Rockets.com Podcast

I must agree with the man from Santa Barbara that any trade by the Hornets will include Okafor. The question I have is, are the rockets willing to tie up 33 million a year on just the center position? Then again, maybe Okafor can play PF, and we have a twin towers combo like Duncan/Robinson or if you want to be rocket centric Hakeem/Samson.

And trading for Paul and getting Okafor included, the question becomes, considering how much we are giving up, is it worth it? Especially since we don't know how Paul will fit into our system, especially with Yao back, who slows down the offense considerably.

Okafur is from Bellaire, so he would be thrilled to play for Houston, but you never know if playing for the home town will have a positive or negative impact.

Naturally, this all comes with the big caveat that the Hornets actually do trade Paul. Personally, I think it would not be in the Hornets best interest if they want to fill the seats of their stadium for the next season. Paul is the face of the franchise, and I personally think that the Hornets will sit on Paul this season, because there is no reason to trade him now with 2 season left on his contract. Paul has little leverage beyond 'tanking' and that is going to drive down his worth when his contract does expire.

Overall, I think that the talk of moving Paul will be big, but nothing will come of it.

Welcome back!

Now we may see the patience of Morey pay off. The Rockets can trade Patterson, Battier, Jeffries, Hill, Hayes, and Brooks and their three first round draft picks for Paul and Okofur. This helps New Orleans immensely--they save about $4 million in salary this year, they get four expiring contracts, they rid themselves of a bad contract, and they get solid young talent in Brooks, Patterson, and Hill. Including their own picks, they would have five first round picks over the next two years. As for the Rockets, they would have a starting line-up of Paul, Martin, Yao, Scola, and Ariza, with Lowry, Budinger, Okafor, and Miller coming off the bench. It is also a team that matches up well against the Lakers, since you can bring in Okafor to match up against the Laker bigs. I hope the Rockets can get something like this done!