In the 90's we saw the likes of Olajuwon, O'neal, Ewing, Robinson, Mutombo… the PFs of Malone, Kemp, Oakley, Grant, Garnett, Duncan. Would you say that the early to mid 90's was the golden era of the big man?

Sure, we still have a lot of the names lingering at the tail end of their careers, but have we ever seen a decade (let alone the 94 & 95 seasons) with as many talented 4s and 5s? I know.. shameless plug to our championship years, but really it was quite an amazing two years of veteraned big men and young superstars who would one day supplant them.

Also, random trivial knowledge from his Wiki… Shawn Bradley had six kids, all of their names start with 'C' and apparently was nicknamed “The Deathstick” at some point in his career?

Thanks.

sportsaccordingtome.com

Of course, how well he executes to these goals sets him apart. But I don't really think there is more to it than that on the high level.

http://www.uncoached.com/2009/04/27/look-alikes…

Scola is a ROCK STAR! This makes the contract even more reasonable.

Sebastian Abreu, who is nicknamed “El Loco”, or “The Madman” for those of you who don't speak Spanish.
http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/players/player=158…

Also, regarding Rahul's comment on David Andersen's hands, I would argue that his hair is his best trait, since it makes him look like his 7 ft tall when he's actually closer to 6'10. Can we call him the worst signing of the Daryl Morey era already?

I think Luis can be healthy for 5 years. His feet to the floor style of play is more condusive to a long career versus someone who jumps out of the building. I believe Morey is implenting a 5 year plan, or rather a 3 year success plan with the 4th and 5th being reserved for trading and rebuilding. So, realistically he is probably figuring that Scola can be as productive as he is now, for 3 more years. This has to be the window on the Yao era. I like that he has committed to a core of players while at the same time leaving room for any tweaking he may need. Whatever his plan is, you can bet it's nothing short of sports management genius.

* I never thought I'd encounter a worse waste of blog bandwith than the grammar and spelling police, but then I encountered the linguistics council. Grammar and spelling have hard, fast rules, linguistics are ever-evolving (thank God, or we'd all be speaking Olde English). The times, they are a changin', just roll with it! You're blog is the bees' knees Rahat, it has impacted* my life as a Rockets' fan like none other. Keep doing what you do and don't sweat the petty stuff. Woot! Woot!

One thing I would like to point out, though, is that he didn't just want to move up in the draft, but there was also a 2nd-round player he was targeting, but could not buy a pick to land him. (I don't think the player was ever identified.) Teams were either unwilling to part with their second-rounders, or were asking for too much in return. Morey wanted to deal.

Scola was considering returning to the Spanish league, but I don't know if there was an actual offer on the table. I am surprised at the length of the contract, though not his annual salary.

Here's the Really Big Question: With the Lowry and Scola signings, have we actually lost any significant flexibility going into the trade deadline, or the next off-season? Lowry remains trade-able, at a reasonable enough price where other teams would be willing to take him on. Is Scola Morey's albatross? Would any team want Scola in a trade with that contract? It would still be a pretty good albatross, comparatively speaking, if true.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hCqefcY7lpI

- At 10% raises, this would make Scola's salary for the 2010-11 season about $7.75 million. It was amazing that we had him for the last three years at only about $3-3.5 million per year (isn't that amazing?), but I think this is definitely on par with his true worth.

- Scola is not an above the rim player. Does this make the fact that the contract runs until age 35 more or less palatable? I think more.

- Morey is not one to let investments go for nothing. Even if Scola did leave, I don't think it would be because someone gave him a contract and we didn't match. I think he would negotiate a sign and trade to get something, anything, in return.

- If there were metric for Contract Laziness Quotient (CLQ) that predicted the risk and degree of dropoff after a player got a big contract, I think Scola would have to rank in the lowest 99th percentile.

- At the same time, I get this feeling deep down that Scola will not be a Rocket for all five years. I love him, but if I had to predict a most likely scenario, it is that he gets traded after year 3 (when his salary breaks $10 million) to a team that likes the combination of his continuing solid production and the fact that they can take advantage of the partial fifth year guarantee after one season. Then again, a lot changes in a few years' time, so there's no point for further pontificating on the latter years of his contract with so many unknown variables at play.

- Scola and Manu seem like a couple of cool guys: http://twitter.com/manuginobili/status/18087031609

- As long as I'm on Twitter, does anyone think that Scola's favorite team in the World Cup being Uruguay has anything to do with the fact that his doppleganger made the winning penalty kick vs Ghana? http://twitter.com/LScola4/status/17953144554

- It feels like Morey has a long term strategy for the team, and that its not what we think it is. After matching Lowry, he tweeted about crediting Les for signing off on the plan Morey laid out for him in February. Considering he has been on the job a few years now, I feel like Morey has entered phase 2 of his strategy. After a couple years of stockpiling assets (buying second rounders, signing Hayes and Scola, trading for undervalued players like Lowry), shedding the team of bad contracts, limiting exposure to long term albatrosses, and infusing the team with young and cheap talent, he has reached the turning point. People always talk about what athletes are lacking (“Imagine how good Hunter Pence would be if he could lay off that damn slider low and away!” “If Chuck Hayes was 6 inches taller, would he be the most dominant defensive player in the league?” “Too bad Kyle Lowry isn't a great three point shooter.” “Is there any way to transplant David Anderson's hands on Jacoby Jones' body?”). Well, similarly, you could have dreamed, “What if Daryl Morey one day had an abundance of assets and cart blanche to go over the luxury tax and pursue any deals he wants?” I think we're about to find out. This summer, Morey did not buy and second rounders. In fact, he tried to move UP. A few months ago, he traded for Kevin Martin, who has a few years left on his contract. He re-signed Luis for five years. He signed Ariza for five years last summer. This was all in contrast to the short, small contracts we were seeing from him before. The man is Keyser Soze. While we try to identify his strategy, we're actually left analyzing a plan he exercised months before and has since moved on from. Maybe signing Ariza and trading Landry was the harbinger that preparation was complete, that phase 2 is on, and that Morey is about to show us what he really wants to do.

- An extraneous thought about Morey's use of statistics that doesn't really fit here, but oh well. I was reminded by the discussion of WP48 and how Aaron Brooks scores low on that scale. It made me wonder how Morey's evaluations differ from Berri's (and other numbers guys'). We don't know what he looks at. We can guess to some extent. I think we can safely believe that he believes in rebounding, drawing fouls, and high free throw percentage. There are probably adjusted +/- numbers for different units involved too. But what I am most interested in are the things he sees that even others do not. Specifically, I think this is most evident in the draft, particularly with Patrick Patterson and Aaron Brooks. People speak a lot of John Hollinger's draft predictor, but if I recall correctly, both Patterson and Brooks scored very low on Hollinger's scale. Yet, by all accounts, both were players that Morey absolutely loved. Somewhere, I picture Morey hacking into ESPN Insider (no way he pays for it) and reading Hollinger's numbers-based draft predictions for Patterson and Brooks and laughing and laughing, then taking a sip of cognac, leaning back, and laughing some more. No, Patterson hasn't proven anything yet, but it's interesting to think about nerd fights about who can out-evaluate everyone else.

As the roster stands,the Rocket gds are oddly paired. Brooks and Martin are shooters who work the perimeter and are defensively challenged. Lowry and Taylor relentlessly attack the rim,are mediocre at best perimeter shooters,play physical D,are better passers and less careful w/the ball.

Scola is reported to have an offer from Tau Vitoria, his old team in Spain. My guess is that the Rockets “matched” that offer.

He has been underpaid for a couple of years, so I don't mind this deal for Scola. Anyone want to bet that we're about to trade a veteran to get under luxury tax numbers? Might not happen but it wouldn't surprise me at all.

twitter @SpearsNBAYahoo Luis Scola will re-sign with Rockets to a five-year, $47 million contract with a partial guarantee the last season, his agent told Y! Sports

-deuce