No doubt, I am quite surprised the Rockets picked Aaron Brooks with the 26th pick of the NBA draft Thursday night. Not that Brooks is a bad player. I watched him play a couple of games this season. He’s very quick, can fill it up, and has a bit of “street” in him — kind of reminds me of a younger Gary Payton. If he turns into another GP, that would be awesome.

But the problem is that Brooks is probably 5’11” tops, and the Rockets already have a guard like that on their roster that impressed them enough last season to sign that player to a 3-year deal. His name is John Lucas III — and then after signing him, they never really played him.

You might say that Brooks took his Oregon team to the Elite 8 last season, and therefore is the better player. If you say that, then I must point out that Lucas was co-Big 12 Player of the Year after his junior season, and helped take his Oklahoma State team to the Final Four in 2004!

Now with Brooks soon to be a Rocket, there’s no way the Rockets will have two point guards on their roster under 6-feet. I’m not saying that Lucas is the answer as the Rockets’ backup point guard. I know many of the talking heads in Houston will just say that Lucas is a joke because, yeah, he maybe quick and can score, but he’s short. Well, that’s exactly what the Rockets got in Brooks. My argument is that I want to at least see what Lucas can do in a system where apparently a quick point guard shorter than 6-feet can be effective, as evidenced by the Rockets selecting Brooks.

My other problem with the Rockets is that they are flushing money down the toilet by having signed Lucas to a 3-year deal and never finding out if he could really play (he showed flashes of brilliance a couple of seasons ago when they signed him to multiple 10-day contracts, and last year the very few times JVG played him). If they didn’t think JL3 was good enough last year, why did they sign him to that kind of deal?

And don’t forget that new Rockets’ GM Daryl Morey was already in place as the Rockets’ assistant GM last summer evaluating the talent at last year’s Vegas Summer League where Lucas impressed everyone (I know Morey was evaluating talent in Vegas because I was there and saw him in the stands watching every game Lucas played). After getting First-Team all-VSL honors, finishing second in scoring (24.3 ppg), and first in assists (7.6), there was a mini-bidding war for his services by many teams impressed with Lucas’ performance there, and the Rockets did the right thing by ponying up with the cash. I don’t see how they could think any less of Lucas since last summer because he never really got the chance to play last season.

So here we go with the Rockets wasting money on a player they never even tried to play to see how he could do. I thought there was a reason why Morey and owner Les Alexander wanted Jeff Van Gundy out as coach — because he didn’t develop the players they had on their bench. Instead of doing that and drafting another player who could have helped them at power forward — like Glen Davis from LSU — they now have a logjam at point guard.

What sucks is that point guard Vasillis Spanoulis may look at who the Rockets drafted and say, “I’m outta here” after seeing them draft not one, but two guards, in the draft (Brad Newley from Australia being the other one taken with the 54th pick). If V-Span leaves because he felt the Rockets didn’t have confidence to let him get his shot after he had to sit on the bench all of last season, then I’ll be upset.

Even if the Rockets trade Rafer Alston (which I wouldn’t mind at all) in a deal for a power forward, I just don’t see much playing time for Lucas or Spanoulis since Mike James will get most of the minutes at point guard, and Brooks getting the backup minutes (right or wrong, 1st-rounders don’t play 3rd string). Spanoulis won’t be happy playing third string, so he’ll leave, and Lucas will be gone because two PG’s under 6-feet just won’t hang, as I mentioned earlier.

I would have been perfectly happy with James becoming the starting point guard with Spanoulis and Lucas splitting the backup role. Lucas wouldn’t have minded playing 3rd string because he’s a team guy and just loves being a Houston Rocket. Now with Brooks on the roster, it throws the whole thing out of whack.

Unless they trade Alston or Brooks in an upcoming deal for a veteran power forward, or somehow Brooks ends up battling Luther Head as the backup two-guard rather than playing point (highly unlikely), I’ll say this draft is a big letdown just because their essentially discarding two point guards — Spanoulis and Lucas — who were poster children for why Van Gundy was fired as head coach for not developing young, exciting talent.

NOTE: after I posted the above entry, I realized I had not spoken about the Rockets’ pick at #31, power forward Carl Landry, after trading Seattle for that pick. I’m sorry, but I can’t get that excited about Landry after reading about some of his weaknesses at NBADraft.net.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 29th, 2007 at 1:22 am and is filed under Rockets' off-season. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.