The reason we are not still playing is because Morey botched last offseason completely

The offensive philosophy is what failed us. Jacking up threes like our life is dependent on it.

Not giving Melo a true shot is another reason.

Capela low post development hurt us. The young man has to develop some type of low post move.

Small ball is just like the all three pointer fest. When it work it's a thing of beauty. But when it's not, its so darn disastrous.

 

So we could have had better players
That MDA would not play in the playoffs

Rocket River

 

Ryno destroyed our window. Morey's failure to convert that mistake to something of significant value cost us two seasons where the difference was inexcusable. CP3 and Capela would have had no effect if that asset had been acquired because they would have been signed over the cap anyway. There was never a world where we did not pay those two players or acquire something of greater value than them. CP3 has value but did he provide the expected value, hell no. Capela derives too much of his energy from Harden's lobs to get in the game. He has all of the physicality and the talent to beast down low as we have seen at times. To me its a lack of maturity. He gets up to play the big guys and then when he is in an uncomfortable situation like the GSW series he loses his drive and focus. He had the ability to heavily exploit that matchup at times and just became a victim of his shortcomings. It's supposed to be a give and take matchup. He never took where a lot of positive plays can mitigate or erase the negative ones and force the other team to adjust. You win by imposing your will on the opposition. All we have left is Shumpert's contract and picks or we are going backwards. At this point, I think that is inevitable.

 

Capela is not over paid.

Rocket River

 

He put too much faith in Melo and a developing Capela! We overpaid CP3 (with diminishing skills) and did not obtain a
“big” enforcer when several were available .

 

- Melo so good nobody signed him.

- Should've signed better players even if he didn't have the money to sign them.

- But but...he could've signed Danuel House early...just to see him root on the bench when it matters.

- Signed scrubs in the offseason...and turned them into solid pieces during the season , yet, they still got glued to the bench in the end.

Overall i guess it was Morey who played like trash for 5 games and only woke up in the last one...or i guess it was Morey who kept playing Capela even if he was completely outmatched for all the series...or i guess it was Morey who pissed in his pants and commited two of the dumbest turnovers ever in the final two minutes of an elimination game...

 

No lies detected

 

No love for Melo? Whattt? This board and the Rockets sub on reddit were extremely giddy when the almighty ball dominant black hole came aboard lmao.

 

Didn't Morey kinda concede that? I'm not saying that makes it better, but he knows he did a sh-tty job last summer. Part of that wasn't entirely on him. Resigning Ariza made no sense given the offer he received from Phoenix, the luxury tax implications of matching that deal, and his horrendous 0-12 performance in Game 7. And given that he didn't exactly have a good season this year makes letting him go look even better in retrospect. I wasn't happy to see Luc go either, but that's another one where we dodged a bullet given how he essentially missed the entire season.

Where Morey really f'ed up was not coming up with adequate replacements. He bet it all on Melo and it blew up in his face. Not only did he not fit at all into our system, but he was likely the reason Bzdelik quit right before the season and threw the entire defense into turmoil. The Rockets needed basically a third of the regular season to right the ship and that's ultimately what cost them the #1 seed in the West.

My hope is that Morey has learned from that mess and doesn't have a repeat performance this summer. I get that there are cap limitations. Rivers may not be willing to resign for the MLE(either full or a portion of it). House may get an offer higher than what the Rockets can match. Faried may want to get one last payday before his athleticism starts to wane. None of that is on Morey. But failing to find suitable players to fill the same roles heading into training camp IS on him. If this year taught us anything, I hope it's the fact that every game counts.

 

I felt like his hands were tied all season.

 

Considering that we should have been defending an NBA title, were it not for the League..then had game 1 of this last series taken away, I don't think that criticism is fair. We're going against arguably the most stacked team in League history, and they have Silver there to back them up. Sure, one could say we didn't take care of business in game 5 or 6. But, the complexion of that series was changed from the get go. It's a sad day when this sort of thing reaches the audacious levels that it has..but couched to the point that folks don't recognize the impact...even seasoned hoop junkies. As to DM the GM, he did his job.

 

Signing Melo was considered a low risk, high reward option. At the time, it was worth the gamble. Nobody expected Carmelo to be that cancerous to our team. We lost more games than we should have, and that clearly impacted our seeding.

 

They were tied somewhat, but no one put a gun to his head and told him he had to get Melo last summer. He could've tried to find a better solution at the 3 than Melo, MCW, or Ennis. What bugged me about Morey's remarks last summer were how he kept defending his moves by saying the team going into training camp wouldn't resemble the team come April. Which is technically accurate. The buyout market opens up new possibilities. The problem with that mentality is that A) you're going into the start of the season undermanned and B) you're at the mercy of which players are cut by others teams and whether they want to join your ballclub.

Just don't kick the can down the road til the All-Star Break. The Rockets MUST get off to a better start in October and be in the running for that top seed all season. And I don't wanna hear about injuries derailing them cuz the 2017-18 squad had that problem all year and still managed to get out to a 25-4 start and coast to the best record in the league.

 

Your last sentence. Pure truth.

 

I just realized that the Rockets only were 4 games back of Golden State in the standings despite the horrendous start and the PG game winner. ****. Imagine if we didn't have to dig ourselves into a 2-0 hole early forcing MDA to run the starters into the ground.

 

The Warriors were relatively healthy this season and still won only 57 games. It kills me that the Rockets could've had the best record in the West with only 57 wins(since they had the tiebreaker vs Golden State). It's very rare you can finish atop this conference with a number that low.

 

Melo was never worth the gamble lmfao. He’s been a disaster for years. He was never going to not be a disaster here.

 

plenty of posters did. the summer of melo was well discussed. there's countless threads proving such

 

So because he couldn’t force anyone to come here or force a trade we cry?

 

completely false. its pretty bad when people try to backtrack after the fact. no there's plenty of threads loving all these moves. there's no way that's getting some kind of pass. need a refresher? ok

http://bbs.clutchfans.net/index.php?threads/james-ennis-signs-with-rockets.292402/page-6

http://bbs.clutchfans.net/index.php?threads/do-you-like-the-michael-carter-williams-signing.292227/

and the excitement over melo, I don't even want to look for all those again. that was just a disaster