http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news;_y...slug=sk-draftgrades062906&prov=yhoo&type=lgns Houston Rockets: B+ People will question trading Rudy Gay and Stromile Swift for Shane Battier, but Battier is a high-character scrapper who will knock down big shots and defend anyone. He'll complement Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady well and make the Rockets much tougher. Steve Novak is a lights-out shooter who will make opponents pay for doubling Yao and T-Mac. For a veteran team that needs toughness and defense, I'll take the proven Battier over the potential of Gay any day.
F- sounds about right. No wait, F because Novak can shoot fairly decent. The value thats coming back from Memphis in return for Gay and Swift is just horrible. Entirely not enough. And the fact that we just traded like most of our bench depth, that's even worse.
No matter how you slice it, our draft was a lot like the Texans draft, except that the Texans did well after the first round... Pitiful and they will wonder why the stands will be half empty... I have lost all my joy for the 2 Houston teams that I care about... I was so looking forward to both the start of basketball and football sesaons and now I pretty much couldn't care less... This draft year has been a disaster for both texas teams... The Rockets will be in the lottery again and the Texans will have a top 5 pick...
These commentators are all on the Rockets payroll. Plus there forgetting one thing. If Gay ends up being a great player and the Rockets don't win a championship this will go down as a terrible trade and all of these guys wil claim the rockets made a big mistake.
It's too bad that draft choices never take the field or court to prove whether or not the pick was bad. Seems like that would be a good idea. Alas, we can all b**** and moan about how badly our teams have drafted even though they've never taken a snap or a shot for their respective teams.
Feel like putting your money where your mouth is? I'd be willing to place a decent wager (tip jar, of course) that neither of those are the case. Anyway, aside from that, RM95 nailed it. It's a shame draft choices never have to actually do anything on the court or the field these days. I miss the good 'ole days where players actually had to prove their worth on the field... now we can determine entire careers before players even take a second on the floor. It's amazing. Good thing too, because otherwise people might consider Eddie Griffin and Kwame Brown busts. But, that can't possibly be... after all, people thought of them on draft night the way many people here are talking about Rudy Gay right now... that has to mean guaranteed hall-of-famer. No doubt about it, right?
Even if Gay turns out to be a bust, his current day value has to be higher than Battier. Draft Gay and see what kind of offers you can get if you don't want him. Plus some GMs might still have hope that Swift can play so I think you could get another piece for him. IMO - let Gay play a year before making a rash judgement. You can't judge a player like that until he's played in the NBA. Players like Battier can be picked up from a MLE. Even if Gay is a complete bust (which I highly doubt), I don't see how we get a B+ from this.
Betting on the Rox going to the 2007 Lottery IMO is like betting on how well McGrady's back holds up. It has nothing to do with basketbal. Since you'd assume his back was OK, a better tip jar bet would be whether the Rockets make it out of the first round of the playoffs next season. Since I feel the Rockets were a playoff team with either Gay or Battier, that playoffs would be the decider of the trade for me.
This is so true. There were threads about how we were going to have to pay Eddie the max in a few years, before he even played a game for the Rockets.
Yeah, we're really gonna miss those 8 pts, 5 boards, and fifty turnovers Swift provided off the bench.
