Well the hopes of landing Damon is a thing of the past. Nba.com reported that Damon has signed a 4 year deal with Memphis. I guess that money spoke louder than his words . So guys what other options do the rockets have ? 1) Chase Nick Van Exel 2) Sign and trade 3) Hang on to our expiring contracts and make some moves at the trade deadline or next summer Any other scenarios you guys can think of ? C'MON CD MAKE SOME MAGIC HAPPEN !
I think we should stay patient and use will the trade deadline. Our current team won't win a championship, but we are strong contenders who can make the 2nd round. Sura is a very capable PG for us right now, and if an opportunity arises at the deadline, we could become an instant championship team. Look at the 03/04 Pistons who looked nowhere near the title until Rasheed came in.
Well........don't know what to really say about this one. He wanted the money and he got it, can't knock him for it. Van Exel or Payton are the next best things. I honestly LOVE both of those guys. I think it's because they're both great competitors. What they don't have in youth they make up in heart, I honestly can't choose. Payton can't shoot 3's, but his post game can be effective, and his defense is pretty stiff. Van Exel can shoot 3's, is clutch, can post up, but his defense is non existent. But both are competitors, so you'll never be out of a game with these guys.
I gotta go with Payton...though he's old, he still got that bully image to punk the other young guards, plus we don't really rely on him to score (if he can put some on the board, good for him), all we need from him is to just stick and stay with the other guards and dish the rock to our supastars..not that much to ask for really
^Payton is a much better than Van Exel right now when it comes to dishing the ball. Infact, Van Exel will put up less assists then bob sura will, and he isnt even much better of a scorer. Dont forget he is short either. The chronicle, when they thought stoudamire was gone, mentioned the rockets will pursue payton, spreewel, and finley. If we can get spreewel somehow, that will put us on top of the conference big time. With no one at all interested in him, and everyone ranking him low, maybe he will feed his family with 1.7 million.
I'd still rather Finley, because he is much more the class act that sprewell isn't. That being said, JVG likes Spree, and Spree respects JVG, so he could play hard for us. I'm still not sold on Spree though. I would much rather us get a young PG (don't we all?), but there aren't really any out there. Earl Watson isn't that old, and there is also Chris Duhon who is real young. But we couldn't sign them to the LLE, not Duhon anyway. The problem with us agetting more old players is that they are a band aid solution. The only thing we could hope for with ex-allstar vets is a title this year, and then drop out of the playoffs for the next few years... we have to build on what we've got over the next few years with players who won't retire just because they've finally won a championship.
Van Exel has chronic knee problems that kept flaring up on him last year. Payton is not a consistant enough shooter and will be left alone if he cant knock down them shots. I will still say sura should be our starting point this year. After getting back into good playing shape he showed he could run the offense and hit open jumpers, plus he got to the basket more than i ever thought he would. and i dont want to leave out his knack for rebounding when it seemed all our big men couldnt last year. Sura, James, Head, Wesley, and maybe barry. I dont think we need a pg as bad as we need a swingman coming off the bench.
Jerry West is looking to get rid of Earl Watson. He's young, athletic and a pretty decent passer. I say we trade for him
Don't know what's the deal with all these no offense, defensive minded guards everybody interested in. If we traded for somebody, I would want it be Cassell or somebody that can actually shoot
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Eduardo:</div><div class="quote_post">Jerry West is looking to get rid of Earl Watson. He's young, athletic and a pretty decent passer. I say we trade for him </div> same here...wesley for watson and lopez?? then the team could end up something like: pg: watson and head sg: sura and james our team would be something like: c: Yao/Mutumbo pf: Swift/Howard sf: Tmac/Barry/Bowen sg: Sura/James pg: Watson/Head/?? Van Exel ?? pretty good team if u ask me (especially since the lack of our pf position was really the cause to our downfall against dallas during the playoffs...but still, if its not Watson, I'm pretty sure CD will get that position fixed before the preseason even starts..I hope)
I say patience because there's plenty of time and many players are currently making decisions now so we just gotta find the one that suits our current position the best.
I think out frontcourt is perfect! But when I look at the backcourt I'm like.."Sura, love the man but he just isn't healthy enough" "Wesley is such a great defender but hes old and hes so freakin short!" I really want a TRUE SG bad..
At this point, the right move to do right now is to make a sign and trade involving Wesley or Sura and one or two fillers for a good point guard that distributes the ball well. After that, sign a good veteran swingman for cheap that has been waived by the Amnesty Clause- Finley would be my man here, but Dallas haven't waived him yet and are apparently shopping him around before doing so. After that, just sit tight and hang on to our expiring contracts until the right trade comes by. <div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post"> our team would be something like: c: Yao/Mutumbo pf: Swift/Howard sf: Tmac/Barry/Bowen sg: Sura/James pg: Watson/Head/?? Van Exel ??</div> James is too short to make a good shooting guard and wouldn't be an ideal fit for us there. He needs the ball to be effective so taking that away from him would just be taking some fuel from our bench.
Yeah i'd say Head would be more effective at the 2 spot then James, but I also think we're over-exaggetating our need for a new PG, Sura was very good last season, when he healed from injury and came back to play for us (Also after we aquired Barry and Wesley) Our record was great, imagine if we had that lineup and that chemistry at the beginning of the season! Alright i'm sidetracking a bit but my point being, is a new pg needed more then a backup for our superstar T-Mac? IMO I think no, like I said Sura is a very capable pg and Mike can give us an instant spark off the bench, not to mention we don't know how good (or bad) Head is going to be for us, but then the backup for T-Mac...Ryan Bowen, our one backup...Not to take anything away from Ryan, he's a great hustle player but come on! at PG we have Sura/James/Head and at SF we have Mcgrady/Bowen...Think about it...
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting Dan Le:</div><div class="quote_post"> Alright i'm sidetracking a bit but my point being, is a new pg needed more then a backup for our superstar T-Mac? IMO I think no, like I said Sura is a very capable pg and Mike can give us an instant spark off the bench, not to mention we don't know how good (or bad) Head is going to be for us, but then the backup for T-Mac...Ryan Bowen, our one backup...Not to take anything away from Ryan, he's a great hustle player but come on! at PG we have Sura/James/Head and at SF we have Mcgrady/Bowen...Think about it...</div> Thats a good point about the current point guard situation- that we were on those winning streaks when Sura came back and the team meshed. I have to agree with you on that one, that Sura can handle the point guard duties competently enough. Still, I have a lingering feeling that getting a pass first point guard would help the offense run much more smoothly. Its probably just me and its etched in my brain. Anyway, wouldn't resigning Barry do the job to backup McGrady? Possibly, there could be a lineup of James, Sura, Barry, Howard, and Mutumbo. Barry's tall enough to play small forward and the addition of Head gives Sura some rest, allowing him to have enough energy to take the last couple minutes of the quarter at the two.
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting AznxBaller:</div><div class="quote_post">Thats a good point about the current point guard situation- that we were on those winning streaks when Sura came back and the team meshed. I have to agree with you on that one, that Sura can handle the point guard duties competently enough. Still, I have a lingering feeling that getting a pass first point guard would help the offense run much more smoothly. Its probably just me and its etched in my brain. Anyway, wouldn't resigning Barry do the job to backup McGrady? Possibly, there could be a lineup of James, Sura, Barry, Howard, and Mutumbo. Barry's tall enough to play small forward and the addition of Head gives Sura some rest, allowing him to have enough energy to take the last couple minutes of the quarter at the two.</div> thats what I'm saying (plus Barry will be very very cheap) ...all we need is to get that pg position fixed..really
I would rather have a SG than a PG cause I think James Sura and Head is good enough. mayb we can sign and trade for an athletic SG
