Draft Day

After an unpredictable and oddly entertaining NBA Draft, I've got a few thoughts I'd like to talk about. None of them involving Darko Milicic's trade to the New York Knicks.

First things first, I was at the Rockets Draft Party at the House of Blues. Joey Dorsey was there and I got him to sign my shirt, I caught a Rockets towel from the Power Dancers and I was interviewed by chron.com, which was probably the highlight of my night. Check for the video sometime tomorrow morning, there's some expert analysis in there from yours truly. Apparently Daryl Morey actually watches these videos so I got to throw my Pistons trade idea at him as well as beg him to somehow pull off the Amare trade. Now onto the actual draft.

What the hell were the Timberwolves doing? Apparently they've already sent Lawson to the Nuggets and are working on a deal with the Knicks for Rubio, but how necessary was it to take three point guards with your three picks in the first round? Were they just trying to screw with their fans? Are the Nuggets and Knicks really that desperate for Lawson and Rubio? Does anyone actually want any players on the Knicks roster anyways? What did the Timberwolves gain from drafting and trading Lawson and most likely Rubio instead of just drafting two other good players?

Since we're on the topic of Ty Lawson, Billy and I were discussing how we thought he'd be a good player if he was put on a good team. Well, he's on a good team. Now all that's left is the first half of that sentence, which is being a good player. I like him as an understudy to Chauncey and think he'll be ready to run the team in 2-3 years when Billups' deterioration really starts to pick up.

A little more on Ty Lawson. It's a little saddening to know that Lawson and UNC teammate Wayne Ellington won't stay together in the NBA. For the Timberwolves to reunite North Carolina's backcourt through the draft only to break it up again a few hours later was just cruel.

We just had three paragraphs centered around Ty Lawson. That should tell you all you need to know about this year's draft.

I called Indiana picking Tyler Hansbrough. I said that they would take the best available white guy to go along with Mike Dunleavy, Troy Murphy and Jeff Foster, and they took Hansbrough. I just love it when my thoroughly un-researched, unfounded and downright unintelligent guesses happen to be right by some random stroke of luck.

I was disappointed that the Rockets didn't trade up for a draft pick. After spending a week convincing myself we were going to get James Harden, I was actually a little surprised when we didn't. I knew we really had little to no shot of getting him, but I was still somehow expecting it to happen, if that makes any sense.

When the news that the Suns and Warriors were working on a deal that included Amare Stoudemire was announced at least half of the people in attendance booed. Now I'm just guessing here, but I think we really wanted Amare.

The Red Rowdies were present and had a full table to themselves, doing all sorts of rowdy, red activities. They look at lot more subdued in person. Go figure.

Brandon Jennings being brought in after he was originally not allowed inside the green room was one of the more entertaining moments of the night. The awkward introduction by Stern, the interview that was about four picks too late, Brandon Jennings not being there in the first place when he was almost an assured top-15 pick, all of it really meshed together into a high comedy moment.

We've gotten two second round draft picks so far: Jermaine Taylor and Sergio Llull. I'm not going to pretend that I know anything about either of them, but Taylor averaged 26 a game last year. And for some reason, Llull gives me Vasileios Spanoulis flashbacks. Which means I'm going to spend the next week and a half watching highlights of him and talking myself into him, only to have him never, you know, actually come and play for us for an extended amount of time.

A little side note here, if we get Amare, or Amar'e, he's going to have to remove that apostrophe from his name. It's a little ridiculous. Almost as ridiculous as taking three point guards in the first round.

And so it begins. Welcome to Houston, "Spanish Jordan." And let's not forget our other draft pick.

And we just bought Chase Budinger. Normally, I'd be doubtful that any championship building plan would be centered around buying three second round draft picks, but with Morey, anything's possible. And here are your Budinger highlights.

I'm starting to realize that in order for Budinger to become a regular contributor, he's going to need a roster spot. James White's roster spot. I'm torn. I love "Flight," but Budinger has a lot of potential and is already a more well-rounded player. Sorry James, Chase gets the rotation spot and the minutes. I'm going to go cry in a corner now.

How the hell did the Heat wind up with the last pick in the NBA Draft? They've had nothing remotely close to the best record in the NBA. It's the little things like this that confuse me. And the big things. Like the Timberwolves drafting three point guards in the first round. Whoops, I think I might have used that one a few times already. To hell with it, it needs to be said more than once.

Blake Griffin's brother, Taylor Griffin, was also in this draft. Too bad nobody said a word about him. In the irony of ironies, the Suns selected Griffin. In case you forgot, the Suns also have Robin Lopez. Or, as I like to call him, Not Brook Lopez. That's the second year in a row in which they've gotten the wrong brother. One has to sympathize.

And congratulations to Robert Dozier, the last pick in the 2009 NBA Draft. In three years you will either be averaging 35 a game for a D-League team, working at a local 7/11 or actually playing an important role on an NBA team. But probably not that last one. Good luck to you. And to all the other 59 draft picks. But mostly just our three. And to you, Dozier, always to you.

I'm ordering a Robert Horry jersey t-shirt. Just because. Anyone know where I can get one?

My favorite part of the draft has to be Adam Silver relieving David Stern somewhere around the start of the second round. Does Stern get tired? Does he get bored? How hard can it be to walk up to a podium and say fourteen words 60 times? How necessary is Silver coming in to replace Stern? It baffles me almost as much as the Timberwolves taking three point guards in the first round. Alright I'm done. I really am.

Before we finish off, I'd like to point out that someone actually stepped on Chase Budinger's face. Whoever this Aubrey Coleman fellow is, I don't like him. That's our Chase, you can't do that to him.

And with that, it looks like we're done. The 2009 NBA Draft was certainly an eventful one, even though it will probably be better remembered for the huge deals that were made in the days preceding it. I was looking forward to the Rockets grabbing a mid-first round pick, but I'll settle for Llull and Taylor. And Budinger, of course. Well not really, but I'm too busy hoping/praying for Amare (Amar'e) that it doesn't really matter to me.

Amare Stoudamire?

According to the same source that disclosed Terry Porter was about to be fired as Suns coach, the Rockets are leaning toward swapping Tracy McGrady's expiring $22M contract, Carl Landry and Aaron Brooks for Leandro Barbosa and Amare Stoudemire, who owns an escape clause after next season and is demanding an extension this summer to waive it.
(New York Post)

Not to boast or anything, but we predicted this trade here.

I would pretty much be happy with any trade that involves TMAC, but this is great because we get a dominant player that is still young. Amare could contribute for 7-8 more years if we resign him. He also has the ability to play center and could shift their when Yao suffers his next inevitable injury or misses time for his current injury.

More About Yao's Feet

Evidently someone up there isn't done tormenting us. Yao's foot isn't healing the way it should be. I was hoping this would be, like so many of Yao's other season-ending or season-ruining injuries, something that would be over and done with by the start of the new season. But apparently, that might not be the case. He's out "indefinitely" right now and they don't even have a timetable for him to return to basketball activities, let alone be able to play in NBA basketball games. So, if you couldn't guess, this is bad. Very, very, very bad. As in possibly career-ruining bad. As in if that happens, franchise-crippling bad. As in, all of those ideas we've been pitching around are utterly worthless if Great Wall isn't dominating the paint for us next year. There's no point in having the best supporting cast in the NBA if we're without the best center in the NBA. But I'm (hopefully) getting ahead of myself. All we know as of now is that Yao's foot is going to take a little longer to heal. Nothing more, nothing less. The rest is all just speculation on my part. Frightening, disconcerting and downright depressing speculation. Get well soon, Yao.

Spurs Get Jefferson, Panic Ensues (And Other Draft Week Chaos)

Early today on Sportscenter, I saw that the Spurs had acquired Richard Jefferson from the Bucks for the expiring contracts of Bruce Bowen, Fabricio Oberto and Kurt Thomas. And, if I'm not mistaken, I think they also threw in a 25 dollar gift card to Best Buy. You know, just to sweeten the deal. This was clearly a financial move by the Bucks, as it gives them cap space for the free agent apocolypse that is the summer of 2010 as well as to resign players this year. This deal affects us in two ways. The obvious one is that our hopes for a wide-open Southwest Division next year were just shot. The second, more sneaky way it affects us is that now the Bucks have enough cap space to resign Ramon Sessions. Who, if you didn't know, is very, very, very good. So good that if we could somehow swap Brooks for Sessions straight up I'd do it in less time than it takes for Mcgrady to hurt something.

In other news, Chad Ford says that we've offered Mcgrady and Landry to the Wizards for their 5th pick. As you can see, I'm grabbing onto anything that gets us a chance at landing James Harden. Anything. And that includes eight word sentences in 3,000 words of rumors that will most likely never happen.

And since we're tossing out situations that'd never happen, I have a few guys I'd like to get this offseason. I'd love Zaza Pachulia as a backup center. I want a point guard, and if Sessions is unavailable, I wouldn't mind making a run at Bibby. Or, as unlikely as it may be, Rajon Rondo, since the Celtics seem to be shopping him. Why not throw Mcgrady and Brooks at them and see if we can land Rondo? I also wouldn't mind Mike Miller. After suffering through a year in Minnesota, also known as "Basketball Hell" and "The Place That Slowly Sucked Away Kevin Garnett's Will To Live," people have seemingly forgotten how good Miller is. If we could get him relatively cheap I'd take him over Wafer and probably even Artest. And, lastly, at least for now, Chris Bosh. I know it's highly unlikely, but we do know he hates it in Toronto. Instead of risking losing him for nothing, why wouldn't Toronto take Mcgrady's expiring contract, which would still give them money to throw around in 2010 and an actual building block for Bosh?

I'd also like Paul Millsap. If we can get him for the mid-level exception there's no need to chase after someone like Pachulia. I know, he deserves and is going to want a lot more than the (around) 5.8 million that is the mid-level, so we don't have much of a shot at getting him unless we choose not to resign Ron, but if he doesn't know how much he's worth, there's no reason we should tell him.

And there goes my hopes for getting Mike Miller. The Wizards are sending off their 5th pick along with a group of bad contracts for Mike Miller and Randy Foye. I love this deal for both teams. The Wizards get Mike Miller, who, in case you haven't heard from me already, is very, very, very good. They also get Randy Foye, and even though I don't know how he's going to coexist with Arenas, he's still a talented player that you don't want to pass up on. The Timberwolves now have the 5th and 6th pick in the draft as well as the 18th pick, which means they could be bringing in two difference makers and another solid rotation player to build around Kevin Love and Al Jefferson. Merits for everyone. Except us. I really, really wanted Mike Miller. Damn.

(Trading for the fifth pick was the most plausible way we could get into the top of the draft. Now, the T'wolves have ruined that possibility. -Billy)

So in one move the Timberwolves took away two of our best and options for find a wing player to replace Mcgrady: James Harden through the draft and Mike Miller. Damn you, David Kahn, damn you. But in other news the Hawks have just traded for Jamal Crawford and his huge contract, meaning that they won't have as much money to resign Bibby. Which means we could throw the midlevel at him just for the hell of it and hope he signs with us. And since we're sort of on the topic of Golden State, apparently Anthony Randolph just grew an inch and added 20 pounds over the offseason. We're all screwed.

Also, as promised, here's the immediate needs for the Rockets, courtesy of Hoops World. And come to the Rockets NBA Draft Party Thursday night at the House of Blues, we should be there.

Or we could trade Mcgrady's expiring contract for Rip Hamilton and sign Rasheed Wallace to the mid-level exception. Or trade Mcgrady and whatever other semi-expendable pieces the Pistons want for Hamilton and Rasheed in a sign and trade. Whatever it takes to get Rip and 'Sheed here and T-Mac all the way over there.

Billy posted about this, but we might get Amare and Barbosa for Mcgrady, Brooks and Landry. We could bring Barbosa off the bench and use him as a Manu Ginobili type player, allowing him to make the plays at the ends of games and have a starting five of Lowry (a better pure point guard than Brooks), Von Wafer, Artest, Amare and Yao. With Battier, Scola, Barbosa and White coming off the bench. That's a very, very solid rotation.

The Orlando Magic have agreed on a trade with the New Jersey Nets that will send Vince Carter to the Magic. The kicker is that Rafer Alston is the centerpiece of the trade. So we indirectly helped the Magic get a starting five of Nelson, Carter, Turkoglu, Lewis and Howard. That's the whole damned Eastern Conference All-Star Team. Looks like Cleveland still isn't going to be winning the East anytime soon.

That's all for now, but I'll keep adding paragraphs and thoughts to this as the days progress and more rumors/random ideas I think of start popping up.

Lottery Bound!

Thanks to a reliable source (a friend of mine with an ample amount of interest, and an even more ample amount of time) I was able to find this little tidbit. Search for the Rockets. If you're too lazy or aren't as blessed with your leisure time as we are, it says that the Rockets are shopping Carl Landry for a lottery pick. I'm all for it if it gives us a shot at landing James Harden. Or even DeMar DeRozan. And that's not just because he has four capital letters in his name. Or, as unlikely as it is, Ricky Rubio. A top 6 pick and I'm saying goodbye to Landry, anything less and I'll pass. Of course, the decision doesn't lie with me, so this paragraph was essentially pointless.

Ron's Adventure

According to various, semi-reliable sources, Ron Artest crashed a Transformers party in order to meet Megan Fox. Not that that's weird, I'd do far, far worse things to meet Mrs. Fox. What bothers me is his hat. If I'm not mistaken, that's a Detroit Tigers hat. There are talks about Ron-Ron signing with the Pistons. I can put two and two together. Or, in this case, one and one. Am I overreacting? Maybe. But there's still the chance Artest leaves for Detroit. Which means we would lose a proven, talented player. Which is, if you were wondering, actually the exact opposite of what we're trying to do. So that would be bad.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. No. Hell no. No.

A Few Links

Just to keep you going during the offseason

-Billy said we need to trade T-Mac. I said we need to trade T-Mac. The Rockets are trying to trade T-Mac. I'm glad we're all on the same page.

-We're still in win now mode. Fortunately for us, there are some less-than-intelligent GM's in the NBA. Possibly even more fortunately for us, Daryl Morey isn't one of them. Good things happen when your management is smarter than everyone else's.

-James White, inspired by Trevor Ariza's stellar play in the postseason, is hard at work trying to become a contributor on the Rockets next year.

-More talk about trading Mcgrady.

-Hoops World is doing an immediate needs series for each team. We're not on there yet, but we should be by either Monday or Tuesday. Keep checking. I'll probably post a link to our actual article when it comes out, this is just a heads up.

-It's good to know Yao's enjoying his summer.

-Nothing to do with the Rockets, especially since we don't have a draft pick, but still a beautiful, beautiful thing.

-Hopefully not.

-Another Mcgrady rumor, but one that I don't like. Why the hell would we do this again?

-We're nearing the NBA Draft so there's probably somewher around 4,327 mock drafts available for you to read if you want to find them, but if you're really, really lazy, this one's just a click away. And the first five picks of this one. And this one. Let's try to maintain a hold on things until next Thursday.

That's all for now, keep checking back when you're bored. And I mean really, really bored.

Yao Demands Freedom

Well not quite. But he took the first step. Yao suggested that the Chinese national team should focus on finding and developing younger players, or, in other words, leave him the hell alone. We all know that Yao cares too much about China and means too much to the country to demand a break from his national team duties, but this is a good start for the Great Wall. For years we've complained that playing for China in the summers has been wearing down on Yao, and, most importantly, those precious feet, but nobody's been able to do anything about it. Not Yao, because he's too loyal, and not anyone else, because we don't want to be taken from our homes at 2 A.M. by seven men in black masks.

But in all seriousness, I'm glad that Yao is finally starting to find ways to avoid or at least cut back on his playing for China. My favorite quote of the article is when he says "I've seen many players still playing in the national team at the age of 30. But it was different that they did not play in a league as intense as the one I do," or in other words, "If I keep playing for you there's a good chance my left foot is going to fall off."

I know, it's not like Yao is going to be refusing to play for China anytime soon. He means too much to the country to do so, and we understood the circumstances when we drafted him. That doesn't mean it's any less painful to wonder if rest in the offseason would have helped every time he goes down with an injury. But as of now, I'm happy that Yao's going to have a full summer of rest to get ready for next year, and hopefully this is the first step towards many more summers of recuperation for him.

Rockets Offseason Wishlist

With the NBA Finals now complete and the hated Lakers reigning as champions (don't worry, I still hate all the Lakers), the NBA has entered into the purgatory known as the Offseason. The Rockets came close to beating the Lakers in Round 2, but we now need to improve the roster so we can make a deeper run in the 2010 post-season. The Rockets are at the salary cap and have almost no flexibility because of T-MAC's gargantuan contract, but we can use several NBA rules to resign our own players and sign free agents.

Here is a quick overview of the Rockets offseason issues. We have four players who will be unrestricted free-agents: Ron Artest, Von Wafer, Dikembe Mutombo, and Brian Cook. We don't have a first or second round draft pick because of the Ron Artest and Steve Francis trades. We have 54.878 million dollars already committed for next year's salaries. While the official NBA salary cap has yet to be announced, it is expected to decrease from this year's cap of 58.68 million to a number closer to 55 million. This would leave the Rockets with a negligible amount of cap space. However, only 5 teams are expected to have cap room to spend: Portland, Oklahoma City, Memphis, Indiana, and Miami, so there shouldn't be much competition in free agency.

With all of this in mind, here is the Rockets Offseason Wishlist:

1.) Resign Ron Artest: Ron-Ron added the toughness we needed to make it out of the first round and his defense was invaluable. Sure, he jacks up a lot of awful shots, but he makes enough to be a good offensive player. Ron Artest's "Bird Rights" (a player who plays for one team for three or more seasons, in this case Sacramento, has Bird Rights and his team can go over the salary cap to resign him) were traded with him, so we can sign him to a deal up to the max and for as long as 6 years. He won't get a contract that long, but we should reward him with 10-12 million a year for 3-4 years. No other NBA team will be willing to make an offer like this, so Ron-Ron should be a Rocket if he stays in America.

2.) Resign Von Wafer: Von was a surprise contributor to the team and showed an amazing ability to score in bunches. Unless you think Brent Barry and James "Flight" White are ready to be our only back up wings, we need to resign Von. He has a great haircut, a sweet shooting stroke, and gives our bench a potent scorer. We can resign him to an approximately 1 million dollar a year deal or use the mid-level exception to sign him for up to 5.59 million. It is more likely that he accepts the later.


Ron and Von developed great chemistry last year and we need them back

3.) Buy a Late First Round Pick or Trade into the Draft: With the economy in the toilet, a lot of teams will probably be willing to sell late first round picks/early second round picks to get a little extra cash. Les Alexander is dedicated to winning, so I predict he will be willing to spend a little money to improve the team. Its always good to add promising young players that can contribute for years to come, so we should try our hardest to get into the draft.

4.) Trade TMAC: You can read the article on possible T-Mac trades here.

5.) Bring Back Novak: We need to rescue Steve from basketball hell and bring him back to Houston where he can contribute. He proved this year that he can be a legitimate NBA rotation member and is vastly superior to "Former Slam Dunk Champion" Brent Barry. I might be a little biased, but I think the Rockets would have won the title if Novak was still on the team. He is a free agent and we should do whatever it takes to get him back to his rightful team.


Sharpshootin' Steve Novak can lead an NBA team to a Championship

If we get these five things done, you can pencil the Rockets in as 2010 NBA Champs.