Interesting Article on Hilario

is he a better athlete than Amare?

 

To me Hilario sounds like a Bo Outlaw type.

I have never seen him play, so this is just a guess.

 

I think 6'10'' 260 at age 19 with a 7'4'' wingspan is certainly passable for a center, provided he has the aggressive banging style it mentioned that he has. His leaping ability is a plus.

Frank Johnson and John Lucas raved about Nene's feet-Lucas said he had great feet, and Johnson said he ran faster than some of the guards. (The actual quotes were in the Nene article I posted on the board).

He sounds closer to a young Shawn Kemp than Amare Stoudemire, IMO.

A couple other notes-

-I've heard Nene and his agent say they have no ties to the team, and won't pay anything in terms of a buyout, because the team allegedly hasn't paid him in months, so he claims the contract is void. He'll probably have to go through FIBA, but either way $0, or 1 mill is manageable.

-Also, his big fame right now? He blocked Jermaine O'Neal 3 times in one of the World Games, Brazil took the US to OT but lost. He had 5 blocks in 18 minutes IIRC.

 

I really think that we would be better served by a center that plays like Hilario rather than like Ming. We need someone who will fight oponents for loose balls and crash the boards, someone to put some muscle behind Steve and Co.'s hustle. I would be ecstatic to land Odom and Hilario plus another pick. At 6'10'', 260 with room to add more and 7'4'' wingspan this guy is a monster. I really think that his style of play and body/athleticism would benefit us more next year than Ming would/will. Considering Hilario's long arms and Mings short arms, I wonder how much better (if at all) Ming is on the glass and blocking shots?

 

I think that Hilario is truely a PF...and in NBA he should play PF too. And he could start at PF...and he can play C too...with no problem...he can create matchup problems..at both spots...





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I luv Caron Butler

 

Very interesting, Nene Hilario sounds like a very nice fit alongside Griffin on the Rockets frontline. The thing that intrigues me about the bangers in this draft is that they all have NBA bodies. Not to mention, this 6-10 measurement is w/o shoes if Im not mistaken. My understanding is that Hilario is 6-11 or 6-11 1/2 something like that with shoes. Hilario basically has the same wingspan at 6-10 or 6-11 that Ming does at 7-5.

The heart and desire of Hilario is exactly what the Rockets need. The part thats really intriguing is that Hilario runs the floor like a guard. Can you imagine the fastbreak attack with Odom handling in the middle of the break, two excellent runners on the wing in Francis and Mobley along with two big men that run like guards in Griffin and Hilario? WOW!

 

IMO, if Dunleavy returns to Duke, Hilario won't last past the Knicks. Maybe not even if Jr stays in the draft. Convince me that Odom and a HS'er have more value to the Rockets than Ming.

 

Just playing with hypotheticals. Would you think Odom and Hilario (maybe plus pick 12 or Maggette) have equal/more value to the Rockets than Ming?

Personally, I think Dunleavy will stay in the draft-he doesn't really have anything to go back to-the teams will be just as bad next year, and he could only possibly move up 1-2 slots since James will go #1. Duke without J-Will and Boozer won't be a serious title contender with or without him-they'll make the NCAA's and have a good crop of freshman I believe, but Duhon/Ewing isn't enough to carry the rest of the team.

Will the Knicks pick Nene? Maybe. However, I think the pressure being put on Layden will cause him to go with a more well-known choice-I can't see him passing on Wagner if he's there, or Drew Gooden. I'd guess they'd take Wilcox before Nene as well, just because he's more of a known, but that one's a close call. Remember, the last time the Knicks went international- Frederic Weis over local talent, and what seemed like a no-brainer pick Ron Artest.

 

NIKE

Just my opinion but even with MD Jr in the draft -

I don't think Gooden will fall past both Denver and Cleveland.

How much better are the Knicks with Wagner? They appear to have a logjam of players at PG/SG. Can't imagine they'd pick Wagner over Wilcox or even Nene.

Now about your hypothetical -

My fundamental answer is that Ming is more valuable overall than Odom + #8. Give this some consideration.

1) Trading for Odom strenghtens a conference rival.
2) Odom + Taylor + Kandi (who is/was arguably better than Cato and Nene) were 15-67 as Clipps 2 seasons ago.
3) Contrary to popular belief, the addition of Odom does not transform the Rockets into an uptempo team. The ability to uptempo comes from the defensive end first and then a commitment to run.

With all of their youthful athletes, the Clipps are barely better than the Rocks in FB pts (25th)...in other words...they don't play enough D and get defensive rebounds to uptempo.

4) If you were a betting man and we placed Cato, Willis, Nene and Ming 15 feet from the basket and give them each 10 shots, who would you put your money on?

Imagine Francis and Mobely driving and Ming's defender not able to rotate because he had to honor Mings shot.

The Odom or Ming argument has been widely discussed but the bottomline for me is that Odom is a duplication of skills the Rocks already have and Odom + #8 don't seriously address the Rocks biggest deficiencies.

 

Gater,

What if the Rockets used the No. 1 to get McDyess? Something like No. 1 and Taylor and Rice for No. 5 and McDyess. I know I've already discussed this with others, but didn't remember if you opined on McDyess. Also, I threw Rice's fat contract into the mix to level off the salaries because I know you like him so much.

McDyess can hit the midrange J, and rebounds and defends better than we can probably reasonably hope for with Ming. And, for all the stuff I have read about McDyess' star fading, I think he is entering into the prime years of his career.

All of this appears to be academic but I'm curious what you think.

 

Rdog -

You may be surprised to find that I am basically pro-Dice but...and this is a big "but" there is a major exposure in acquiring McDyess.

Let's assume the Nuggets take Rice. This is more likely than Taylor as Rice's contract is shorter, smaller and Glen can be packaged with Collier (team option next summer) and KT (qualifying offer next summer and they could just let him walk instead of matching).

So, with Dice at PF and MoT/EG backing him up, you focus on the draft. IMO, if Dunleavy stays in, the #5 pick will be the best SF available - Tsika or Butler. Now, if Dunleavy drops out Butler will most likely not be there.

Back to Dice.

Antonio has a player option next summer. If he choses to walk for whatever reason (lack of team chemistry, Duncan remains at SA making him the top PF FA, desire to rejoin Kidd somewhere, foolishly takes the MCE to join the Lakers and win a ring, etc.) and the Rocks took Tsika wth the #5 pick you enter the 2003-2004 season with no Dice, no KT and only Tsika to show for having the #1 pick in the 2002 draft. Granted, this is the worst case scenario, but it is a very real possibility.

To be honest, there is a plus side. If Dice walks, then the Rockets will have enough cap room to bid on a Max player. I'm not convinced Duncan would leave SA and I can't think of any impact FA's next summer at PF or C that could help.

In these terms, Dice seems like more of a risk than Ming or Odom (at least the Rockets can match bids for him). What's your take?

 

I agree there's risk but I think it's more manageable than risk with Odom and Ming, and the best case scenario is excellent.

Odom may get into trouble with weed, and the upside of adding him is not as great because we would still be a donut team. Odom may also demand a max contract, so the situation may be similar to keeping McDyess, except Dice has a better track record.

Ming - I'll defer to everyone about Ming's talent potential, tho I don't agree. But I still worry about his consistent availability to the Rockets and his not having an offseason.

I think we can keep McDyess. Rudy is a player's coach, Dice liked Houston but stayed in Denver for some reason - probably money, Van Excel, and b/c we had Barkley at the time, I think. Dice would like running with Francis. I'd love to say that they could be the next Kobe and Shaq, but -- like it or not -- the more appropriate comparison would be the next Bibby and Webber.
I would enjoy watching that develop. Francis, Dice, Bibby and Webber are all talented and have not proven themselves to be winners (although I would argue that Bibby has).

Question - do we have the cap space to keep Dice?

Finally, my hope is that we get Ming and Nene or Stoudamire. Ming can teach them to shoot, they can teach him to lift weights. But having both Ming and Nene would be funniest. Nobody could talk to each other.

 

Gater-Everything hinges on MD Jr. staying in the draft, but assuming he does- Your top 4 picks are more than likely Yao, JWill, Junior, and Caron Butler. Denver is the hardest to pick-Personally, I see Tsika going there, or Wagner (they have McDyess and Howard playing PF short term, and long term Donnell Harvey). If it's Tsika, Cleveland and New York would probably take Gooden and Wagner, could flip flop (Wagner and Dre Miller is a good backcourt, no?). If it's not Tsika, I see him sliding all the way past 8. If Denver takes Wagner, then Cleveland more than likely takes Gooden. If you're NY- Wilcox or Hilario? Wilcox is a much quicker fix, and a more appealing pick for a New York team, which will factor into Layden's, who's trying to save his job, decision.

As for your mentioned points-
1.) No argument there. I think it still makes us better than them, so I don't really care if the Clippers are knocking someone else out of a playoff spot.
2.) That was 2 years ago-Griffin will be much better than Taylor was, Odom has 2 more years experience, and Kandi sucked 2 years ago. That team had no depth. Contrast that with Griffin/Taylor coming off the bench, plus Cato off the bench. Who was their backup? Keith Closs? Not even worth comparing backcourts.
3.) The Clippers team was focused with Brand and Kandi in the post. Their PG was Jeff McInnis, who IMO is the only PG worse than Francis in terms of running the break. Odom was out most of the season. The fact the Clippers played him a POINT GUARD (not Point Forward) for parts of his rookie/sophomore year should tell you the ineptitude of McInnis.

4.) Here is the fundamental difference- I'll play Ming along with you, but I don't think it really matters that greatly. If you replaced Ming with Collier, wouldn't Collier be the answer as well? I'm not a big subscriber to the 5 shooter theory-here's how I break it down: We have 2 guys in the backcourt who have shot 40% 3P%. At PF, we'll have at least 2 guys (Taylor/Griffin) that are among the best shooting PFs in the league. Odom is not that bad of a 3 point shooter-he shot 36% his rookie year. The Sixers made it to the finals and had Mutumbo, Tyrone Hill, McKie, and Snow surrounding Iverson-Mutumbo can't shoot a lick, Hill doesn't have nearly the range of MoT, McKie was a decent shooter, nothing special and Snow had a huge deficiency as a shooter. Or look at the Clippers-they'd have front lines of Kandi, Brand, Miles-Kandi is a much improved shooter, as was Brand, but Miles can't shoot, and none of them had any sorts of range. Whereas Dallas put together possibly the best collection of skill players ever, but were taken out because they had no interior toughness-think the Otis Thorpe to Griffin's Hakeem Olajuwon; but Griffin won't have the type of toughness Dream had in the championship years for awhile, if ever, which to me makes it more magnified. On an aside, I think a 24 year old Kevin Willis would be the perfect fit playing with Griffin, too bad he's nearly 40.

One thing people usually mention are the PnR possibilities like Utah-except Francis isn't half as good at reading defenses as Stockton was.

If we were able to hypothetically pick up 8 and 12, and pickup Borchardt, then you have your midrange shooting C with rebounding and shot blocking skills to go along with a banger like Nene. If we were to make moves like this, I would make a couple additional moves-like hope for Jacobsen or Savovic in round 2 to be a "utility shooter" type-those aren't hard to find, the Fred Hoiberg/Eric Piatkowskis of the world.

Basically our fundamental differences come down to this: You rank the ability to shoot from the 5 slot to open things up for Francis a bigger priority than a point forward to complement Francis. I see the reverse.

 

Cap questions are generally best answered by aelliott, NIKEstrad or heypartner, but I am relatively sure of the following response and that they will gently correct me if not.

If the Rockets aquired McDyess via trade, his full Bird Rights would also transfer to the Rockets who would then be allowed to re-sign McDyess (even though they are over the cap) to a Max contract if all parties are in agreement. This is true even if Dice does not excercise his player option next summer (similar to Rashard and the Sonics this summer).

The risk here is what is the Rockets total cap committment with both Dice and Francis Maxed and do they approach the Luxury Tax level.

Assuming we keep Ming, I can't see Nene falling to #15. I was sort of interested in Stoudemire at 15 but he is only 1" taller and 3#'s heavier than Aaron Williams who looks very small when he's guarding Shaq. Perhaps the Rockets will just take the best available at 15.

 

NIKE - That and the fact that I am valuing Yao's defensive presence more highly than you are. In any event, we have done a fair job of restating some of the better basketball related issues on the subject. Perhaps we can revisit this after June 19. Dunleavy and Borchardt will have made their decisions and some of the up or down "trends" will have been established.

And I do agree about the Ming/Francis PnR but a mediocre PnR is better than the PnR we are getting with Cato.

 

Yeah, if the Rockets traded for McDyess, they could offer McDyess the max if they wanted-it'd more likely be trying to stay within the luxury tax. Personally, I don't find much sense in going after McDyess because the big money extension is imminent, he's coming off a serious injury, he's about 4 years older than our core, we have Taylor signed for 5 more years, Griffin for 4 more if we want him, and Kenny Thomas for one more year, and McDyess can't play center. But that's just me.

GATER-The defensive issue is one of the toughest to judge, because we've never seen Ming play with players on his level. That's also pure opinion-I see Ming becoming sort of similar effect to Raef+6 inches (a good thing-you know that I like Raef), and I think Griffin is better than Dirk defensively, but I just see too much like the Mavs in that-Long, tall, skill players that can block shots, but can be pushed around inside like Dirk/Raef, which doesn't work for me with our porous guard defense-Ming would be awesome next to say a Karl Malone. I think Griffin/Ming have pretty equal potential of becoming franchise players, but Ming probably has double the trade value right now, because he's about to be a draft pick (don't ask me how it seems to work that way). That's why if I could get my tough center (all reports say Nene is that) as well as a potential franchise-type SF like Odom, I'd do it.

We are getting a PnR with Cato? In seriousness, I think if we want to run PnR, Mo has the perfect game for it (now with a wider body, hehe), and I think EG could develop it.

This has been drawn out about as far as it can go-I'd bet on us having a clearer picture of whether we'll draft Ming or not by Friday at the latest-and we should just let things sit till the week before when there's a clearer picture.