K.Cato had a great one week stretch in the pre-season and got a ridiculous contract from Rudy/CD. Once that contract ended, he was out of the league...
Well there is a BIG red flag, need look no further than the parameters of the trade... Duhhh... Thabeet, Carrol, and 1st round pick for Battier and Smith. Uhmm either Battier is a borderline All-Star and/or they know something about Smith's potential; Thabeet had ample time to impress the brass in Memphis.
Either way I am a Rocket optimist... It's so much fun coming here and projecting him to be a 15 rebound 4 block a game type of talent.... I know that's just a pipe dream at this point. But it's fun... and nobody can stop that; except the Rockets front office (and that is by either trading him or releasing him) But until that happens, I am still projecting him as a 14 point 3 block a night player :grin: Take that you realist..
This looks like a potentially strong 2nd unit. Lowry, Martin, Scola are money... I want to see them for a full season. Heck Yao Ming might come back for a lot less money (I'm keeping my fingers crossed on that one) - From everything I read, this injury was a lot less severe than last years. Let's remember that Grant Hill had his injury battles too. And he never gave up. He is still doing great solid work in Phoenix. I'm rooting for you Yao....
Look up Cato's stats. He had a great last couple of years for the Rockets. Van Gundy loved the guy. The Cato of 2002-2003 would answer the current Rockets' prayers right now.
I can't use D-League to judge anything. The level of the players is generally so low. I mean guys that absolutely suck in domestic leagues in Europe and get cut from their teams very quickly due to poor play are world beaters tearing up the D-League. The D-League is basically a joke. It might be above the Chinese League but that's about it.
RGV Vipers would probably crush Pathetic-Naikos; unlike other NBDL teams, the Vipers are used to playing in various high school gyms and abandoned slaughterhouses, like where they play the FIBA final 4, so the homecourt advantage wouldn't accrue to the Pana-tools and their neck-hair laden faithful.
You have no basis for this argument. The D-League is the most heavily scouted professional league that isn't the NBA. If you have ever been to a D-League game, which jusging by your statement you HAVE NOT. You would know that the quality of players is beyond what most people realize. Every player that begins his career in the D-League is sacrificing thousands, and in some cases hundreds of thousands of dollars so they can have a shot at realizing their dreams of playing in the NBA. There were a record number of call-ups last season and a record number of player assignments this year. While statistics do not equally translate, do not equate this to the talent level being a joke. Euro leagues have a lot of talented players and the leagues in Spain and Germany etc are fantastic, but they have American roster rules...most of those teams are filled with European players. The best Chinese team couldn't even beat a D-League lower tier team. 1/3 of all NBA players right now have some sort of D-League experience as either a call-up or assignment player. While the D-league rarely has stars...very good solid name role players are former d-leaguers. JJ Barea, Chuck Hayes, CJ Watson, Chris Birdman Andersen, Marcin Gortat, Anthony Tolliver, Shaun Livingston.. I could go on and on...All these players played in the D-league. Please do not trash the D-League. You have no clue what you are talking about.
Not sure if Van Gundy "loved" Cato, but he sure did find uses for him. Cato is probably an underachiever for his NBA career, given his physical abilities, but at least he was a useful player playing some real minutes. Of course, we'd rather Thabeet turn out to be Mutombo, but I'll take a Kelvin Cato or Greg Ostertag.
As would I. I thought Cato played well beside Yao, and I was a little upset that we lost him in the McGrady trade, especially since Orlando barely used him. I think those teams would have been noticeably better with Cato starting in place of Juwan Howard.
Every year the best player of the D-League goes to Europe and gets cut within 2-3 weeks due to poor play.
He should spend a good few hours each day working out with Yao. Remember how skinny/lanky he was when he first came in the league? Of course all that new weight made his foot gimpy, but still! Yao turned into a hoss.
Again.. still no examples... Mike Harris was the best player in the D-League last year.. played all season in China this year..NOW he is in the NBA Curtis Jerells has not come back and he was easily second best player in the D last year. Mustafa Shakur was one of top players last two seasons he is now with Wizards. Who are the ex-dleaguers that leave and come back? Name one!
I'd be thrilled with any of those. It's not at all clear that he will still be in the league in two years. My bet is that his career tracks that of Darko Milicic.
