He told me we're talking with Chicago, LAC, and Vancouver. No specifics, but I thought you might want to know. My opinion is that we're talking about three main players in the trade talks and they Cato, Drew, and Williams. My source's source would not tell him the specifics because he doesn't want it leak out into the media for unknown reasons. So I guess the people posting about Chicago wanting a big man badly and maybe wanting Cato have something. Then again, if Mihm comes out then you can forget about a trade with Chicago in my opinion. As far as LAC, I remember my source saying around the trade deadline that we wanted Mo Taylor and Kandi so maybe Rudy and CD are talking sign-and-trade with them. As far as Vancouver, I have no idea what they want. Maybe they really are shopping Othella. ------------------
How reliable is the "source"... and the "source's source" ? If the Rockets really are talking with those three teams, which I haven't heard about, safe bet is it's about a higher draft pick (all three have a great shot to be in the Top 3, and very good chance one of those teams will get the top pick) ------------------ NOTHING BUT .NET CLUTCHCITY.NET
I'm not surprised...remember they wanted a franchise player to compliment Francis. That was their goal for this year's draft. Right now, top 4 teams need big men, and unfortunely there are only 3 unless Mihm or Moiso declares. One, that's why Van wants to trade(they're in 4th right now), and two, Reeves/Rahim take up half their cap space. Can't wait till Lotto order is determined, that's when the rumors truly fly. ------------------ Now that the NBA season is over, check out the premiere source for draft info. Draftsource.net
Sooner, et al: It is not unusual at this time of year for all of teams to be in touch with one another at some level. Needs and wants for next year, even those teams that are in the playoffs, are being considered and names and offers are being suggested. The Chic, LAC, Vancover connections ..... actually you may want to add a couple others to the list also Detroit,Orlando, Toronto, Phoenix .... all have one thing (amoung several things) in common .... HOUSTON Rockets. Chic,LAC,Detroit,Houston,Vancover,Orlando 1. All have some common needs (for example: big men) or players (big men) available for trade. 2. There is a lot more finangling over the draft than anticipated. For instance, if one team is assured by their experts or by simple arithmetic that the player they want will not be available when their number rolls around, they may agree to take a better pick (say, go from a 9 to a 5) in a direct exchange with another team AND "other considerations". That is why you see some picks exchanged just before their number is called, and why some players are exchanged one for one right after being chosen. 3. Conversely, if a player is most assuredly going to be available after they pick, some teams use that and trade away their adavantageous pick to someone who needs a specific early pick. 4. The actual "ownership" of a pick has a pedigree that goes far beyond the usually limited listing. (Example: Houston trades a player to Vancover(Tim Breaux,I think) and so gets a Vancover Second Round pick in the difference. Vancover trades Sam Mack to Houston and Houston sends them a Second Rounder. That Houston Second Rounder actually is a pick that they received from Chicago (as part of the Pippen deal). Weird Huh???? This is significant, because sometimes it establishes a relationship in trading. Chicago 1. First Round Pick is desirable position by a lot of teams, including Houston. 2. Chicago has multiple picks this year. 3. Chicago wants to land a "freedom winger" forward, who is an offensive threat like McGardy, Mobes, Hill, Odom, etc.... LAClippers 1. They have a high First Round Pick (#1,2,3) which is a desirable position for a lot of teams, including Houston. 2. They have a second First Rounder(#18) and the number one (#30) in the second round. 3. They have several players (Taylor,Anderson) who they will likely lose this year in trades. They have one of the most exciting all-around players (Odom) who has been making noises about wanting either a beefed up offense or trade him too! 4. They need a change. More than a facelift. They need a lot of player moves to make this franchise competitive. Not one player will do it. Not a bunch of drafted rookies will do it. They need veterans. Houston have some for sale. Vancover 1. The same high First Rounder advantage. 2. A strong historical working relationship with Houston. 3. They owe Houston a first round pick, which although does not need to be excercised this year, could be if it would be advanatageous to do so. 4. They have several players who are on the bubble for a trade, either because of their huge contract(Big Country), their disgruntled pleas (Harrington), their position redundancy (Felipe), age/injury/value (B.Price) or their present excellent trade value (S. A-Rahim). 5. The lingering possibility that Houston has an answer to a lot of their problems. Houston 1. The possibility (albeit a very,very slim one)that Houston could have as many as FOUR first round picks. #3 Vancover's pick, #9 their own, #10 Orlando's Pick and #14 Detroit's pick. Although highly unlikely, the actual maneuvering with the myriad possibilities makes your head spin. But believe me every one of those possibilities is being explored. They also have several other second round possibilities. Do not rule out the exchange possibilities! 2. We have several players on contract (Cato, Williams, Drew, Rogers, Thomas) that can be traded. One player (Cato) that has a desirable presence at his 4/5 postion, which after the sixth pick will be in short supply. One player(Drew) who is a rare stay at home point guard but can drive, that has been sought by several teams this year including those mentioned above. One player (KT) that has a great upside, and can be a starting 4 for a lot of teams. One free agent(Mobes) who offers solid position play and some would argue may be better than anything out there in draft land anyway. 3. Houston has a $4.5 M exception. What would that have anything to do with a draft pick? We now have one more way to acquire a player in a draft. We can use our draft pick(s?) to get a high dollar player. Example (don't try this at home,professional stuntman at work): Houston Player A($4.5M) traded to Miami (they have no picks in first round, only a second round #52!!!!) for Player B($9.0M) AND our #9 pick. We can do this BECAUSE of the exception. 4. Houston owes two picks (Vancover, Detroit) And is owed picks from others (Detroit, Orlando, Vancover) plus each of those teams owes others. It is possible Houston could end up with a pick from Phoenix(#25) who owes Orlando who owes Houston. In fact, it is possible for Houston to trade away all of it's "owe" and "due" .... first and second round picks ..... and ..... end up with only ONE, very advanatgeous 1-5 Draft Year 2000 pick! That is why these teams are talking!!!!!!!!! [This message has been edited by popeye (edited May 01, 2000).]
As always, great info Pops. One question, in what deal does Vancouver OWE Houston a pick? I know we owe them one in the Francis deal, but how do they owe us one? Or are you talking they owe Detroit a first rounder, that could be conveyed to us? Also, what do you think of my proposal of the Magic trade (Basically-Doleac, and the #3 pick (Swift) for KT, a future first rounder, and the Magic no longer owing us a first rounder.) ------------------ Rockets fans wanted at hoopsboards.com Draft Chat, NBA Chat, Team Chat, and more!
You know Clutch, in all honesty he has been wrong before about the Rockets so I'm kind of skeptical. He once told me we were talking 3 way with Seattle and LAL about Pip and Payton at the time. He did however know who the Rockets were interested in at draft time last year and actually told me ahead of time we would get K.T. What he told me is the Rocks are trying anything and everything to get Martin, Fizer or Swift or even Mihm if he comes out. Anyway, if the Rocks don't make a trade I'm going to have to ask him who his source is. Of course if we get a top 3 pick then forget about trading anyway. What I do know is what everybody knows, the Rocks are going to get one hell of a player in the draft. ------------------ [This message has been edited by SooneRockStro (edited May 01, 2000).]
I am getting older as the minutes tick by so please excuse my lost memory .... I think it was an exchange of picks in the Francis trade, but may have been a carryover from an other deal or a pickup from another team in a seperate deal. I have it on file here somewhere, and have been searching since reading your post but can't find it. All I remember, is it is a first round Vancover pick that must be conveyed by 2004. (I also lost a complete listing of all rookies, all free agents and a brief description of each. Drat!!!!!!!!) This "exchange" is often done when the advantage of a trade is slightly askew when all players salaries, value, etc.. is added up. Although the exchanged pick does not count against any dollar cap, it does have value, particularily when the pick of a perennial playoff appearance is weighed against a new franchise's high seeded draft position. And, as noted, can be traded in conjunction with other things to improve a deal. Your Deal Interesting, except the Magic would never trade away the pick for Cato etc... as some have surmised. My personal opinion, and it has some validity within the Rockets too, is that trading Cato may be a move they would be willing to make, but we better be solid at the 5 spot before we start moving people. Hakeem's decision must be known before major moves are made. Duncan's intentions better be known. I still say: 1. a move that would put Hakeem in the role of tutor for a semi-project at center may be the best move.(Clips O'Kandi, Vancover's Ekzeil(sp), come to mind.) 2. a lot of people are waiting for Duncan to come out and declare his intentions. That will effect a lot of moves, league-wide. 3. the draft keeps having guys added to it every day. In some cases improving our #9 pick. 4. the Rockets are not married to this year's Draft. Believe me! A trade of all our picks and a player or two, to improve us to the 1-6 range is probably the foremost "major move" right now. But, also meshed in there somewhere is the desire to load up for next year which promises to be a heavy deep draft. If we traded away all our poicks to get two or three picks in next years first 35 picks, I would not be unhappy, neither would they.
you meant KT, not Cato in the thing I said, right? Ekezie wouldn't be bad, cause he and Francis played together at Maryland. I'd like to have Kandi. I'm not sure on trading Cato personally. I think he still has promise. If we trade him, we better have Doleac, or Kandi, or Mihm, or at least Pryzbilla in our deck of cards...Pig Miller is not a starting center on a playoff team, and Olajuwon won't be able to play 40 minutes a game, 82 games next year. ------------------ Rockets fans wanted at hoopsboards.com Draft Chat, NBA Chat, Team Chat, and more!
Sorry I did not mean to say Cato. And it appears once I did use his name, I got carried away ........ KT/Doleac/etc... Proposal: I could live with it although I keep hoping we can still keep KT and yet affect the areas/positions we need to this summer. That may not be the case, he is a valuable trade commodity. The Cato Predicament (as I see it) The key here is that he(Cato) is now seen as "oops, maybe not" the center of the future for the Rockets. Any move that would affect a change in Cato's status as our starter, including having him considered in a trade, must come following: 1. A decision by Hakeem to stay or leave. Obviously if Hakeem leaves we are limited in what we can do with Cato and we would likely have him remain without any further Rocket consideration of trading him. 2. A Duncan decision would obviously affect us. If he decided to stay in SA, the same as #1 applies. If he gets serious about leaving, and (a Big "AND") we have a chance of getting him, Cato could be considered in a trade as the power middle focus would be on Duncan and not Cato's presence. We would have Hakeem, Pig, and a cover at center and may be able to live with that,especially if Hakeem's is tutoring the "cover center" to take over fulltime duties. Don't get me wrong, I think a Duncan/Hakeem&Cato 4/5 would be very beneficial but we would also have to make some room fiscally for Duncan too. That means Catos and his $6Million would go down the road. (I do not suspect we will have to deal with this problem as I feel we would be a long shot(contrary to what some are telling me)in landing Tim anyway. Cheers.
If the unthinkable occurred and we somehow landed Tim, the deal would almost assuredly have to include Cato's $6million salary. He is the only player on the team who has a high enough salary to bring in cooked meat, yet also has good trade value (IE: Walt Williams has a high salary, but low trade value). So you can pretty much rule out the chances of Cato and Duncan being together on the same team. (But damn! Imagine if we could get Cato back into his fierce preseason form, and could still keep Duncan! That combo could give the Diesel nightmares![/b][/i]) If we could get Duncan, why would we have to play him at the power forward? He's a solid 7'0, 260 pounds. He's much larger than Hakeem was, and Hakeem never had any trouble in the paint. Why not a quick, athletic combo of Duncan/Thomas? ------------------ thacabbage: Proud President and Founder of the Theo Ratliff Fan Club.
Walt Williams has a high salary theCabbage, I'm not trying to single you out on this one , but why does everyone on this bbs, keep mentioning Walt Williams having a high salary? He makes less than $4M/year. That's not out of line for his experience/skill level. ------------------
aelliot, I don't know Walt's actual salary. I thought it averaged 4.5. Even if it were 3.5, he would have a higher salary than most of the rockets last season. Drew Mobley Moochie Bull Thomas Rogers Pig D Gray Hakeem is untradeable. francis value/$ is very high. Barkley is retiring. When I mention he has a high salary, it was when he sucked or in comparison to the above list. ------------------ "You've got 6 fouls, use them well" -Derrick Coleman
Walt made $3.75 this last season and that's about average (or low) for his experience/skill level. How he ranks pay scale-wise with a group of first or second year players and some career backups isn't really relevant. ------------------
Well, I thought we had gone through the Wizard's salary before. I thought his contract was for $20 mil, 5 years, which would be 4 mil last season and 4.58 next year. I agree with aelliot, though, that (with his brilliant second half of the season) this salary figure is not too high, and he has trade value. Heck, I defer on all things contractual to aelliot, the cap genius, and my figure is probably wrong. If Walt does make $4.58 mil next year, and the max salary on your younger free agents starts at $9 mil for the first year, then with the $4.5 mil trade exception we own we could pull off nearly any possible sign-and-trade just based on Walt's salary, without trading away Cato. ------------------
I got Williams salary off of Patricia Bender's page. She's just updated it to include '99-'00 salaries. Her salary info seems to be the most reliable. http://www.dfw.net/~patricia/misc/salaries00.txt ------------------
