the 14th and if we thought Weisbrod was trying to jerk the Rockets around before hand, just imagine what could have happened had that guy been given 2 additional weeks. It was probably wiser just to get the deal done when you could get it done. Don't let waiting on a guy like Hunter blow your shot at Tmac.

 

i agree, we now have more trade value in our PFs

 

Orlando was the worst team in basketball last season and if we were to pick up Hunter we would have 5 guys from that team on our roster.....

Kinda Scary.

 

Has anyone signed Horry yet? He's a good defender, perimeter shooter, and passer. If we could unload Taylor, I'd be okay with a PF rotation of Howard and Horry.

 

why would go after keyon dooling. A guy that cant shoot and isnt a real pg.

 

I'm thinking the smart money is on Swift.... we dont need another Cato on this team even if it were for four years.

 

Wow, I remembered a couple of years ago, when we signed Cato to some ridiculous money, and everyone that he would be the next Hakeem... to battle Shaq. Then, the season started, and everyone thought what a mistake it was.

I guess my defination of a "Cato" would be a tall, unmotivated, overly priced player with limited offensive skill.

The last thing we need is another Cato. Maybe, a Ben Wallace... Jason Williams (pre-murdering days), and Dennis Rodman (pre-Freak days).

 

Finally some sanity. The difference between a Derek Fisher and some of the guys left is not worth $5mill/yr. I'm glad CD finally learned his lesson. We now have the full MLE exception remaining at our disposal as well as the entire TE. Instead of overpaying for complete garbage, we can address numerous needs. I don't know if they'de settle, but Keon Clark and Damon Jones splitting the MLE is damn good value. I like the point someone made about Clark - I think he'de be a nice fit with Shaq gone.

I think Stromile Swift would be an interesting experiment, but only if they are able to unload Maurice Taylor. That looks unlikely. If they could trade Taylor to Seattle for Daniels and a backup big, then I'de offer Swift the MLE and try and round out the roster with the TE.

Moochie is gone. Cato is gone. Glen Rice is gone. Only Weatherspoon and Taylor are left. The Rockets are in a good situation in that their two max players (TMac and soon Yao) are as valuable as any max player possible. They need to be responsible now and look for good value. Deals can be had.

 

thecabbage,
Exactly my thoughts. See my post in this thread....

http://bbs2.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=80935&perpage=30&pagenumber=1

 

I still say that the talent available via FA could be had through the TE or by moving MOT. If your gonna use the MLE use it all on Swift. Not quite sure if we are gambling here hoping his value falls beneath it (ala JJ) or if we are just that concerned in making the pg our priority. While I do think that the PG is the priority there is no one available near the talent of Swift. IMO I would take Dooling over DJ at the pg if you are going to pursue that position through FA.