Mike James is better (and cheaper) than Sucko Jaric and Jeff (12 pts, 5 assists, 34 minutes a game) McInnis.
Cuban did just let the MVP of the league walk to Phoenix for 6 years, 66 million (year 6 being a team option) in favor of Erick Dampier for 7 years 73 million. Yea, just throw money at it. -I didn't know Sura was expected to be hurt, and Ward was expected to not play the last 75% of the season. CD fixed the center tandem by acquiring Mutombo for spare parts. We had a PF coming off a 17-7 season and another one that averaged double digits off the bench. We acquired a PG with rings in the TMac deal who flopped, and spent all of the MLE on other PGs, one of whom posted a 71% winning percentage while starting. Yep, standing pat. -Did you think Mo Taylor, coming off one of his most effective seasons was going to completely tank? CD then only pulls off 3 effective midseason deals- one for a player we wanted this offseason but couldn't sign in tandem with Sura (James), one brilliant financial move, and one for an effective roleplayer. A 51 win team that took a 58 win team to a game 7 sounds damn effective to me. -Calling a 25 year old player "on the decline" is one of the most assinine things I've ever heard. Maybe topped out, but declining? Uh, yeah. -Umm, the Marko Jaric to Shawn Bradley comparison is completely lost on me. -McGrady that freaking loser. Who would want a guy on a 21 win team? Wesley was picked from one of the worst teams in the league. As was Barry. Bob Sura made his name last year playing for a horrible team. Mike James was snatched from the Bucks. I don't know why Detroit acquired Rasheed last year, his team has always melted down. Clearly, Phoenix shouldn't have signed Nash if Dallas didn't want him. No, LeBron James is not going to be available for the MLE. Every player in the league has a flaw, some players fit better in other places. I don't understand why you don't seem to think the concept exists. deadly- I'll defer to you, then. From when I've seen him, he's got fantastic touch around the basket and excellent footwork. toddie- Sorry, but no thanks on all 3. Dale Davis doesn't really bring anything Mutombo doesn't- I don't think Davis is much of a 4 anymore. He'd be a fine replacement if we were to lose Dikembe, but playing those 2 together in the 2nd unit would seem like recipe for disaster, imo. Payton doesn't help our backcourt speed- if anything, he'd hurt it. Knight is interesting, but I think JVG will want some semblance of an outside shot in his PG. khan- I like Dalembert as well. He's fully capable of playing center- but on our team, he'd be a 4. Because of the fact centers get paid a premium, he has greater value on the open market than to us. Don't see us getting him.
i like Vladimir Radmanovic, Darko, Zarko, Donyell, and Drobjnak. Crazy crazy sweet option would be Troy Murphy, if they wanted to dump his contract and say, Fisher's , I'd trade Juwon, Wesley or Sura, the pick and expiring contracts for Murphy. Sure. Somehow they hate him in GS, but he's a great fit with yao, if ever healthy.
Agreed. He earned himself millions and millions of dollars in that Detroit series. But when I watched Sixers games this year at Wachovia Center, I kept thinking to myself, "He's our replacement for Cato." Plus, like I said, Billy King has been saying all year that he's signing all his young FAs for the future. He'd look silly if he let Dalembert or any of those guys go. I'd just take a quick look to see if its doable. It might be an unfamiliar name that turns out to be our answer at the 4... FWIW, I agree with your earlier assessment that Korver's not what we need. Nice player, but his lack of speed on the perimeter got exposed in the Detroit series. We need more speed, not less. (Starting Mike James will go a long way towards that, and it doesn't cost us anything extra.)
Well, if you don't win there is some room for improvement. There is obviously something wrong, so some change is needed, not necessarily drastic change though.
your list got mixed reviews IMO, Artest is a major pipe dream, we really have nothing to offer them, and I don't think this organization would risk bringing in someone like that to houston, especially after the E. Griffin fiasco. to save time now, I'll just mention the names I could possibly see on this team: SAR- good all around game, but has that stigma of always being on a losing team. don't know if thats what we need right now. Wilcox- good raw talent, I could see JVG lighting this guy's fire within. D. Marshall- good player with nice game.would probably fit in nicely with Yao and TMac Daniels- if Ray is gone, i could see him coming here Miller- would be nice, but i don't see the Grizzlies parting with their best player just to move J.Williams. Posey- I would gladly take him off their hands along with J.Williams. they would balance each other off with their styles of play. Draft Help J. Graham- would be a much needed breath of fresh air. the guy just loves going to the rim, doesn't settle, and strong as an ox. Darren Brooks, senior- great defensive PG with a knack for driving, also a good 3pt shooter.
Awesome post - it will be an exciting summer. With a good summer, we will contend next year for sure.
Mobely will make 6.4M next year. Why would he opt out to take the 5M MLE when he can get it next year? Only unless he doesn't want to play in Sac Town. I'd prefer to get Bobby Simmons. Boozer would be a very nice fit.
If I was the Rockets I'd do something like this: 1) With the draft pick, take the best available swingman or PF. I'll happily accept anyone of Ronny Turiaf, Wayne Simien, Francisco Garcia, Hakim Warrick or Joey Graham. 2) Keep Mike James, Dikembe, and Jon Barry. Find a trade for Wesley and possibly Sura(for either a PF/SG/SF/PG). I'd be willing to package multiple expiring contracts for one player who fits the bill and makes just above MLE range money(like 7-8 mil). As far as these three players go, James is the one fast guard we have, and he earned his keep. Deke, what can I say he just got the job done. And as far as Barry goes, he was consistent from the arc, brought energy, along with being a solid passer and has a good basketball mind on his shoulder. Give him and Deke a couple of short term deals to be solid backups on this team. 3. Get a PF that only cares about gobbling up rebounds and is willing to take some of those fouls Yao gets on penetration. Athletic and decent shooting also wanted, but rebounding is the biggest priority. A guy like Haslem or Evans would be ideal, problem is both are restricted FA's. From the draft I really like Simien a lot(think a better version of Zach Randolph if he pans out correctly), and Turiaf is solid. I also might take a chance on Kwame or Fortson at the right price, and if there was a way in heck to get Chandler I would but there isn't. 4. Get an athletic swingman with some handles who can shoot a jumper. Simmons, Garcia, Mobley, Miller all make sense. The draft will dictate how the Rockets plan on approaching FA in my opinion. If they get a PF with the pick, look for the MLE to be used on a good swingman, and if it's a SG/SF, the MLE will be used to get a PF. Bottom line is this should be a fun offseason and I think for once we should be able to get something decent out of this upcoming draft.
We should go hard trying to get Tyson Chandler, I know it's a dream for a lot of you guys. Look how we get TMac? A lot of people here don't believe we could land TMac last season. Maybe because Yao has a good relationship with both Chandler and Curry, we could land him?
Problem is he is a restricted FA, and he will get better offers than the full MLE. Plus there is no way the Bulls wouldn't match an MLE offer. Only way to get him would be to S/T and the Bulls would rather keep him over Curry I think.
Mike Miller would be a nice starter at SF. that's a realistic option too because him and tmac are close friends from their days in orlando. i hope we keep james & barry at least. their very good role players.
it appears SA has it figured out....they drafted luis scola in the second round awhile back...who's suppose to be decent and also drafted barbarso....definitely some gems if you know what to look for...
Eddie Griffin: imagine if we had Eddie Griffin during the season, or even during the playoffs? i know that he screwed up every 2nd chance that we gave him, but geez his athleticism, shot blocking ability, rebounding, etc would have totally been huge for us. he would have done just a good as job as the germanator on dirk, plus he actually has offensive skills. Cuttino: when he was in otown, someone asked about his possible FA destinations and he was asked about houston. he quickly stopped the interview and said houston??? definitely not houston. he is still bitter about the trade and i can't blame him. he gave his heart and soul to this team, yet we traded him. i'd love to have him back, but i seriously doubt that he'd come back. i think he did really well in Sac, and I think someone will give him a contract bigger than the MLE. someone like isaiah will probably sign him ha. Our needs, an athletic 3 and a shot-blocking/rebounding 4. I trust CD that with our MLE and 1st round pick, we should be able to cover both of these needs.
Great post NIKEstrad! Well, that final game was pretty dissappointing, but the series showed the good and bad of where we are at regarding building a championship contender. I think we had hopes that the geriatric group just might pull one off ... but, oh well. We certainly knew that when we traded 3 starters for TMac, we'd need to find ways over the next couple years to get good starters who could grow with our dynamic duo of TMac/Yao. This is the part of the year I actually enjoy a lot, playing "what if I'm the GM?" I really haven't educated myself on our options yet, but some initial thoughts ... 1) Finding pieces that fit with what we've got. We need to keep a balance of veterans and tough guys to balance our young superstars, but we also need some younger, athletic, tough players, who have the BB IQ similar to TMac and Yao, so that eliminates guys like Mobely, who just don't "get it." It does mean guys like Chandler and Duhon, who I would trade anything besides TMac/Yao/Deke, including some draft picks, something like Howard plus 1 or 2 first rounders for Chandler/Duhon. I'm hoping we'll resign Deke and Barry, who "get it." But, I can see us using James, Wesley, Sura and Howard as trade fodder. We have to re-sign Deke and Barry, IMO. 2) I would bet that CD will look for the "deals" this summer, since we will have to learn how round out a team with two max contracts from now on. So, he might wait until fairly late in the summer to see who doesn't get picked up, and have someone sign for less money to play with our Dynamic Duo. He'll also look for teams wanting to dump salary with our expiring contracts and TE. I could see us swallowing a bad contract to pick up a guy we want too. 3) I think we have to draft the best player available, hopefully a PF. But, we need players at all positions for depth, especially since whomever we draft probably won't be starting for a few years. Since all our expiring contracts won't help us get low enough to sign a major player, we might be willing to trade them for a bad contract and a higher first round pick this year. I'd like to see us get Turiaf, Simeon, Warrick, or Gigli. 4) We need youthful depth at SF/SG who are about to breakout. I'd love to get Ronald Murray or Radman from Seattle. Perhaps they'll need our TE to get them lower to re-sign Allen. Of course, as others have said, it'd be wonderful to get Artest from Indiana, but I just have to believe plenty of other teams could offer a better deal. 5) I don't have much confidence in the Euros we picked in the second round. It'd be nice, and they might be valuable in future years, but I wouldn't count on them to make much of an impact this year. I'm hoping that CD stays on his current winning streak, and from a position of strength pulls off more cool deals this summer ... I'm very intrigued by comments that players will want to come to Houston, and how that might bring us some extra players we might not normally get. Not sure how that will become reality.
See I disagree on the level of difficulty in procuring Chandler. Yes he is a restricted free agent but he could pull a Stromile. Yao and TMac can call him up all summer selling him on Houston, He goes to Paxon and says look man I want H-town. Paxon says were gonna match any offer. Tyson says fine if you dont trade me to Houston then Im gonna sign your 1 year qualifying offer and bolt. If Tyson signs the one year offer the Bulls lose all bargaining leverage coz he can't be traded during that qualifying year. And when the seasons up The Bulls aint gonna get anything in return coz he's a UFA. They can propose a sign a trade, like Memphis wants to do with Stromile, but then there gonna get about $.10 on the dollar. This is what scares me about Yao coz he can do the same thing.
Wesley would be an ideal backup SG. energy off the bench. scoring punch. intelligence. defense. If we could limit Wesley to 20-25 mpg, he would be a holy terror. Ideally, we could land a starting SG to push wesley to the bench. We should be able to deal an expiring contract or 2 for a starting SG. I'm not ahuge spreewell fan, but someone like him, but younger, would be ideal. I suspect that Van Gundy will look at Sprewell in the offseason. I worried we'll overpay, ala ward. i can live with Sura and James as the PG tandem.
