Cuttino Mobley

["Thomas Murphy" <tfmiii@worldnet.att.net>]

Just thought I'd throw this out there to see what people think. Obviously,
our (lack of ) defense is a key reason why we had such a poor season. It
seems to me there are at least two ways to address this problem.

One would be to get a defensive stopper like a Mutombo - likelihood: nil.

A second way to address our weaknesses defensively is to improve our
perimeter defense on penetrations. This requires hard work and quickness.
Pitino trotted out some stats at the end of the year showing that opposing
big men shot something like 52% against us - but let me tell you as one of
those who watched and suffered through many of the losses, many of those
opportunities were generated by penetration and our resulting "rotation"
setting up easy dunks and lay-ups. The best way to prevent penetration is to
get quicker, and although Pierce may be quick for a SF I think his
transition to SG has yielded at best mixed results. If Twon is going to
remain at PF (which is all I can envision Pitino doing unless he trades him)
why not switch Pierce back to a position where he will have the advantage in
quickness rather than a disadvantage (and where he can use his hops much
more effectively by rebounding and blocking shots around the hoop like he
did his rookie year).

That would mean that we should look to acquire a quick SG and Mobley might
just be the ticket. Houston will have a hard time retaining him and they
still have a hole at PF. Houston also has a $4.5 mil trade waiver, allowing
them to accept up to $4.5 mil more than they trade. So what do I hear for a
sign-and-trade deal for Mobley?

-TomM

his stats:

6-4 190, explosive 1st step, good three point shot (which would also help us
out since we are 26th in the league at 3pt%), 2nd year out of RI

30.8 mpg .430 fg% .356 3pt% .847 ft% 0.7 2.8 3.6  tot reb 2.6 apg 1.07 spg
0.40 bpg 2.3 to/g 2.1 pf/g 15.8 ppg

and from http://www.bskball.com/Rumors.htm
04/21-HOUSTON AND CUTINO- The Rockets, despite a horrible set of injuries,
had a decent year, the expectation were low, and the team had a chance to
really try on their young guys, and many showed genuine NBA skills, and some
look to be superstars in this league. One of those young guys is Cutino
Mobley, arguably the best 6th man in the league and he has a wicked first
step, making him tough to defend. As a second round draft choice, he did not
get the luxury of shoe companies knocking down his door, and second rounders
get few guarantees from their teams. Despite more than enough reasons to
play it safe, Cutino has set out to destroy all his critics, and has done
and excellent job. Now that free agency approaches for "Big Cat", Houston
has reason to fret...Chicago loves Cutino and he may be the 3rd or 4th
player they talk to......And lets not talk about teams like Orlando, or
Indiana, who may be willing to let Cutino start versus being 6th man and pay
him much more than the $900,000 he made in Houston this year. Just like
Cutino, there is more than enough reasons to say he's gone, there are a lot
of reasons he stays..... Houston can not offer him much in salary this
year - unless Hakeem retires, which could create some room for Cat, but
because he is not full bird righted until next season, he'd have to agree to
at least a 1 year deal, which could be the bargaining chip (sign now, get
paid later), also there is the closeness that has developed between Cutino
Mobley and Steve Francis, and Houston is not about to chase away the
Franchises' boy. Cutino himself commented to our own Bill the Rocket Guy,
that "God doesn't like greedy people", which made Bill smile and hopefully
if he was serious...will make a lot of Rockets fans happy too.