Thursday, September 25, 2008

Rockets Match Bobcats' Offer to Landry


The Houston Rockets did the smart thing by keeping Carl Landry by matching the Charlotte Bobcats' offer sheet. The earlier post on the Bobcats going after Landry explains why. According to the team website rockets.com, they'll be keeping him long term. "Because we didn’t have mid-level we weren’t able to get that done," Rockets GM Daryl Morey said. "So now we’re excited to get that done and we’re going to have a great set of players in for training camp."

Money was an issue for when they thought about it, since they were already over the luxary tax. "We had a lot of time obviously to think about what range of money we would match and this fell into that," Morey explained. One problem, however, is his right knee, but Morey said that he believes in taking risks to get the best players possible. That would explain trading for Ron Artest too.

Fortunately, the Rockets kept a piece of their future and a player who should develop into a very good big man in the NBA for many years to come. As for the Bobcats, they might need to re-think their strategy on getting a big man. Last season they tried to get the Cleveland Cavaliers' Anderson Varejao by signing him to an offer sheet, only for the Cavs to match it. The same result this year with Landry.

As for the Rockets, Morey expects the upcoming season to be special. With almost a month away from the start, we'll find out soon enough.

No comments: