Spurs trade Butler, Scola for Spanoulis

Scola's NBA dream now a reality after trade
Arrival of Argentine banger upgrades Rockets' options at power forward spot

By JONATHAN FEIGEN
Copyright 2007 Houston Chronicle

Complete Rockets coverage LAS VEGAS — After five years of "dreaming," Luis Scola was too excited to sleep.

Unable to come to terms with the San Antonio Spurs to make the jump to the NBA, Scola reached a "basic agreement" with the Rockets less than 24 hours after the club acquired his draft rights from San Antonio along with Jackie Butler for Vassilis Spanoulis and a 2009 second-round pick.

"We're working on the contract, but we've got a basic agreement, an understanding," George Bass, Scola's agent said Friday. "He's so excited, he probably didn't sleep a wink last night. He's thrilled, this has been his dream for five years."

The Rockets quickly reached an agreement on a contract worth approximately $9.3 million over three years, with a large payment upon signing from that total to help Scola pay the $3.2 million buyout from his contract with Tau Ceramica. The Rockets will also contribute $500,000, the most allowed by NBA rules, toward the buyout.

"There is nothing we would anticipate being a problem," Rockets general manager Daryl Morey said. "We have to sign him to a contract. He has to finish getting bought out of Tau. But we feel good about both of those things happening.

"We have a strong structure of a deal in place. We'll get it done."

The talks with Scola were far enough along for him to take and pass his physical Friday in Argentina.

"Luis is healthy," Morey said. "He played all the games with Tau down the stretch last year and in the playoffs. The doctors found no issues."

With the Scola trade approved, the contract almost wrapped up and Butler already sitting on the bench of his new team, Morey made his first contract offer to an NBA free agent, Rockets forward Chuck Hayes.

"We're getting Chuck back," Morey said. "We offered a multi-year deal. There will be sort of an incentive type structure to it. At least, that's what I'm proposing. We have to get closer together, but it's not like we're in different arenas right now."

Hayes' agent, Bill Duffy, also said he imagined no problems reaching an agreement.

"They want Chuck back," Duffy, who met with Morey Friday the Thomas & Mack Center, said.

The Rockets did not stop there. As expected, the Rockets completed a two-year, non-guaranteed contract with former Rice forward Mike Harris, one of the stars of the summer league team. The deal assures that Harris will be in the Rockets training camp, and comes with a limited guarantee, likely $50,000.

With 19 players either under contract or expected to be (including Scola, Hayes, Dikembe Mutombo and Bob Sura), the Rockets began looking to thin the roster.

"We're trying to find John (Lucas III) a home," Morey said. "He has a lot of interest around the league.

"I do feel like we have a roster now we can go forward with, but we're still looking for upgrades."

Butler said he felt about the same way. After rarely playing with the Spurs last season, he said he was initially stunned with the trade, but now saw it as a chance to earn more playing time.

"I talked to Pop at first," Butler said of Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. "Pop told me no hard feelings or anything like that. It's cool.

"I just want to get somewhere and start playing a little bit. I'm there now, and nothing can turn it back.

"I'm going to come in and play my role, grab rebounds and block shots. My mom lives there, so that's good right there. I got my mom on my side. I'm just happy. I'm going to Houston."

Scola felt the same way.

jonathan.feigen@chron.com

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/4967808.html

Vwolf he will be a huge upgrade over Howard in a lot of way the Rockets struggled to have anyone beside Yao or Mcgrady in scoring. Scola can score and do it from the post and from a mid range along with him rotating with Hayes who is more of a scrapper rebounder type. This also helps them when yao goes to the bench and also helps limit Hayes minutes who like Oberto is great to have in your rotation but is most effective when he plays about only 20 minutes a game.

Also Houston will be doing more high pick and roll screens with Rick Adelman as the new Head Coach

VWolf wrote:I'm not happy about Holt saving money, but rather about a roster spot and capspace being freed up. Frankly I was never sold on Scola being the second coming, but we shall see. Will he outshine Juwan Howard? Probably in some aspects, but I really doubt that it will be such an upgrade. The frontcourt of the future is right here in PDX, ryno, and you know it.

Now if the Spurs don't make one nice addition after this (like Outlaw, or even Udoka) I will count this as a somewhat wasteful trade. If they do get Outlaw though, then I will have to think that this was a masterful move.

I agree Wolf, I think it will be a good trade if we end up picking up someone else, I just fear that this move was only made to save money. If we bring in one of the Portland wings or Cookie Monster I will be happy.

Rockets: Luis Scola Set to Join Team

By Bill Ingram
for HOOPSWORLD.com
Jul 16, 2007, 21:14

The Houston Rockets are holding a press conference on Tuesday to announce the signing of forward Luis Scola, who was acquired last week in a trade for Vassilis Spanoulis. There was some question as to whether or not Scola would ever leave Europe to play in the NBA, with his primary demand being a starting role. That's something he never would have had in San Antonio, but the Rockets' desperate need for a power forward makes him the perfect fit in Houston.


http://www.hoopsworld.com/article_22787.shtml

Take off the rose colored glasses Spurs fans, this was a horrible trade. Jackie Butler's contract wasn't some albatross hanging down our neck and now it seems like Scola could have been brought over for half the MLE. This is very disapointing.

I'm not the least bit dissapointed

I rather have a front court rotation of

Tiago / Elson / Oberto
Duncan / Bonner / Mahinmi

than a frontcourt of

Tiago / Oberto / Butler
Duncan / Elson / Scola

Bonner = more versatility in the lineup and Butler is to much of the same thing San An already has (untility bigman), really, the only thing that seperates him from Jerome James is that James for better or worse is more accomplished than Butler.

There is no doubt that if we kept Butler around, we would not have been able to resign bonner, as well, if we brought Scola in, we likewise would not be able to either bring over one of Tiago/Mahinmi, or at the very least not have resigned Oberto. All who should be a safer bet than Butler

Even by some miracle the spurs would have been willing to spend the cash to retain all those bigs... is there really a need to have 8 players who play the post?

rose colored glasses or not... we didn't have room for all of those players... And perhaps an even better analysis... one some people should consider... Perhaps the spurs would have gotten a better deal than the one they agreed to if there were better deals on the table!?

I know it's hard to imagine Butler and Scola couldn't have fetched anything better than a 2nd round pick, but it's equally as hard to imagine the Spurs turning down a 1st round pick (or better) if they were offered such a thing.

Bonner was already resigned when the trade went down, they didn't need to make this move to keep him.

I also think there is a very good chance that Butler will be a better player than Ian Mahinmi.

T-Mac + Scola + Yao... doesn't sound good

I'm not disagreeing that we could have kept both Bonner and Butler, but doing so would have landed us a rotation of

Oberto / Elson / Butler
Duncan / Horry / Bonner

That is fine and dandy, but one of those two guys would be on the IR the entire year (barring injury to a big). I can't see Butler making the rotation over Bonner while the other 7 spots go to Bowen, FInley, Manu, Barry, Parker, Vaughn and Beno.

Also, that means next year, with 5 of those bigs on contract (assuming we resign Elson, Horry retires), we'd have to pass on bringing over one of Splitter or Mahinmi. So we'd most likelly let Butler walk unless he showed us something (hard to do when you ride the inactive list for two years).

I am going to disagree with you on the Butler > Mahinmi bit though. Mahinmi has shown he can work hard, Butler has shown he's lazy and out of shape. I'll personally take hard work over talent any day of the week.

Afterall, you look at what the two have done since Mahinmi was drafted.... Ian's on the quicker rout to realising his potential.
Butler shows up to training camp overweight, and thus loses a rotation spot and is unable to work his way into the rotation due to physicall conditioning.
Mahinmi after being deemed to thin for NBA ball adds 20 pounds of strength muscle to his frame without losing any athleticism or conditioning.

for a second i thought bob bass was running things again....for me personally after watching scolla play.....this ranks up there as one of the spurs biggest bonehead moves...