Shandon Anderson would never have gotten 42 million on the open market. It was the Rockets' decision to sign him to that amount. If the Rockets wanted to sign Shandon, they could have done so for a lot less. By the way, Shandon Anderson is putting up better numbers, and is much younger than Glen Rice.
Actually TheFreak is right.... there were other options with Shandon, and they never would have given him that money (it actually wasn't the Rockets' decision, but the Knicks' decision to give him that money). The Rockets could have let Shandon walk for that matter. Remember -- this wasn't a Shandon for Rice deal... Bullard was expendable because of this deal, so it cost us him. No loss really... until you see Rice's play. I would rather have Bullard than Rice right now, honestly. It was a gamble that could have paid off big for the Rockets.... so far it has backfired pretty badly. Shooters, like Dale Ellis and Eddie Johnson, can be effective and deadly well in to their late 30's, but Rice hasn't taken care of himself nearly as well as those two. I just hope this guy can turn it around.... but so far it's looking really bad.
Freak: If you are saying that you would rather have nothing than Anderson, that's cool. I can handle that. But, I'd much rather have an inexpensive Torres than a pricey Anderson. Remember that Anderson has said he felt like he needed to play somewhere else. As for stats... Rice: 8.6 PPG 30 Minutes Per Game 39% FG 80% FT 28% 3pt 2.35 RPG 1.55 APG .60 Steals/Game .15 Blocks/Game 1.20 TO/Game Anderson: 23 Minutes Per Game 5.9 PPG 39% FG 68% FT 25% 3pt 3.5 RPG 1.11 APG .95 SPG .11 Blocks/Game 1.58 TO/Game Doesn't look like Anderson's numbers are any better than Rice.
I truly believe the rockets are paying the price for some "play for us now we'll pay you later" deals - specifically Shandon Anderson and Maurice Taylor. True, Anderson is not playing for us now, but the Rockets, in order to live up to their end of the bargain, signed and traded Anderson, hence ensuring he got his money. For Houston, it was a case of choose your poison - sign Anderson to a fat contract and play him off the bench, or trade him for an aging Rice with an equally fat contract. Taylor remained astonishingly quiet and patient during this offseason, especially for a Falk client. He could afford to, because the Rockets had probably already promised him $8Mil per year when they were trying to lure him as a free agent. The likely cost of that little deal to the rockets? Chris Webber.
I'm not too worried about his shot because he started to find it. It's his knees. If I'm not mistaken, don't bodybuilders wear straps around their knees to maintain hydrostatic pressure when doing squats, etc.? His injury tonight might be revealing something that has been building up for a while. It's sad, because I liked Rudy's gamble.
There was a reason nobody wanted Taylor. The reason is that he is soft for a 4 and really doesn't bring much to the table. It wasn't a matter a health with Taylor, its just a lot of teams realize what kind of player he is and will be. Most cases you can find out at least by the 3rd yr what kind of player a person will be unless he's a high schooler. No one wanted Taylor in the summer last yr and no one wanted him this yr. It wasn't a day that didn't go by that some team wasn't in the Hakeem sweepstakes. Taylor , Anderson, and Norris had very few fliers for their games. Thats was no mistakes by 28 other clubs either.
Shandon Anderson hustled, played defense, did the little things on the court, and was capable of putting up solid scoring numbers when the Rockets made a consistent effort to involve him. Interestingly enough, in the last three games of the season, Anderson averaged about 18 points. All three games were wins, and all three games were coached by Jim Boylen, I believe. The Rockets simply didn't use Anderson properly. I would MUCH rather have him on the team than Rice. All Rice was brought here to do was shoot, and he just isn't hitting. Just another one of the Rockets many offseason blunders.
SA would be redudent with the Rockets now. I see very little SA can do that Torres can't do now or will do soon. Torres is far cheaper, more athletic (higher celling), younger and not going to complain about PT. It does sure look like Rice was not a good choice because of health reasons, I wonder if there were any other options. Personally, I would have much rather had Bo Outlaw than Rice. I still don't know why we didn't go after Bo a couple of weeks ago--I thought us and Orl were on pretty good trading terms--and we could certainly us what he brings as a team defender, energy and lockerroom guy. Bo would add far more dimension to the team than Shandon would.
Scar, I like Torres, but if this team was as good as it was last year, he wouldn't be playing. He's getting to play now because the team is terrible. He may be able to contribute to great teams someday like SA did, but not now. Besides, he's irrelevant when discussing the Rice trade, because nobody knew about him at that time, and if they did, I don't think they were planning on him being a significant contributor. But yeah, the Outlaw trade sucked.
I would have "seen" Phx offer of Tim Buchler/Judd Legder whatever and raised it a Dan Langhi. Shessh that was pittance for Bo, at least Langhi is young and we could have included Rice or Walt if needed for salary.
This trade killed us, Rice playing bad this season and he is only getting older and costs us more money each year (in his final year his contract worth 9 million , almost max money). I'd rather save the money and go after Lewis this years, but it doesn't matter now. This trade was a bad move .
Maybe it is all super clever strategic planning Maybe we we are planning to get 1/2 of Rice's salary next year using disabled player clause to pursue FA with that we otherwise would have tied up in Shandon.
My biggest fear with Rice is that Rudy T will stick with him regardless of his physical condition. Rudy has that thing about being loyal to his rotation.
Mea culpa Gotta fess up. I'm one of those who thought/hoped Rice had some gas left in his tank. Boy was I wrong, and it has nothing to do with his injury. He is overweight, out of shape, his legs are gone.....you name it. Unfortunately, the injury is no surprise. So, where do we go from here? As long as we're stuck with him and his salary, I would chain him to a fitness trainer and use this year to get his ass in shape. Diet, agility drills, strength training, tai chi, tai bo, taiwan or whatever it takes!! No one is gonna take him and his $$ off our hands, so let's try to recoup what we can of what looks so far like a sorry investment.
That is why I am glad he got injured. It is not that I am wishing him bad, but between Rudy's Mr Nice approach and the fact that Rice is making a lot of money, they would stick with him. So let him get injured and give the guys a chance.
I don't know about the rest of you...but I would have rather kept Bullard than have gotten Rice...in retrospect of course. With all the 3s we are jacking up, Bullard would help us very much. Plus, when he get's going with his jumper and at his height, he can be unstoppable. Who cares about his defense? Our defense sucks anyway. Rice hasn't done a freaking thing except for that NY game. Where's this supposed veteran leadership at? He plays like a confused rook out there and disappears for long stretches. Oh well...think positive I guess....it's hard, though. Surf
