Dwight's gonna become a free agent

[MaxRider]

C/PF, I imagine Howard would be an ugly PF matchup

As far as one of the players having to be "stretch", was Hakeem a "stretch" C when we had Thorpe?
I don't recall Thorpe having an outside shot, and Hakeem, while capable of shooting, was not inclined to Garnett all over the court, iirc.

I'm pretty sure Howard's able to start outside as opposed to purely in the post, even if he doesn't have a jumper.

I do worry about our midrange in this case, but just don't think it needs to come from the C/PF spots, and really the only reason I worry about midrange is due to concerns on limitations of paint+3's usage rates, especially as defenses continue to adjust to those positions.

there weren't that many stretching PF back in the 90s
Thorpe got that ugly 15 foot shot
well we do have Horry and Bullard

[moofs]

I guess the better question is how much value is there in a stretch PF, really?

I can see needing someone to hit some midrange to keep people honest and away from the efficient spots, which is why, unlike Gay/Melo, I've never really criticized Westbrook TOO much. There may well be value in what he does to open up the court. It's similar to what Harden does, but in different quadrants.
So why though, does that variation need to come from the PF spot? I personally see at least as much value in having two fierce rebounders eating all the ballboards as I do in having a good midrange guy. Midrange is the least efficient area in basketball, so why pay heavy for the best guy at the spot and waste rebounding capacity to get it?

[jwise44]

Asik is gonna add a 3 pt shot this offseason hahaha

I have seen him shoot like 6 or 7 shots from 15-20 feet

He made like 2, stretch center!!

[Guy986]

I guess the better question is how much value is there in a stretch PF, really?

I can see needing someone to hit some midrange to keep people honest and away from the efficient spots, which is why, unlike Gay/Melo, I've never really criticized Westbrook TOO much. There may well be value in what he does to open up the court. It's similar to what Harden does, but in different quadrants.
So why though, does that variation need to come from the PF spot? I personally see at least as much value in having two fierce rebounders eating all the ballboards as I do in having a good midrange guy. Midrange is the least efficient area in basketball, so why pay heavy for the best guy at the spot and waste rebounding capacity to get it?

Thats why ideally you'll want the stretch PF to be able to hit 3s.

Anyway to answer your question, the variation need to come from the PF spot because often the biggest shot blocking threat comes from the opposing Power Forward.(like Ibaka, Josh Smith)

If we play a frontcourt lineup of Asik/Howard there is absolutely no reason for the opposing team to ever leave the paint. When you have 4 guys the size of Asik/Howard within a radius of 10 feet on a basketball court thats alot of human mass to slither through to get to the basket. Sure we'll gain more offensive rebound but we'll lose the ability to penetrate or kick out. WE'll lose our speed advantage and thats basically our entire gameplan.

Whats important to us is the threat of the outside shot; the ability to stretch the floor and have that extra defender step outside of the paint. When you have a penetrator like Harden you want the floor to be as spread out as possible.

My faith in James Harden's ability to convert possessions into points goes down as the number of defenders he has to face goes up.

Harden penetrating against one defender. good.
Harden penetrating against one defender and an interior shotblocker. not good.
Harden penetrating against one defender and 2 interior shotblockers. bad.

Think of it this way. We're not paying a stretch 4 to shoot. We pay a stretch 4 so he can pull his defender outside to get the **** out of James Harden's way.

[13th Man]

no but dwight can. an asik-dwight frontcourt would be the best defensive frontcourt for years, but it comes with huge problems
- clogs the paint like hell
- terrible ft shooting
- neither have a jumper
- neither have good passing skills
- neither are good post scorers

u cant play someone like asik 15mpg

Because of this I wouldn't want Dwight, I'd rather have a skilled PF instead. Asik is still improving while DH is on the decline IMO so with this gap closing Asik is a much better value. We can use the cap space for upgrading our PF and SF positions.

[TMACFORMVP]

Asik is gonna add a 3 pt shot this offseason hahaha

I have seen him shoot like 6 or 7 shots from 15-20 feet

He made like 2, stretch center!!

He was 4-8 on shots 16-23 feet. And 3-10 on shots from 10-16 feet. When he actually was attempting them, and not forced to heave at the end of the shot-clock, I remember him knocking them down...I think you're onto something here...

[jwise44]

no but dwight can. an asik-dwight frontcourt would be the best defensive frontcourt for years, but it comes with huge problems
- clogs the paint like hell
- terrible ft shooting
- neither have a jumper
- neither have good passing skills
- neither are good post scorers

u cant play someone like asik 15mpg

Because of this I wouldn't want Dwight, I'd rather have a skilled PF instead. Asik is still improving while DH is on the decline IMO so with this gap closing Asik is a much better value. We can use the cap space for upgrading our PF and SF positions.

Al Jeff

Someone with actual post moves and Asik could fit next to him

Jarrett jack/harden/parsons/al Jeff/Asik
Bev/Brooks/Garcia/jones or d-mo (i have less and less faith in him progressing)/smith?

Plus cap space (al Jeff won't command 16+ mill so we could keep delfino[traded] and Garcia)

2nd round baby!!'nn

[jwise44]

no but dwight can. an asik-dwight frontcourt would be the best defensive frontcourt for years, but it comes with huge problems
- clogs the paint like hell
- terrible ft shooting
- neither have a jumper
- neither have good passing skills
- neither are good post scorers

u cant play someone like asik 15mpg

Because of this I wouldn't want Dwight, I'd rather have a skilled PF instead. Asik is still improving while DH is on the decline IMO so with this gap closing Asik is a much better value. We can use the cap space for upgrading our PF and SF positions.

Al Jeff

Someone with actual post moves and Asik could fit next to him

Jarrett jack/harden/parsons/al Jeff/Asik
Bev/Brooks/Garcia/jones or d-mo (i have less and less faith in him progressing)/smith?

Lin is traded for cap space (al Jeff won't command 16+ mill so we could keep delfino[traded] and Garcia)

2nd round baby!!'nn

[TMACFORMVP]

Jack is a huge ball hog. He can make plays, but he completely stops ball movement and pounds it for what seems the entire shot clock. I don't think his fit next to Harden is any better than Lin, IMO.

[rocketsballin]

hell no to al jefferson. he's top 3 in offensive talents for pf/c, but all around his defense is terrible. he's slow, lazy, half ass, p&r d sucks, bad rotations, im sure there's more. he also half asses on boxing out. plus, with our fast paced offense there's room for only one slow person on the court, and that's asik. he'd be great off the bench. a beast pf/c rotation with 2 starting bigs and him off the bench. thats what i do with my 2k lineups. but if he's ur starter then you need to clone tom thibadeou to hide is terrible defense.

[Guy986]

Yea i dont like Al Jeff either. He's slower defensively than any of our current bigs. I'm not convinced he can play PF anymore.

[moofs]

So my wacky idea is to swap Love for Smith and/or Jones, Lin, Garcia.

Wolves are almost certain to lose Love after all this botched garbage they've put him through. They get back PF prospects, a great backup or replacement PG, and another SF at their strongest position giving the all sorts of matchup potential between Kirilenko/Gelabale/Garcia/Budinger/Rubio/Lin, with a pair of great finishers/rebounders who absolutely can't shoot a lick.

The (very) bad side is obviously that they'd be built around Pekovic/Rubio|Lin/Kirilenko, and Kirilenko is 33 next year.

(Yeah, it's kinda weak, and I wanted to work Parsons in, but Kirilenko and Gelabale are so damn good he didn't seem to fit - maybe send him off to a third party and get them back someone else?)

[Butter]

If the Rockets think they have a legit shot at Howard, would they trade Asik to the Blazers for cap relief?

The Blazers could send the #10 and cap space for Asik.

[Guy986]

So my wacky idea is to swap Love for Smith and/or Jones, Lin, Garcia.

Wolves are almost certain to lose Love after all this botched garbage they've put him through. They get back PF prospects, a great backup or replacement PG, and another SF at their strongest position giving the all sorts of matchup potential between Kirilenko/Gelabale/Garcia/Budinger/Rubio/Lin, with a pair of great finishers/rebounders who absolutely can't shoot a lick.

The (very) bad side is obviously that they'd be built around Pekovic/Rubio|Lin/Kirilenko, and Kirilenko is 33 next year.

(Yeah, it's kinda weak, and I wanted to work Parsons in, but Kirilenko and Gelabale are so damn good he didn't seem to fit - maybe send him off to a third party and get them back someone else?)

Kevin Love on this team.

I would trade Parsons, Asik, Trob for Love without hesitation.

I love what Parsons does and i have a semi man crush on him but his skillset is easily replaceable. If we replace Parsons with Garcia, the dropoff isnt that huge. The production disparity between Kevin Love and any of our 4 is maaasaaaaasive. The man is a top 3 rebounder and a former 3pt shootout champion. Just a devastating combo.

He's pretty much the perfect fit for us at the 4.

[TMACFORMVP]

It would depend on what Morey could do later...because Love would be a very good fit on this team assuming we'd still have Asik to hold onto. But without Asik, he'd still be a great fit offensively, but as it would be constructed immediately after the trade, I don't think the team would be better. It would leave us with a bigger hole at the 5 than the hole we have at the 4 (especially considering the FA's at the 4 >>> FA's at the 5 both in terms of quality and depth). This isn't even considering that Love has only played 73 games in the last two seasons...and having to rely on Garcia as a full-time starter for an entire season? We were already 6th in ORTG this season. We were also a top 3 defensive rebounding team in the league too. Replacing Love w/ Asik would take our 16th ranked DRTG to one of the bottom 3 in the league assuming we don't get anyone noteworthy to replace Asik.

Just playing devils advocate since I'm bored...and I don't think of Love as a superstar. But in order to get a star, you have to give up a lot for sure (which we'd be doing in this situation)...

[inquisitive]

I want howard, but gotta smh at him sometimes...

[CBB_Fan]

Question: Do you want to build a team around Dwight?

He's talented enough, yes. But he isn't that good on offense, and wouldn't really play a different role than the one Asik currently plays, albeit at a higher level. He has deficiencies in his game which probably will never get fixed (no jumper, horrible FT shooting). More importantly, he is a mental midget.

Yes, he would improve the Rockets, but at the price of max contract and a very limited skillset. You would lose a lot of flexibility and essentially have to build the team based around his strengths and weaknesses. If he doesn't work out, you won't be able to easily get rid of him or work around him. Are you willing to risk the team's success for the next 3-4 years on him?

[inquisitive]

the more i think about it, maybe olajuwon isn't the best tutor for him. carroll dawson and mchale would probably be better...reason i think is that olajuwon's moves are kinda unique and you really need great footwork...also the spin moves, etc. are very difficult to do...at least dawson and mchale's moves aren't 'fancy' sort of speak...just basic, strong post up moves...that might be more fundamental and important then what olajuwon brings. i would like to see olajuwon help him get even better on defense.

btw, i would love to have klove...i would give up parsons plus our PFs in a heartbeat for klove

[MaxRider]

you can't build around howard
when you do all you get is bunches of outside shooters
he's not as dominate on offense as shaq
even though shaq isn't good on defense but he takses up so much space in the paint it actually help him on d
not sure how much got to do with his injured
but he can't be the #1 guy on the team if you want to win
he's going to need help
i feel like harden is like the young pierce
he's talent enough for not enough to carry his team
he's going to need help like defense big man garnett (howard)
shooter to spread the court (allen)
it's all depend how much les want to pay the tax
if we can somehow get howard with him knowing he's not the #1 guy
and can get a 3rd player through trade (i like parsons, but he's not the 3rd person)
then we are almost there
unless some magically thing happen and thomas robinson became karl malone

[spolgar]

You know, Cyberx of Clutchfans has kinda leaked that Dwight is strongly considering Houston despite Dan Fegan's opposition. Because of the Cali millionaire tax, over the course of a max deal, Dwight will only be making 8 million more in the grand scheme of things. To him, getting out of LA to a winning situation seems to be more important.

To those who want Dwight to come, this is good news. Here's the link:

http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=238488

Have fun.