Houston Rockets Draft 2002
Key Personnel Losses: Kenny Thomas (traded to Philadelphia mid-season). Kevin Willis (signed by SA as a FA) and Walt Williams (just kidding).
Key Personnel Gains: Yao Ming (1st Overall Pick 2002) James Posey (traded from Denver for Thomas), Bostjan Nachbar (15th Overall PIck 2002)
Record: 43-39 9th in the Western Conference
I. Season Overview
Definitely a crazy year for the ugly uniform gang out of Houston. Houston's future was determined at the end of the previous season when they fluked into the number one pick in the lottery where they had the balls to take Yao Ming. Ming fever swept over North America as he dunked over Shaq, glanced enviously at Verne Troyer's PowerBook and just generally charmed the pants off of everybody. He also immediately established himself as a top-tier centre and will be a franchise player, baring injury, for the next ten years.
Given the Ming draft and an increase of fifteen wins from the previous year, the Rockets should have been a feel-good story in the 2003 NBA campaign, but it was not to be. Most of that negative perception came from the Rockets' lineup, which included two Western Conference All-Stars in Ming and Steve Francis as well as a plethora of talent including Glen Rice, Cuttino Mobley and Eddie Griffin. Generally, they were perceived as the biggest bunch of out-of-control underacheivers this side of Indiana, and the team's failure to make the playoffs led Rudy Tomjonavich to resign and be replace by Jeff Van Gundy at the end of the year.
Much of the criticism was unwarranted. While Houston tended to play an ugly one-on-one offense much of the time, they were still a vastly improved team in the tough Western Conference despite having to battle through major injuries to Glen Rice, Maurice Taylor and Bostjan Nachbar. While Ming was an impact player in his first year in the league, it was unrealistic to expect the entire team to change their game from a guard-oriented offense to an inside-outside post-up game in the space of a year.
That being said, if the Rockets fail to finish in the 4-5 spot in the Western Conference next year, Van Gundy's first year should be considered a disappointment. The Rockets have one of the best young cores in the league, with Ming, Francis, Nachbar and Eddie Griffin all in their early twenties, along with a fine selection of impact veterans such as Mobley, Rice and Maurice Taylor. The roster may need shaking up before the fall, but the Rockets have the raw materials to be a serious player in the league next year.
II. Draft History
-
1996
Othella Harrington (Rd. 2)
Randy Livingston (Rd. 2)
Terrell Bell (Rd. 2)
-
1997
Rodrick Rhodes (24)
Serge Zwikker (Rd. 2)
-
1998
Michael Dickerson (14)
Bryce Drew (16)
Misrad Turkcan (18)
Cuttino Mobley (Rd. 2)
-
1999
Kenny Thomas (22)
Tyrone Washington (Rd. 2)
Venson Hamilton (Rd. 2)
-
2000
Joel Pyrzbilla (9)
Eduardo Najera (Rd. 2)
-
2001
Richard Jefferson (13)
Jason Collins (18)
Brandon Armstrong (23)
-
2002
Yao Ming (1)
Bostjan Nachbar (15)
The Rockets have really benefited from the Jimmy Johnson approach of having a lot of mid-level picks in the draft. Solid mid-round value such as Richard Jefferson, Kenny Thomas and Michael Dickerson balanced out questionable picks such as Rodrick Rhodes and Joel Pyrzbilla, even though the Rockets tended to trade their picks before they even had a chance to don the uniform. The Rockets have also made some nice second round steals in the last few years with Mobley and Eduardo Najera, which speaks well to their scouting department.
III. Management and Coaching
What a terrible year for Rudy Tomjanovich. He missed the playoffs, was diagnosed with bladder cancer, seemed to age fifteen years in the span of the season and finally resigned at the end of the year admist charges that he had lost control of team. Tomjanovich had a great career filled with NBA and Olympic titles, but barring a Hubie Brown-style resurrection, his coaching days look over. Taking over for him is one of the most sought-after out-of-work couches ever, Jeff Van Gundy. Van Gundy was cooling his heels on TNT while waiting for his Knicks deal to expire before he priced himself out of the Cleveland job and took the Houston position on the rebound. Van Gundy has a lot of hype for a coach who has never won anything, and it'll be interesting to see if he attempts to imprint his Pat Riley style of thugball on the Rockets or can successfully adapt to using Ming and Franics in an effective, up-tempo way. Carroll Dawson is the GM in Houston, and it will be interesting to see how much personnel power is ceded to Van Gundy througout the season.
IV. Players
(Stats courtesy of Doug Steele's page: http://home.rmi.mindspring.com/~doug/)
Scoring Statistics
Player Pos G M/Gm FGm FGa PCT 3m 3a PCT FTm FTA PCT AVG
1 francis,steve PG 81 41.0 571 1312 .435 85 240 .354 476 595 .800 21.0
2 mobley,cuttino SG 73 41.7 463 1067 .434 112 318 .352 242 282 .858 17.5
3 ming,yao C 82 29.1 401 805 .498 1 2 .500 301 371 .811 13.5
4 thomas,kenny PF 20 29.3 82 190 .432 0 0 .000 31 43 .721 9.8
5 posey,james SF 58 28.4 188 428 .439 46 141 .326 119 144 .826 9.3
6 rice,glen SF 62 24.7 196 457 .429 101 254 .398 63 83 .759 9.0
7 griffin,eddie PF 77 24.5 271 678 .400 64 192 .333 58 94 .617 8.6
8 taylor,maurice PF 67 20.6 231 535 .432 0 2 .000 100 138 .725 8.4
9 cato,kelvin C 73 17.2 133 256 .520 0 4 .000 66 124 .532 4.5
10 norris,moochie PG 82 16.8 134 330 .406 11 45 .244 78 114 .684 4.4
11 morris,terence SF 49 12.9 82 176 .466 7 32 .219 11 14 .786 3.7
12 collier,jason PF 13 8.0 17 36 .472 0 0 .000 2 2 1.00 2.8
13 hawkins,juaquin SF 58 11.8 57 148 .385 10 24 .417 10 20 .500 2.3
14 nachbar,bostjan SF 14 5.5 11 31 .355 2 10 .200 5 10 .500 2.1
15 maddox,tito PG 9 3.9 3 12 .250 0 3 .000 5 8 .625 1.2
Rebounding Statistics
Player AS AS/g ST ST/G TO TO/g BK BK/g TND OR OR/g TR TR/g
1 francis,steve 502 6.2 141 1.7 299 3.7 41 0.5 21.8 159 2.0 499 6.2
2 mobley,cuttino 208 2.8 95 1.3 166 2.3 36 0.5 15.4 70 1.0 303 4.2
3 ming,yao 137 1.7 31 0.4 173 2.1 147 1.8 16.6 196 2.4 675 8.2
4 thomas,kenny 39 1.9 16 0.8 40 2.0 6 0.3 10.9 45 2.2 137 6.8
5 posey,james 106 1.8 77 1.3 78 1.3 9 0.2 11.5 52 0.9 281 4.8
6 rice,glen 65 1.0 23 0.4 55 0.9 5 0.1 7.8 28 0.5 154 2.5
7 griffin,eddie 86 1.1 52 0.7 76 1.0 111 1.4 11.0 138 1.8 461 6.0
8 taylor,maurice 66 1.0 22 0.3 100 1.5 22 0.3 6.1 95 1.4 238 3.6
9 cato,kelvin 20 0.3 38 0.5 56 0.8 85 1.2 8.1 132 1.8 428 5.9
10 norris,moochie 196 2.4 55 0.7 86 1.0 4 0.0 5.9 37 0.5 159 1.9
11 morris,terence 25 0.5 8 0.2 29 0.6 17 0.3 4.5 40 0.8 128 2.6
12 collier,jason 1 0.1 2 0.2 2 0.2 1 0.1 3.2 12 0.9 29 2.2
13 hawkins,juaquin 47 0.8 29 0.5 29 0.5 6 0.1 2.7 16 0.3 78 1.3
14 nachbar,bostjan 3 0.2 2 0.1 6 0.4 2 0.1 0.9 3 0.2 11 0.8
15 maddox,tito 5 0.6 3 0.3 3 0.3 1 0.1 1.4 1 0.1 7 0.8
Team Scoring Totals
Min FGm FGa PCT 3m 3a PCT FTm FTa PCT PTS TND AVG
Totals 19930 2840 6461 .440 439 1267 .346 1567 2042 .767 7686 102.46 93.7
Opponents 19930 2891 6681 .433 386 1113 .347 1399 1805 .775 7567 99.66 92.3
Team Rebounding Totals
AS PF ST TO BK TC EJ FF OR TR AVG
Totals 1506 1602 594 1198 493 49 1 2 1024 3588 43.8
Opponents 1683 1794 663 1041 378 33 1 3 979 3332 40.6
Record 43 - 39 Home 28 - 13 Away 15 - 26
Scoring Statistics
Player Min Pts Tnd/48 TC EJ FF PF DQ STA PTS/48
1 francis,steve 3318 1703 25.60 20 1 0 251 2 81 24.64
2 mobley,cuttino 3044 1280 17.74 5 0 0 185 0 73 20.18
3 ming,yao 2383 1104 27.50 1 0 0 230 1 72 22.24
4 thomas,kenny 586 195 17.80 1 0 0 49 0 14 15.97
5 posey,james 1646 541 19.39 1 0 0 134 0 47 15.78
6 rice,glen 1532 556 15.17 2 0 0 99 0 26 17.42
7 griffin,eddie 1884 664 21.59 5 0 0 136 1 66 16.92
8 taylor,maurice 1377 562 14.17 2 0 0 151 0 9 19.59
9 cato,kelvin 1252 332 22.75 10 0 2 176 0 5 12.73
10 norris,moochie 1375 357 16.82 0 0 0 72 0 3 12.46
11 morris,terence 632 182 16.82 1 0 0 35 0 0 13.82
12 collier,jason 104 36 19.50 1 0 0 10 0 3 16.62
13 hawkins,juaquin 685 134 11.02 0 0 0 57 0 10 9.39
14 nachbar,bostjan 77 29 7.95 0 0 0 13 0 1 18.08
15 maddox,tito 35 11 17.49 0 0 0 4 0 0 15.09
Rebounding Statistics
Player AS/48 ST/48 TO/48 BK/48 OR/48 TR/48
1 francis,steve 7.3 2.0 4.3 0.6 2.3 7.2
2 mobley,cuttino 3.3 1.5 2.6 0.6 1.1 4.8
3 ming,yao 2.8 0.6 3.5 3.0 3.9 13.6
4 thomas,kenny 3.2 1.3 3.3 0.5 3.7 11.2
5 posey,james 3.1 2.2 2.3 0.3 1.5 8.2
6 rice,glen 2.0 0.7 1.7 0.2 0.9 4.8
7 griffin,eddie 2.2 1.3 1.9 2.8 3.5 11.7
8 taylor,maurice 2.3 0.8 3.5 0.8 3.3 8.3
9 cato,kelvin 0.8 1.5 2.1 3.3 5.1 16.4
10 norris,moochie 6.8 1.9 3.0 0.1 1.3 5.6
11 morris,terence 1.9 0.6 2.2 1.3 3.0 9.7
12 collier,jason 0.5 0.9 0.9 0.5 5.5 13.4
13 hawkins,juaquin 3.3 2.0 2.0 0.4 1.1 5.5
14 nachbar,bostjan 1.9 1.2 3.7 1.2 1.9 6.9
15 maddox,tito 6.9 4.1 4.1 1.4 1.4 9.6
(Salaries courtesy of Patricia Bender: http://www.dfw.net/~patricia/contracts)
Guards
Player signed years salary misc FA
Jason Collier ......... 7/17/00 3 $3,840,240 rc '03
Brandon Kurtz ......... 10/1/02 1 minimum '03
Tito Maddox ........... 9/12/02 1 minimum '03
James Posey ........... 7/19/99 4 $4,866,409 rc t-opt '03
Terence Morris ........ 9/7/01 3 $1,571,114 '04
Glen Rice ............. 9/20/00 4 $36 million '04
Eddie Griffin ......... 9/19/01 4 $9,422,965 rc t-opt '05
Cuttino Mobley ........ 10/2/00 6 $31 million p-opt '05
Kelvin Cato ........... 9/23/97,10/28/99 3+6 $3.4 mill+ 42 mill '06
Bostjan Nachbar ....... 7/11/02 4 $6,479,438 rc t-opt '06
Yao Ming .............. 10/20/02 4 $18,037,586 rc t-opt '06
Moochie Norris ........ 10/9/01 6 $22.7 million '07
Maurice Taylor ........ 8/7/01 6 $48,750,000 '07
Steve Francis ......... 9/1/99,8/26/02 4+6 $14,124,582+$85 mill '09
Guards's
Steve Francis
I'll never like Steve for his chair swivel and eye roll of disgust after being drafted by the Grizzlies, but Francis has worked hard on his game in the last few years and added muscle and a shot to his already formidable arsenal of all-Universe quickness and vertical leap. He also appears to be over the migraine headaches that threatened to derail his career. For Francis to make the leap to the next level, he has to work on his distribution and team management skills, especially in working out an understanding with Ming. It'll be interesting to see if van Gundy tries to impose more structured tactics on Francis' playground game.
Cuttino Mobley
When "The Cat" isn't buying Italian sports cars in his warmups he's jacking shots like no tomorrow. Mobley actually has a nice midrange game but loves to jack three pointers, and he is not a good assist man or a formidable defender. Would be perfect as a third guard in a rotation.
Moochie Norris
The backup PG, Norris is another undersized guard who can light it up. Norris is fine player to have around, but a team with he and Mobley both getting signficiant minutes is not going anywhere.
Centers's
Yao Ming
What else is there to say about Ming? He should be careful, if possible, in the amount of time he gives to the Chinese national team or he's going to be more Bill Walton than Bill Russell.
Kelvin Cato
Cato is a great backup centre who has really good block and rebound numbers in proportion to the time he plays. Unfortunately, he seems to have the motivation of a peanut and no offensive game to speak of. Cato turned the classic contract year into a huge payday from the Rockets, and he'll be haunting their capologists for years to come even as he settles into a comfortable role with the team.
Fowards's
James Posey
A nice player to have in an a eight-man rotation, Posey combines a bit of scoring with tenacious defense. He could have a George Lynch kind of career. I imagine he's going to bounce around the league quite a bit but there's no reason he can't give Houston a few good years.
Glen Rice
Rice is an effective scorer in his limited minutes but injuries and age are taking away what athleticism Rice possessed. Rice's three point shooting is still some of the deadliest in the league, but he has essentially no other elements to his game anymore.
Eddie Griffin
Compared to a young Antoine Walker by many, Griffin has struggled to break into the Houston rotation, even though he's a five-tool player who can post up, block shots and nail the three ball. Griffin has the skills to be a top echelon player in the NBA, but he's not going to get the time or the shots in Houston.
Maurice Taylor
Owner of one of the most hideous contracts on the team, Taylor is in the Corliss Williamson mode of undersized paint players who can score a ton but who are also mostly focused on getting their own shot off. Taylor's struggled with injuries the last years, and the Rockets are going to have to figure out same way to use or trade him.
Terrence Morris/Juaquin Hawkins
Interchangeable SF types who both saw pretty substantial minutes this year. Hawkins is a neat story, having done the Stephen Jackson Memorial World Tour, but neither is an integral part of the team.
V. Team Needs and Other Offseason Moves
Essentially, the Rockets have to continue to transition to a team-oriented game revolving around Yao Ming and Steve Francis. All of the other players that share substantial court time with them should be selected for their complementary skills and ability to work in a well-structured offense. The Rockets do not have enough players like that now and are badly hampered by less-efficient scorers like Cuttino Mobley and Eddie Griffin taking shots that should be taken by the Big Two. The two things that, in my opinion, would most help the Rockets next yearare an effective distributor, defender and third scorer in the Shooting Guard spot, and a banger PF who can hit the 15 ft jumper, clean up the boards and generally do some of the dirty work down low. This would lead to a very well balanced team, and the Rockets have a diverse SF rotation with Rice, Posey and Nachbar that could be mix-and-matched depending on the opponent to create matchup problems.
Well, that's all well and good, but where do we find these players? I think a great trade for the Rockets would be the following:
Houston Trades:
- F Eddie Griffin
- F Glen Rice
- G Moochie Norris
- C Kelvin Cato
Miami Trades:
- G Eddie Jones
- F Briant Grant
This trade works under the cap, and benefits both teams. Miami gets salary relief from Rice's expiring contract and a potential young superstar in Griffin, as well as help at their weak PG and C positions. Houston gets two excellent team players and contributors at their weakest spots without really giving up anything essential. Houston takes on some risk in Jones and Grant's big deals, but they also lose Cato and Norris's (not quite so) big contracts that were dragging them down anyways. The Rockets lose their backup PG, but they can just sign a Rafer Alston or Junior Harrington type for the veteran minimum to play those few minutes behind Steve Francis.
This gives the Rockets this lineup for next year:
- PG: Francis, Alston
- SG: Jones, Mobley
- SF: Posey, Hawkins, Nachbar
- PF: Grant, Taylor
- C: Ming, Jason Collier
Who doesn't love this lineup? It would definitely be a force to be contended with next year, and all of the new players would allow Van Gundy an easier time putting his stamp on the team.
Also, the Rockets have Posey and Jason Collier as FA's. They might as well try and sign both as cheap as possible, although they won't really miss either.
VI. My Selection
I like being a contrarian in situations where there is a herd mentality,
and I think NBA GM's are definitely more scared of being seen to make a
bad pick rather than making rational decisions about who to take in a lot
of cases. This should let smart GM's pick up good players at good
positions, and this year, I think NCAA players are being really undervalued
in the stampede to pick up international players. That being said,
it's pretty rare there's a lot of skill left at the thirty spot and
getting a good player involves a lot of luck and a real committment to
taking the (in)famous Best Player Available.
Therefore, I select:
Troy Bell, PG, 6'1, Boston College
At the extreme high end, Bell has the potential to be the next Gilbert
Arenas or, more realistically, a Chauncey Billips or Moochie Norris type.
Yes, the Rockets already have a Norris-type in Norris himself, but Bell
is an athletic winner who just needs to work on his shooting and maturity
and would fit in perfectly in the Rockets do manage to make the Miami
trade I discuss above. Bell measured as the best athlete in Chicago and
had a great college career. I think he's a real steal at this point.
VII. Other Players Considered
Brian Cook, PF, 6'10 Illinois
Has the body that the Rockets could use as a PF banger, but his ten cent
head won't cut it in the NBA, and he never really produced that much in
college either. The Rockets should let some other team deal with this
headache.
Zoran Planinic, PG/SG, 6'6, Cibona (Croatia)
The one Euro I considered drafting in this spot. Planinic could slot in
at the SG spot and provide a more controlled and effective team game than
Mobley, with his distribution and long-range shooting being said to be
excellent. However, Planinic is probably a couple of years away from
being a real NBA contributor (he's only 20) and the Rockets need immediate
help at that spot. Planinic was already gone, anyway.
Jerome Beasley, PF, 6'10, North Dakota
A sleeper who crept up a lot of draft boards late, Beasley would possibly
give the Rockets the inside banger that they need. I just think Bell has
more upside.
VIII. Who will the Rockets Actually Take?
With the 45th pick in the real life NBA draft, the Rockets have an outside
chance at picking a real contributer. With the rest of the league clued
in to international players, the chances of getting a sleeper at that
pick would appear to be less than in previous years. Heck, they might
even draft Peter Dodson to jack turn-around hook shot three pointers
for all I know. NBAdraft.net has them taking French PG Paccellis
Morlende (Bologna/JDA Dijon) with the pick, which sounds good enough
to me, but he won't be ready for a long time yet.
|
