I would be more upset as a Rocket fan if Ming was traded or not selected and he turned out to be the truth than if we passed on Odom and he turned out to be as good as his upside. Things to worry about however. When Yao's rookie contract is up it will be just in time for the Olympics in CHINA , will the Chinese government pull Yao back to China to prepare for the Olympics which will be infinitely more important to the Chinese people than playing an NBA season?
Things to worry about. Will Memphis ever recover from losing Francis and Bibby. And will your team ever make it out of the lottery.
Yes we will ... ... it will take some time but we are back on the right track ... hmmmmm ... guess back is not the right word since we never have been there before ... Anyway the future looks bright in Memphis with our rookies Gasol & Battier as well as West running the show now ...
Bibby was good for 23 wins playing WITH an All Star 20/10 guy in Rahim. Bibby is a tad bit overrated after his playoff performance (can you say Austin Croshere), and people are forgetting how he played over the 82 game season. Is Bibby worth the max contract he will be asking for? NO! He is not a top 5 PG in the league and might not ever be. He is a player that has had a god 2-3 week run.
I CAN'T believe you guys got West to run the show! What a coup. That's the best thing for your franchise ever. I have always been amazed that the Grizzlies got so little from so much talent. That will change now... and I doubt you'll lose your talent, like in the past... I think that Williams, Dickerson and Swift will step it up under West ... But, imagine, if in order to keep Francis, you guys had decided to trade Bibby for someone like Shawn Marion or Raef LaFrentz or Keon Clark. You probably could have. LaFrentz Gasol/Swift Battier Dickerson Francis That would be quite a team!
I don't know, for some reason I always had a feeling the real reason Steve didn't want go to Vancouver was because he didn't want to go to Canada for whatever reason. I'm sure the fact that they had never shown any signs of being an exciting team might have had a little something do with it too. Its just hard for me to believe that the whole reason he didn't want to go was because of Bibby, eventhough that's what he was implying at the time.
It will be especially interesting to see how Jason Williams responds to West ... appearently West is intrigued with his potential and has tried to trade for him previously ... if he could start playing more under control and some of the other starters are upgraded he might be a great fit for Memphis ... at least he is good at fastbreaks ...
I hate to say it but... Memphis' future, with West at the helm, looks to be as bright or brighter as anyone's in the league right now. They have a very servicable center (Lo Wright), a solid 4 in Gasol (not to mention a young backup in Stro), Battier can play anywhere, Dickerson is a nice role player...and a nice young pair of PG's in Williams and Knight...not to mention the # 4 pick which they can pretty much upgrade where ever they need to (perhaps Wagner or Butler) except center. If you think about it, several of the west conf's lotto teams from last year (Memphis, us, Clipps, Phoe) are up and coming with young talent and the regular season may really start to mean something in the next couple of years.
NJRock? Ok . . .. Memphis. . i got ya Us. . . yeah I'm with ya Clipps. .. . ok . . .I'm there PHOENIX???? The Cleveland Caveliers of the west Mediocre team year in and year out What does it say about their team that Kidd did so much of NJ Nets and could not do anything with what was there Marion - great MeBury - great CANCER! [suprised he has not broken someone's leg there yet] Hardaway - walking wounded Googs - NO NO GNC!!!! hhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmm Rocket River
RockRiver...I hear ya...Phoenix was sort of an afterthought because I wanted to justify the word "several" in my post ....however, as "cleveland-like" as Phoenix is, they are always lurking around the 8 spot every year...with a rotation of Marbury, Marion, Joe Johnson and Big Jake (nto really sold on him myself but...) they can compete for the last spot
Can't you Grizzlies do ANYTHING right?! At least suck for another year and get into the lottery! That way you get a chance at LeBron James! Egads...
While the team may turn around and start improving, these are the same players they had last year (plus anotherdraft pick) and it is still the same franchise that has had talent in the past and done nothing. Will West make that much of a difference? I don't know, I haven't really followed West's as a GM (a couple of good draft choices a couple of bad ones, an underachieving team until Jackson was hired), but the Grizzlies probably need a decent coach before they see great improvemement.
They already have Dickerson (I liked him here) and Sherlock was sayin if they had managed to keep Francis..
Actually we will loose our pick next year to Detroit unless its number 1 overall and since we never had any luck in the lottery sucking next year is useless ... anyway we have your pick next year so we havent given up on LeBron ...
Geeze Darth, haven't you heard? Our pick next year won't be below 20 or so... We're goin to the WCF!!
I belive there are several factors that could improve us more then most people think next year ... 1) Less injuries would be nice ... we lost Dickerson for all but 4 games last year ... this was huge since we only had one player, Battier, fit to start at 2 and 3 ... and also considering that Jason Williams needs to be surrounded with people that can score or he'll become inefficient ... Several other players also missed quite a few games, actually only Gasol started all games ... 2) The #4 pick should give us a nice bench next year ... we'll have something like Brevin Knight, Swift and #4 (most likely Dunleavy or Butler) ... not too bad ... 3) Most important thing though is getting West ... In the long run he should be able to attract free agents and increasing the odds of keeping the players we already have ... short term he will function as a "symbol" that this club is serious about building a contender. The belief among players that this club is going somewhere is huge and cannot be underestimated ...
