Rockets shut down trade talks about Omer Asik

Re: Rockets approaching teams about Omer Asik

Jack Brickman said:

Edit: And Dan, let this be a lesson not to talk out of your ass. People have this thing called the internet that gives us the ability to look up statistics that make you look stupid.

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Talking out of my ass? I already talked about Harden. He played with (2) All-Star players to start his career.

So you really think that is an apt comparison? He was playing with Westbrook (22.7 PPG) and Durant (27.7 PPG). Harden was taking 8FGA per game during that season. OKC won 55 games that year. But yes, clearly that is the same situation as Waiters playing on a crappy team with plenty of shots to go around.

Kobe is the only elite player on this list and he was 19, with zero college experience. Dion is 3 years older. Compare them at similar ages. At 22, Kobe's statline was 28.5 PPG, 46.4 / 30.5, 5.9 REB, 5.0 AST. I'm not saying he has to be that but the disparity in age in the only outlier of the group is worth noting.

Manu is a nice player but he's not an elite player. He was a really good 3rd option on the best franchise of the last 10+ years.

Would you argue against any of these players? I'm not sure if I'm missing anyone but these guys strike me as the best SG's of the last 20 or so years. I included Curry because IMO, he's the best young SG in the NBA today, so someone should be on this list.

Stephen Curry - 18.6 PPG, 48.0 / 44.2, 3.9 REB, 5.8 AST
Dwayne Wade - 24.1 PPG, 47.8 / 28.9, 5.2 REB, 6.8 AST
Ray Allen - 19.5 PPG, 42.8 / 36.4, 4.9 REB, 4.3 AST
Allen Iverson - 22 PPG, 46.1 / 29.8, 3.7 REB, 6,2 AST
Vince Carter - 25.7 PPG, 46.5 / 40.3, 5.8 REB, 3.9 AST
Michael Jordan - 22.7 PPG, 45.7 / 16.7, 3.6 REB, 2.9 AST
Reggie Miller - 16.0 PPG, 47.9 / 40.2, 3.9 REB, 3.1 AST
Mitch Richmond - 22.1 PPG, 49.7 / 35.8, 4.6 REB, 2.9 AST
Clyde Drexler - 17.1 PPG, 49.4 / 21.6, 6 REB, 5.5 AST

My argument was elite players almost always show it in year two. ELITE guys. Read my quotes if you want.....they're still above.

You guys are all taking this stuff too literally, like I'm saying I think he can't improve. He can but Kobe is the outlier in that mix and not coincidentally the youngest player in year 2. By a lot.

So if he's not an elite player, he's tradeable IMO. Is that such a hard concept to understand?

People can disagree without saying things like "do you even watch basketball?"

Re: Rockets approaching teams about Omer Asik

ImWithDan said:

So if he's not an elite player, he's tradeable IMO. Is that such a hard concept to understand?

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There's a pretty sizable difference between saying that someone is tradeable because they aren't an elite player (in year two of their career, ), and saying that the Cavs would be getting a steal by trading him for a slightly above average wing player making $9 million a year.

Is Dion overvalued here? Maybe. But you're just as guilty of undervaluing the guy.

Re: Rockets approaching teams about Omer Asik

People can disagree without saying things like "do you even watch basketball?"

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Dion is the 3rd rail on this board. Proceed at your own risk when mentioning him.

Re: Rockets approaching teams about Omer Asik

ImWithDan said:

Talking out of my ass? I already talked about Harden. He played with (2) All-Star players to start his career.

So you really think that is an apt comparison? He was playing with Westbrook (22.7 PPG) and Durant (27.7 PPG). Harden was taking 8FGA per game during that season. OKC won 55 games that year. But yes, clearly that is the same situation as Waiters playing on a crappy team with plenty of shots to go around.

Kobe is the only elite player on this list and he was 19, with zero college experience. Dion is 3 years older. Compare them at similar ages. At 22, Kobe's statline was 28.5 PPG, 46.4 / 30.5, 5.9 REB, 5.0 AST. I'm not saying he has to be that but the disparity in age in the only outlier of the group is worth noting.

Manu is a nice player but he's not an elite player. He was a really good 3rd option on the best franchise of the last 10+ years.

Would you argue against any of these players? I'm not sure if I'm missing anyone but these guys strike me as the best SG's of the last 20 or so years. I included Curry because IMO, he's the best young SG in the NBA today, so someone should be on this list.

Stephen Curry - 18.6 PPG, 48.0 / 44.2, 3.9 REB, 5.8 AST
Dwayne Wade - 24.1 PPG, 47.8 / 28.9, 5.2 REB, 6.8 AST
Ray Allen - 19.5 PPG, 42.8 / 36.4, 4.9 REB, 4.3 AST
Allen Iverson - 22 PPG, 46.1 / 29.8, 3.7 REB, 6,2 AST
Vince Carter - 25.7 PPG, 46.5 / 40.3, 5.8 REB, 3.9 AST
Michael Jordan - 22.7 PPG, 45.7 / 16.7, 3.6 REB, 2.9 AST
Reggie Miller - 16.0 PPG, 47.9 / 40.2, 3.9 REB, 3.1 AST
Mitch Richmond - 22.1 PPG, 49.7 / 35.8, 4.6 REB, 2.9 AST
Clyde Drexler - 17.1 PPG, 49.4 / 21.6, 6 REB, 5.5 AST

My argument was elite players almost always show it in year two. ELITE guys. Read my quotes if you want.....they're still above.

You guys are all taking this stuff too literally, like I'm saying I think he can't improve. He can but Kobe is the outlier in that mix and not coincidentally the youngest player in year 2. By a lot.

So if he's not an elite player, he's tradeable IMO. Is that such a hard concept to understand?

People can disagree without saying things like "do you even watch basketball?"

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First off, I find it incredibly funny that you use Dion's age as an issue when comparing his sophomore season to Kobe's, but then go on to criticize him for his sophomore season not comparing favorably to seasons by Stephen Curry (3 years college), Ray Allen (3 years), Vince Carter (3 years), Michael Jordan (3 years), Reggie Miller (3 years), Mitch Richmond (4 years), and Clyde Drexler (3 years). Show some consistency with the way you judge experience.

Second, if you don't consider Harden and Ginobily to be elite players, it's rather pointless to argue with you. It seems like you consider elite to be "greatest of all time" caliber players. I consider elite to mean "top five or ten in the league at their position."

Finally, no one is saying Waiters is an elite player. What people are saying is that he could be an elite player in a few years. Kind of like Harden his second year in the league. You can make all the excuses about who he played next to that you want, but Harden's second year was statistically weak because he was pretty inefficient and hadn't yet figured everything out yet. If he had been better, he would have taken more shots. He wasn't, so he didn't. He only hit his stride during his third year.

And people such as myself are questioning how much basketball you watch because half your complaints about Waiters don't seem to apply to this season. Like how you cited his career field goal percentage even though he's only a sophomore, has improved significantly, and his percentage is weighed down by his rookie season. A whole lot of great players would look a whole hell of a lot worse if you looked at their career field goal percentage twenty-five games into their sophomore campaign.

Re: Rockets approaching teams about Omer Asik

Marcus said:

There's a pretty sizable difference between saying that someone is tradeable because they aren't an elite player (in year two of their career, ), and saying that the Cavs would be getting a steal by trading him for a slightly above average wing player making $9 million a year.

Is Dion overvalued here? Maybe. But you're just as guilty of undervaluing the guy.

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I don't undervalue him. I believe he's worth exactly that. An above average wing.

He's a young player that could get better. There's no guarantee he will.

He's a wildly inconsistent scorer who will look like an All-Star one game and career role player the next. That's what he is at this point. He'll score 30 one game and then go 1-10 with 3 points the next. Gaining consistency is the hardest step....something some guys just can never do.

I also like Green's makeup and personality. I get that not everyone around here does. That doesn't really disprove that it isn't Dion's trade value, which quite frankly I think it is. If he is or was truly available (Dion) I'll be interested to see who Houston gets for Asik. My guess is it is nothing special. That doesn't make me uniformed, it might just be reality.

Re: Rockets approaching teams about Omer Asik

Year 2 is still going on for Dion, he will get better. Most of the players listed were starters on their team playing major minutes and are the focus of the offense. Just because Dion is not an elite player doesn't mean he is trash and should traded for Jeff Green...

Re: Rockets approaching teams about Omer Asik

Jack Brickman said:

And people such as myself are questioning how much basketball you watch because half your complaints about Waiters don't seem to apply to this season. Like how you cited his career field goal percentage even though he's only a sophomore, has improved significantly, and his percentage is weighed down by his rookie season. A whole lot of great players would look a whole hell of a lot worse if you looked at their career field goal percentage twenty-five games into their sophomore campaign.

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So Dion is still not an inefficient scorer with possibly an attitude problem? Because that was my assessment.

There's enough smoke around the attitude issues that I'm not sure why this is a discussion. Stories that were floating around don't just get made up for no reason. Has it seemingly improved since the whole flu / fight / whatever fiasco, yes. Does that preclude him from being a problem in the future? Not exactly.

The inefficient scoring part is still true. The fact that he's slightly more efficient than a sub par rookie year doesn't do a whole lot for me at this point. He was a top 5 draft pick. I like Dion as a player and will be interested to see how he does through the back 2/3 of the season but I'm still of the opinion he's vastly over valued.

I acknowledge I could be dead wrong and his value likely lands somewhere in-between what I think it is and what everyone else thinks it is. We'll see.

Re: Rockets approaching teams about Omer Asik

ImWithDan said:

So Dion is still not an inefficient scorer with possibly an attitude problem? Because that was my assessment.

There's enough smoke around the attitude issues that I'm not sure why this is a discussion. Stories that were floating around don't just get made up for no reason. Has it seemingly improved since the whole flu / fight / whatever fiasco, yes. Does that preclude him from being a problem in the future? Not exactly.

The inefficient scoring part is still true. The fact that he's slightly more efficient than a sub par rookie year doesn't do a whole lot for me at this point. He was a top 5 draft pick. I like Dion as a player and will be interested to see how he does through the back 2/3 of the season but I'm still of the opinion he's vastly over valued.

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Re: Rockets approaching teams about Omer Asik

Birdy89 said:

Dion is the 3rd rail on this board. Proceed at your own risk when mentioning him.

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See, the thing is, people generally don't have a problem with valid complaints. Such as Dion needs to learn to move better without the ball (he definitely does) or Dion needs to get to the line more (some of that is the refs, but still true) or, last year, Dion needs to work on his shot selection (mostly rectified this year). Those are (or were) valid complaints about Waiters, and there are others as well just as there are with every player on our team and in the league. If you bring those up, most people here would probably agree.

The problem comes when people post false or misleading facts, like citing Dion's career field goal percentage despite the fact that he's only a sophomore and, thus, the only field goal percentage that should matter is this year's. Career field goal percentage is a useful tool for veterans or retired players. It's a stupid metric to ever use when judging sophomores or other young players because those numbers can be significantly weighted by one outlier year. Say Dion shoots 44% this year, which is a number I think everyone would be happy with, as it would mark a nice improvement on last season. Why would his (lower) career percentage matter at all?

Citing the 41.7% career number instead of his current 43.1% number is just a way to make him look worse. There's literally no other reason to worry about the career field goal percentage of a second-year player who has been slowly improving.

Re: Rockets approaching teams about Omer Asik

ImWithDan said:

I don't undervalue him. I believe he's worth exactly that. An above average wing.

He's a young player that could get better. There's no guarantee he will.

He's a wildly inconsistent scorer who will look like an All-Star one game and career role player the next. That's what he is at this point. He'll score 30 one game and then go 1-10 with 3 points the next. Gaining consistency is the hardest step....something some guys just can never do.

I also like Green's makeup and personality. I get that not everyone around here does. That doesn't really disprove that it isn't Dion's trade value, which quite frankly I think it is. If he is or was truly available (Dion) I'll be interested to see who Houston gets for Asik. My guess is it is nothing special. That doesn't make me uniformed, it might just be reality.

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Agree to disagree, then... I just don't see why you'd want to trade the fourth overall pick from 18 months ago who has really started to come into his own, when he's got arguably the best work ethic on the team and has shown several flashes of brilliance over the course of his young career.

There's no guarantee he'll get better, but if he continues this upward trend that he's been on, I don't see how he doesn't. I'm not terribly concerned with the whole consistency thing, either. Kyrie has had a rollercoaster of a year and has been hurt every year, doesn't mean that the Cavs should ship him off.

To each his own, I guess. But, if I'm trading a guy like that, I'd at least try and package him in a deal to get someone a hell of a lot better than Jeff Green. I don't consider trading a top five pick, who was an All-Rookie last year, who is second in that draft class in career scoring behind only the reigning Rookie of the Year, who has been trending upward in his play, who is only 22 years old and has a ton of room to grow, to be anything short of a colossal failure if the most you can get in return is a slightly above average wing player with a history of heart problems. That's not a steal for the Cavs. That's highway robbery for Boston.

Re: Rockets approaching teams about Omer Asik

Jack Brickman said:

First off, I find it incredibly funny that you use Dion's age as an issue when comparing his sophomore season to Kobe's, but then go on to criticize him for his sophomore season not comparing favorably to seasons by Stephen Curry (3 years college), Ray Allen (3 years), Vince Carter (3 years), Michael Jordan (3 years), Reggie Miller (3 years), Mitch Richmond (4 years), and Clyde Drexler (3 years). Show some consistency with the way you judge experience.

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My argument is it is not apples to apples. Everyone but Bryant was either 22 or 23 years old. The difference in physical maturity from 19 to 22 is not in the same stratosphere as someone from 22 to 23.

You ever watched a college football practice? It's hilariously alarming how out of place 18 and 19 year old kids look physically. That is what I was alluding to with Kobe.

Do you remember watching him play early in his career? Before he matured and gained some strength in his early 20's? He looked like a rag doll out there. He was completely unprepared to deal with the physicality of the NBA given his age. If you look at players in their teens, LeBron was really the only one ready to play at that age. KG, Kobe, Tmac, etc. were just overwhlemed by the disparity early in their careers...but it's not worth mentioning? Ok.

Re: Rockets approaching teams about Omer Asik

We get it. people have differing opinions of Dion.

Expanding upon the argument though, Would the Cavs be better if they traded Dion for Jeff Green? I'm personally not so sure; It seems that the increase in starting five production would be negated by the second unit being highly dependent on Jack scoring. It shores up our 3 spot, but it just shifts our shortcomings to having no viable SG, and no scoring punch off the bench.

Re: Rockets approaching teams about Omer Asik

ImWithDan said:

So Dion is still not an inefficient scorer with possibly an attitude problem? Because that was my assessment.

There's enough smoke around the attitude issues that I'm not sure why this is a discussion. Stories that were floating around don't just get made up for no reason. Has it seemingly improved since the whole flu / fight / whatever fiasco, yes. Does that preclude him from being a problem in the future? Not exactly.

The inefficient scoring part is still true. The fact that he's slightly more efficient than a sub par rookie year doesn't do a whole lot for me at this point. He was a top 5 draft pick. I like Dion as a player and will be interested to see how he does through the back 2/3 of the season but I'm still of the opinion he's vastly over valued.

I acknowledge I could be dead wrong and his value likely lands somewhere in-between what I think it is and what everyone else thinks it is. We'll see.

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Where does this attitude problem talk come from? From a Bleacher Report (lol) article that cites no actual sources that has been refuted by Dion himself and several people closer to the situation? Are you watching this kid play? He doesn't look like a guy who hates his life and his role and his teammates. In fact, he's starting to look like a guy who has totally bought in to the team and coach, kind of like he did his sophomore year at 'Cuse.

As for the inefficiency, most two-guards are inefficient their sophomore year in the league, so I'm not really sure why that's an issue. Hell, even some of the best two guards in the league don't shoot that much better than Dion does despite an edge in experience, and I doubt any of them were much better (if at all) during their sophomore campaign.

It's also funny that you seem to cite his improvement as a negative. Shouldn't we expect our young players to improve as they grow and get older? I'd say the fact that Dion is up almost two percent from last year is a great sign of things to come. Unless he just stops improving for no particular reason, he should theoretically only get better over the next few years. If he raises his field goal percentage just two percent from where it's at right now (not unrealistic), he'd be shooting in the top ten for qualified two-guards in the league right now. I don't see that as unrealistic at all.

Re: Rockets approaching teams about Omer Asik

KB said:

My favorite part of that persons post was talking about the 2nd year in the league for SG's and how Dions isn't close.....20 games through Dion's 2nd season in the league with numbers that are trending up.

Funny as shit when people talk themselves in circles then contradict themselves

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Re: Rockets approaching teams about Omer Asik

Erbium said:

We get it. people have differing opinions of Dion.

Expanding upon the argument though, Would the Cavs be better if they traded Dion for Jeff Green? I'm personally not so sure; It seems that the increase in starting five production would be negated by the second unit being highly dependent on Jack scoring. It shores up our 3 spot, but it just shifts our shortcomings to having no viable SG, and no scoring punch off the bench.

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Short term we probably would be.

I just don't think a team that is trying to make the playoffs for the first time in four years should be thinking short term. Waiters has a much higher upside than Jeff Green, therefore you don't give up Waiters to get Jeff Green. It's as simple as that.

If you can get Jeff Green without giving up a significant assets, you do it. Otherwise, you politely back down.