<font size="3">Houston Rockets Sign Lonny Baxter</font> HOUSTON - The Houston Rockets have signed free agent forward Lonny Baxter to a contract, General Manager Carroll Dawson announced today. Terms of the agreement were not released per team policy. The 6-foot-8, 260-pound forward has averaged 4.3 points, 3.0 rebounds and 0.4 blocks in 121 career games with Chicago, Toronto, Washington and New Orleans. This past summer, Baxter participated in the Rockets summer league in Minnesota. Baxter averaged 21.0 points, 6.2 rebounds and 1.2 steals in five games, helping Houston go undefeated in the contests. Before being selected by the Bulls in the 2002 NBA Draft, Baxter played at Maryland for four years and was one of the key performers on the 2002 NCAA championship team.
Another solid addition by the Rockets this summer. CD is really doing a nice job this offseason. I think with this move, we're pretty much solid in the front court area. Now we just need to go with what we have and see what happens. However, aren't we over the roster limit now? Apparently YAODADDY does have some credible "inside sources".... (refer to the other post that he posted regarding the Baxter signing)
<div class="quote_poster">Quoting SupraJames:</div><div class="quote_post">Another solid addition by the Rockets this summer. CD is really doing a nice job this offseason. I think with this move, we're pretty much solid in the front court area. Now we just need to go with what we have and see what happens. However, aren't we over the roster limit now? Apparently YAODADDY does have some credible "inside sources".... (refer to the other post that he posted regarding the Baxter signing)</div> lol YAODADDY wass right all along..im wondering who is your "inside sources" LOL
So who has been waived? We'd be over 15 with this Baxter signing and I doubt this can be made official until one of our benchwarmers are waived. I would guess that it will be Baker.
www.rockets.com it is official trip... the roster has to be trimmed by the start of the regular season...we can carry however many players we want during training camp and preseason...
Ah, thanks for the info Den. Does anyone know if this contract is a non-guaranteed one? It'd be pretty stupid to give him a year-long contract without seeing him play in our uniform, especially for a lower-tier free agent like Baxter.
Baxter is going to have to earn a spot on the roster in the preseason. Expiring contracts or not, if the rockets waive Ward Mooch or Baker to make some room I dont think anybody will cry about it. I still believe that many teams especially the ones in the west are not going to do the rockets any favors with trades. Now they have to put the best players they have out on the court especially with San Antonio getting stronger.
Good pickup I guess, although I doubt he'll see the light of day as a bench warmer. At least now we have a bit of insurance in case Swift or Howard get injured some time during the season. Thanks for the info Den.
since no one else has done this i will line up for rockets with every player pg-sura/james/head/norris/ward sg-wesley/anderson/barry sf-tmac/(baxter)/(anderson)/bowen pf-swift/howard/baker/baxter c-yao/deke (-) = can play the position but most likely will not as you can see we have more than enough PG's look for waiving or trade
Interesting, I thought that Rockets wouldn't go for him. I'm not sure if it was a good signing or not. Baxter has never been a good nba player but has always been great in summer leagues. Though we need insurance at the PF spot. I think there might be a good fight for mintes between Baker and Baxter. We've all herd how Baker is trying to work hard to crack the rotation and play like his old self. HAHAA like that will happen. But hey, if he works hard enought he might actually be an adequate 3rd stringer.
we have a crazy influx of combo guards...I think Baxter will earn a spot with us, and I feel Ward is the odd man out...I'm actually kinda shocked that we signed baxter to a contract but he did impress in the summer leagues...
why should we just waive one person? i would say that we should waive ward and baker because i don't think anyone wants a pf or pg that is very slow and unathletic. after we waive them we should try to trade weasly for first round picks so we can let barry and james play more and then our rotation should look like this pg- sura/james/head/norris sg- da/barry/ sf- t-mac/*baxter/*bowen pf- swift/howard/baxter c- yao,mutombo * baxter and bowen will probaly share minutes i'm not sure how the weasley trade is going to work but oh well
Baxter will NOT play the small forward. He might be 6-8 but he moves like someone 6-11. He also doesn't have any handles and is a strict post player. tr@cy&yao, we'd only waive one player because we are one over the roster limit. If we waive two, we'd be carrying the same contracts, but one less player who might have something left in him. Ward/Baker/Norris don't have to play at all, and probably won't gripe about not playing, but they will still be valuable as trade pieces. I don't think Wesley will fetch more than one first round pick as he'll be 35, but his shooting, defense and expiring contract attracts quite a few teams. However, I won't trade him, at least not now. If we get rid of Wesley and get no player in return, we'd only have Barry backing up Anderson. Anderson can be a risk for injury and I doubt Barry or Head would be good starters. Wesley knows the system and still has quite a lot left in him; actually, I won't even count him out as a starter yet. Also, if we trim that roster down to the way you suggest, we'd not have much depth and can be in trouble if any starter gets injured.
my choice for trimming the roster is the following trade 2 for 1 players id like to be traded moochie ward baker wesley(only if im getting some1 equal or better in trade) for the other 3 i just want them off the roster im hoping for a trade
It's odd how I'm hearing Moochie and ward's name being possible casualties but I've yet to hear bakers name being thrown about...I would think they'd consider keeping Moochie simply because he can contribute more than either ward or baker...I wish I could hear something on vin's condition because if he's healthy, I think he'd definitely be able to help us...
I think even if he is healthy theres 4 players getting spots in front of him and hes getting almost no minutes. Baxter is going to fight for his time and hes better than baker so baker is on the losing end
I always thought that Ward was a better contriubter than Moochie. I remember Ward putting one ONE great shooting performance early last season. I know Ward has lost his step, but i still think he's better than moochie.
If Baker is working as hard as possible to get back into shape, then he could become a key contributor. However, his resurgences normally are short-lived and I won't have much hope in him actually getting back to his pre-alcoholic form, with his age and all.
For the sake of arguement if baker or ward is waived is it smart to assume that they will retire afterwards?
