Fun Fact: - Isaiah Canaan signed a multi-year contract with the Houston Rockets. - Robert Covington signed a multi-year contract with the Houston Rockets. - Omri Casspi signed a multi-year contract with the Houston Rockets. - Francisco Garcia signed a multi-year contract with the Houston Rockets. - Jordan Henriquez signed a multi-year contract with the Houston Rockets. - Reggie Williams signed a multi-year contract with the Houston Rockets. - Aaron Brooks signed a contract with the Houston Rockets. - Marcus Camby signed a contract with the Houston Rockets. - Ronnie Brewer signed a multi-year contract with the Houston Rockets. - Troy Daniels signed a contract with the Houston Rockets. - The Houston Rockets exercised their Team Option to extend the contract of Terrence Jones. - The Houston Rockets exercised their Team Option to extend the contract of Donatas Motiejunas -Jordan Hamilton was acquired by the Houston Rockets from the Denver Nuggets in a trade. -Josh Powell signed a multi-year contract with the Houston Rockets. Out of all of these transactions, the only two that actually got legitimate playing time in this series are the two bold players (Troy Daniels and Terrence Jones). I guess McHale and Morey weren't exactly on the same page?
Well, I guess I'm starting to understand the points of LosPollosHermanos, but less so TheFreak and others. I don't think we were going to sell Asik at his rock bottom trade price and pick up a great 4. I really don't think that was out there. All these dumb threads about Asik for Aldridge, Asik for Millsap! etc. They were all just crazy. None of those teams wanted those deals. In the end Maorei probably could have traded Asik for a 4 that was a lot like TJ or DMo, which is just not that impactful. And maybe a spare 2nd round pick. Meh. As to this list of players that didn't pan out, well yeah, he was trying to get lucky with low-risk contracts because again (you can call it "hilarious" (sic) if you want), there actually IS a budget to worry about unless Les tells you he'll go into the luxury tax realm. So you're advocating that either he sold some assets low because you thought we could win it all this year (most of us did not think so), or you're advocating that Les went into the luxury tax realm, and yeah, that would be nice I guess.
I see what you are saying but that poster had a point, keep in mind we beat the thunder last year once with Westbrook. This year with Westbrook healthy we didn't stand a chance. Only beat them with Westbrook out and doubling KD. We beat the clippers last yr with harden out. This year we didn't stand a chance all 4 games with our 2 stars.
Daniels signed a 2-year deal but the second year is not guaranteed ( http://blog.chron.com/ultimaterocke...ign-troy-daniels-after-waiving-ronnie-brewer/ ) . He'll be back.
You don't get it. ANYTHING would have been better than TJ/DMo. They didn't play in the playoffs. They were that bad. They were not good enough to play on a team that was not good enough to advance out of the first round of the playoffs. We knew from the beginning that Asik didn't fit with Howard. It was obvious even to national media-types. Trading Asik for ANYTHING would have been better than what we ended up with. What could have gone wrong? We barely make the playoffs and lose in the first round? Hello, that's what actually happened. Asik's ROCK BOTTOM trade price, as you say, was near the trade deadline. His trade value was likely much higher right after Howard was signed. Either way, you can't get around the fact that trading Asik for anything at all was not worse than what we ended up with.
How different is the rotation really gonna be next year? The starting 5(for the regular season, not the Portland series) will probably return intact. Lin will be tough to move. Daniels will likely replace Cisco in the lineup(although Cisco will almost certainly exercise his player option). D-Mo has a cheap deal, so he's probably not going anywhere. Canaan and Covington may be on the roster, but likely relegated to the bench barring injury. The only wild card is Asik. But I don't see Morey moving him unless a really good player is available. And he absolutely will never take back contracts that jeopardize the 2015 capspace he's been setting aside. I think it's entirely possible that Asik plays out his final year as a Rocket.
Freak has made valid points, getting a competent bench and solid 4 are essential to this team winning a championship---not this mythical 3rd star incepted into everybody's head. However, if I were to prioritize I would say that "moreyball in --coaching out" is and will be our biggest problem. You NEED a midrange game, I don't have a problem with smart 3s. The rockets shoot the fewest midrange shots in the league...by a LARGE margin. The team with the 2nd fewest midrange shots is still behind by an enormous amount. Coaches know this and aren't willing to part with their playbook and offensive scheme that calls for a versatile offense. Its not as simple as "bully for a layup/draw foul + chuck 3." Thats the only reason we have a yes-man at the helm of this team. He has no problem with Darryl sticking his nose in and dictating everything. Thats the problem...he STILL doesn't understand the value of a good coach. His radio interview from the other thread sounds downright scary because how out of touch he seems.
you can have all the talent on your roster and you can still go home empty handed. the talent needs to be utilized properly. even with proper utilization, you can still get sent home early. the roster is actually pretty talented. needs some upgrades, but the overall system seems more problematics. a finals appearance might be further away than we anticipated.
well in practice you don't need 3 stars because it's almost impossible to accumulate 3 stars in a league with a salary cap. therefore, everybody at most has 2 stars and thus someone with 2 stars will win. but that doesn't mean you shouldn't try to get 3 stars if you can. magic/kareem/worthy won titles. bird/parish/mchale won titles. jordan/pippen/rodman won. duncan, parker, ginobili won a few with all in their primes. granted, without the magic, bird, jordan, duncan part of those trios it probably doesn't matter but then all that points out is that the best way to win in the nba is to have a top 1 or 2 player and unless okc or miami are picking up the phone, we aren't going to have that. unless you have a top 2 player, you have to try another strategy. and unless your cap is set up perfectly, getting 3 stars just isn't easy. but ours is set up fairly well to do it so i don't see why we shouldn't try. and while miami hasn't really been a "3 superstar" team since wade broke down in the playoffs 2 years ago and thus they technically won both titles without 3 superstars (though wade and bosh are still very good at times), they almost won their first year together with 3 stars and a bunch of minimum contract guys. if lebron wasn't so bad in the finals, they would have won strictly off the performance of 3 stars. and that still doesn't negate the fact that the team that has tried the 3 stars approach does have the last 2 titles, partially because wade and bosh can show up well enough that they can help win some playoff games you ultimately need to win to win the title. i certainly don't see why we should avoid having 3 stars if we can achieve it. i mean we threw hakeem/drexler/barkley together in their mid-30's and won 57 games and made the conference finals with matt maloney starting at point guard. if you can replace our power forwards with kevin love i don't see how that doesn't dramatically improve our team. if you trade omer asik for courteney lee and brandon bass, i don't see how that elevates our team to any great degree.
what does "being too cheap" mean? we didn't have capspace and trades involve equal money being traded. the only realistic trade piece we had was asik and considering his defense on aldridge might have been the difference in aldridge averaging 40 and us being swept and us being a buzzer beater from game 7 at home, and considering no one wanted to give us anything good, i don't know what a trade would have accomplished.
when everybody knew u were shopping Asik, i doubt his trade value was high when we just acquired howard
For the most part though, even though it was abysmally ugly, the Rockets still scored at a more than acceptable rate throughout the series, it was the defense and mental mistakes that were their undoing. I do think there might be some merit to the fact that because the Rockets are allowed to improvise so heavily on offense, it prevents them from developing the discipline necessary to become an elite defensive squad. Defense is all about having ingrained rules and following them doggedly. When you watch the early season Pacers, or Thibs' Bulls, you can see a coherent plan on how they defend screen and rolls, how they work exceptionally hard to ice ballhandlers, how they don't help one pass away, and how everyone moves as a unit. When you watch the Rockets, you see guys reaching and gambling for steals, switching bigs onto wings on weak picks, and having no coherent set of defensive rules. If you're going to ask for Jazz on one end, you can't expect Classical music on the other. As to the requirement of a midrange game to be sucessful, I think it's more a symptom, rather than a cause of success in the NBA. The number of players who can be efficient and shoot 20-footers at 50% or higher is extremely limited; they're almost all stars like Tony Parker, Dirk, and LaMarcus Aldridge. Teams that have these players tend to have very good offenses, because they're led by virtually unguardable talents. Can you name a top-level offense that focused on the midrange game that doesn't include a HOF-level mid-range shooter? I would suspect that Daryl would love to be able to put mid-range shots into the playbook, but there just aren't any guys available for reasonable prices that shoot the shot efficiently enough. Again, Morey tried to trade for Aldridge last summer, tried to sign Chris Bosh, tried to trade for Carmelo Anthony, and inquired into Rajon Rondo. All these guys were midrange specialists, and if they were on the Rockets, they'd continue to be midrange specialists. Great talent can shoot it from anywhere.
I guess it would be determined by what you consider to be "stars", by my count SA has Parker, Duncan, Ginoboli, LAC has Jordan, Paul, and Griffen, OKC has Westbrook, Durant, and Ebaka, and Portland doesn't really have a real chance IMO. All All Stars, and I believe Mo Williams even made one when he was with Cleveland, so Portland has that going for them. I agree with Francis 4 Prez 100%, and I also believe that the reason we shot as many 3's as we did is because we have very few players that can create their own shot for the consistent "2". If we had a Love, Aldridge, or Melo I'm sure they would have the green light to take as many 2's as they wanted. I think we are a true "floor general" point guard away once we do add that 3rd star, and we'll compete for the WCF for years.
You wanted Courney Lee and Brandon Bass with his 3 year cap hideous contract? I can understand Lee, but Brandon Bass?> That's whay supposedly on the table. I'm sure morey tried, but the options were thin
who do you want to trade? asik seems to be our best trade piece. and no one wanted to give us anything for him. why trade him for 50 cents on the dollar? he was valuable in the portland series. what 50 cents on the dollar trade would have helped more in the 1st round? i would say it was better than adding a perimeter player and not having asik. unless there was a realistic way of getting someone like millsap. i don't know. but i do know that they weren't going to try be be 2 or 3 wins better this year at the expense of possibly adding a 3rd star/superstar to try to be 10 wins better for the following 3 or 4 years. part of the west being wide open is that almost anyone could win it. but another part of it being wide open is that anyone from a 54 to 62 win team could go home in the first round due to a few bounces of the ball or a few bad calls. why risk all future flexibility to take part in a coin-flipping contest? i think they want to take a shot at adding enough talent that the first few rounds aren't just a coin-flip where you wait to see if your opponent is hot for a few games. they want to be the favorites, not just one of the pack of 6 or so teams that could win the west. and you don't do that by adding brandon bass. you might be able to do it if you add a kevin love.
Why can't hiring a good coach be part of that plan? We would be more willing to wait if we knew the team was in good hands. But with clueless McHale on board, even with that 3rd star, how can we win in the postseason?
Well obviously we sacrificed signing high quality 2nd/3rd tier guys because we were chasing and signing DWIGHT HOWARD.
