Moses Malone was a 1st ballot Hall of Famer, 3 time NBA MVP, finals MVP and 12 time NBA all-star. Do you really believe Thomas Robinson will have a similar career? I'm not seeing it. BNM
Not many people will have a career like Moses Malone, but they were both the 5th pick in the draft and were both traded during their rookie years. I just think it's ludicrous that people are already writing Robinson's career for him. To say that there's no chance that Houston fans regret trading him at any point is pretty absurd. I don't like to deal in absolutes like that.
Yeah, Moses was a one-dimensional 3-time NBA MVP. He lead the league in rebounding 6 times and averaged over 24ppg 7 times. In 1982-83, he average 24.5ppg, 15.3 RPG and was 1st team all-defense. If I'm doing the math right, that's 3-dimensions (scoring, rebounding and defense) right there. BNM
There's a WHOLE lot of middle ground between writing Robinson off and a Hall of Fame 3-time MVP career. I think it's safe to say that Thomas Robinson will fall somewhere in that middle ground. I think he can become a solid NBA player, but I don't think he'll ever be a superstar, or even a star. Right now, I'd be happy to see him develop into a very good role player. With Donatas Montiejunas, Terrence Jones and Greg Smith, Houston has a surplus of young depth at power forward - and all three of them outplayed TRob last season. Plus, they also have Dwight Howard and Omar Asik at center. Exactly when was Thomas Robinson going to see any PT in Houston? BNM
I only used Moses because he was an example, albeit an extreme one, of a fanbase regretting a trade even after winning a championship. You are right, Houston has all those young bigs, but so did the Blazers when they traded Jermaine and many people still bitch about that move. Jermaine couldn't get minutes on our team, he went to Indy, blew up, and the rest is history.
Actually, the Blazers didn't have a surplus of young bigs when the traded Jermaine. In fact, he was the ONLY young big man on our roster. Sheed, BGrant, and Sabonis were all established veterans. Those teams actually had a great balance of youth and experience. Unfortunately, after losing Game 7 of the WCF to the Lakers Whitsitt panicked, mortgaged the future and made the team way too old by bringing in Dale Davis and a severely overweight, over-the-hill, cocaine addicted Shawn Kemp. Even still, it's not like we gave up on Jermaine after a disappointing rookie year (like Houston and Sacramento both did with TRob). He couldn't get off the bench in 4 full seasons with the Blazers. Houston had TRob for 19 games and invested next to nothing is his development. They could have kept him around for 3 more seasons, but with the chance to get Dwight Howard and three other, more productive 21 - 22-year old power forwards on their roster, they dealt him from a position of surplus. There is no way they could concurrently develop 4 young power forwards - and with Howard and Asik both on the roster, there wouldn't be any center minutes for Motiejunas or Smith. So, they dealt the one who had the least productive, least promising rookie year. Makes sense to me. And, as much as I'd love to see Robinson blow up into something special, it's not going to happen instantaneously, like when Jermaine finally got a chance to play significant minutes in Indy. Jermaine had been practicing against Sheed, BGrant and Sabonis for 4 years before he was traded. Talk about great on the job training! In Houston, Robinson had less than half season practicing against two other rookies and a second year player. BNM
I could really see T rob being a 8/8 player. That's going to be a good bench player. I don't see him being a "block party" type; but he will hold his own defensively. I doubt too many PF will be able to back him down.
I think he could actually average 10 boards off the bench. Scoring.... well.... I don't know. Maybe 5-6 points this season?
Moses Malone sucked. After many years of coaching, he learned to jack up his stats with selfishness. He had ownership over every opportunity in his vicinity to rebound or score. Teammates had to stay out of the way. When the Blazers had him years before that, he was 1% the player Walton was because of basketball IQ. Not knowing of Walton's future injuries, but knowing Malone would want a lot of money eventually yet need enormous coaching effort, the team traded him for more than they had given for him. (I recall it was 2 1sts for 1, but I could be wrong.)
I was schooled earlier when I said he could get 10 boards as a reserve. You should look up the last one that did that. I was surprised
The guy rebounds at a ridiculous rate.... but we don't really know how many minutes he'll get, so you're probably right.
Houston will regret getting stuck paying Howard all that money once he quits on them like he did in LA.
I like what I'm seeing from Thomas Robinson, but you guys need a serious reality check. Unless LaMarcus Aldridge suffers a major injury, or gets traded, there is no way Thomas Robinson averages anywhere close to 10 RPG. His TRB% his rookie season was 17.1. It was a little better (17.7) in the 19 games he played for Houston. That's better than average, but it's not close to "elite". Reggie Evans had a TRB% of 26.7, Omar Asik was at 22.0 and J.J. Hickson was at 20.7 - and those guys all did it as starters playing significant minutes. Unless he can make the jump from TRB% = 17.7 to > 20.0, he's not an elite rebounder. And even if he does improve his TRB%, unless he plays starter like minutes, he won't average 10 rpg (or even 8 rpg). For example, last season DeMarcus Cousins had a TRB% of 18.7 (significantly better than Robinson's 17.1), played 30.5 MPG and did not average 10 RPG. Think about that. Even if he did improve his TRB% AND play 30 MPG, he still probably wouldn't average 10 RPG. If he plays 15 - 18 MPG, even with a significantly improved TRB%, he'll be in the 6 - 7 RPG range max. That's actually quite good for a bench player, not not close to the 10 RPG you guys are talking about. Another way to look at it is: in 13.0 MPG for Houston, he averaged 4.1 RPG. At that same rate, if you bump his PT up to 18.0 MPG, he would average 5.68 RPG. So, like I said, unless he's playing starter minutes, it will take significant improvement just to get in the 6 - 7 RPG range. To average 10 RPG in only 18 minutes, he'd have to shatter the all-time TRB% record. He may be a good rebounder, but I'm not ready to predict he'll be the best rebounder in the entire history of the NBA in his second season as a pro. BNM
