Chron: Review Process Starts For Rockets + Rockets Brace For Winds Of Change

Chron: Review Process Starts For Rockets

May 1, 2004, 9:15AM

Review process starts for Rockets
Team, management look for ways to build on first playoff bid since '99
By JONATHAN FEIGEN
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle


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`You have guys getting better as they get older, but we're looking to add, because if you don't, you're going to get left behind.'
-- Rockets general manager Carroll Dawson



As Rockets coaches and players left Toyota Center on Friday, each was presented with a parting gift -- a framed photograph of the arena taken from a last-row vantage point to capture every detail of the playoff scene.
An inadvertent yet symbolic statement was made.

The playoff game depicted in the photograph was against the Los Angeles Lakers and represented a breakthrough for a team that had long sought that level of achievement.

But a closer look at the scoreboard in the photo reveals that it was shot with the Rockets losing.

With that, the players scattered for the offseason, left with an image that improvement had been made but much more was still to be accomplished.

"I think there were steps made," Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy said. "I think individual players made steps. I think the team made steps. I don't think though we can believe that will just continue on without putting more into it. We need to put more into the process to get more out of the process.

"You try to evaluate. I certainly think that we have to be the type of team, organization that is willing to do whatever it takes to win."

Van Gundy did not offer specifics about what must be done, at least in terms of personnel changes. He said it would not be "appropriate" for him to comment specifically and deferred to general manager Carroll Dawson.

But he did seem to indicate that normal growth would not be enough and that no change should be considered too great to be weighed.

"I do like our players," Van Gundy said. "But I do recognize the need for us to improve and realize that there have been many, many great, great players who have been traded. Many have left by free agency. Many have stayed their whole careers. All that is based on the results."

In his parting talk with his team, Van Gundy thanked his players for their efforts and support of one another and spoke of the virtues of offseason conditioning. He also left them with the understanding that he was seeking more.

"I did try to impart to them that my only goal is to try to make this team improve to the point of winning a championship," he said. "We're not as close as we need to be. We better make improvements. We made some, but we need to be very aggressive in our improvement."

Rockets players do not dispute the need to improve. But they contend the improvement can come from within, citing everything from a second season playing for Van Gundy to the benefits of having made the playoffs. The Rockets won the first playoff game at Toyota Center but lost a first-round series to the Lakers in five games.

"I think we have to start with change among ourselves, work on ourselves first and what we need to do," center Yao Ming said. "We had some very good stretches during the season when we played great. But we're like a ship on the ocean, up and down with the current. We have to figure out how to become more consistent and sail smoothly."

That consistency, the Rockets insisted, could come from experiences.

"You come back with the same guys next year, everybody knows Jeff's system, it's going to be much easier to adapt," Eric Piatkowski said. "We're going to be way ahead of the ballgame. I expect if you don't make hardly any changes for us to be a much, much better team next year just from growth."

Still, the Rockets figure to be more active in the free-agent market than they have been since they signed Scottie Pippen after the 1998-99 lockout. They signed Jim Jackson before this season, but most of their efforts in recent seasons -- from Hakeem Olajuwon and Maurice Taylor to James Posey -- have been focused on keeping their own free agents.

Currently, Mark Jackson is the only rotation player who is a free agent. While the Rockets have no first-round pick for the second consecutive season, they do have a salary-cap exception left from last season's Glen Rice deal. It will allow them to offer a $6.9 million sign-and-trade deal for a free agent.

"It's one of the first steps," Dawson said of the trade exception. "You try to figure out what you can add to make your team better. This year, we have a little bit better machinery (the exception) than we had. It gives you more options. There are so many restrictions as far as making a trade, when you have a plus like that, it helps.

"You're always looking for factors. Like this year, Jimmy Jackson was a factor. You have guys getting better as they get older, but we're looking to add, because if you don't, you're going to get left behind."

Van Gundy said determining how much outside help the Rockets need is "hard to answer as I sit here today."

Van Gundy also is confident point guard Steve Francis should be part of the team's foundation.

"I thought Steve had an outstanding year," Van Gundy said. "He showed improvements in many, many areas. I think novice fans will look at numbers and say he didn't have as good a year as in previous years. I would say he had a much better year. Helping us win more in a much more difficult and challenging Western Conference ... speaks directly to his impact on the team. I think Steve did a great job of playing well himself but also enabling others to play well."

Van Gundy also sounded unconcerned about Yao's summer workload with the Chinese national team, including the 2004 Olympics, which begin Aug. 13 in Athens.

"I don't think it should (wear him out)," Van Gundy said. "When one of your two best players has such a production decline in the last month of his only two seasons in the NBA, included in that is the playoffs this year, ... there has got to be concern and you have to find out the answers, because if ... one of your best players doesn't play his best when his best is needed, then you're going to be continually frustrated. Certainly we've got to come up with, along with Yao, a solution so he's playing his best and we have a chance to play our best in April and hopefully May and June."

But as Van Gundy offered praise and raved about living in Houston, he was talking about a season that was over in April, and no one had to ask what was wrong with that picture.

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/2543047

 

May 1, 2004, 9:16AM

Rockets brace for winds of change
Players face offseason of uncertainty but want chance to `get better'
By JONATHAN FEIGEN
Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle


With the team meeting and media interrogation over, Steve Francis made his way through the Toyota Center hallway that leads to the players' parking area with an escort of backpedaling cameramen.

Francis had by now become well aware of the criticism and speculation about a trade that had accompanied him during the season. And with the Rockets' season over after five playoff games, the team faced the usual uncertainty and the possibility of change. So having answered so many uncomfortable questions about the team's future, Francis on Friday let the devilish side of his sense of humor have the last word.

"You're acting like this is my last day in Houston or something," the Rockets point guard said.

With that, he was gone -- likely just for the offseason. But for others, more permanent exits were expected to follow.

A year ago, the Rockets' players left their former training facility at Westside Tennis Club with a public appeal that they be given another season together to make the steps they had yet to take. In the offseason that followed, the team replaced only two players from last season's rotation -- Glen Rice and James Posey -- and lost Posey in free agency only after Memphis came in with a surprisingly large offer.

On Friday, Rockets players took the same position. Loyalty and confidence would require no less, but few players seemed to believe that change more significant than last season's tinkering was avoidable.

"I've been through the league. I know changes come about," said Jim Jackson, a veteran of 10 NBA teams. "You get comfortable with a system and a teammate and like me, you're gone. All you can do is wait and see what happens.

"There's still some pieces I think (Rockets coach) Jeff (Van Gundy) wants to add. You still have to tweak. We'll see how the summer plays out."

Before his parting shot, Francis made his preference clear. He did not, however, make a prediction.

"When I first became a member of the Rockets (in August 1999), the first thing I said was this is where I'm looking forward to playing my whole career," Francis said. "But I was 22 then, and now I realize the NBA is a business. If I'm not here next year, I respect the business. But I think me and coach have been able to get along. I think I'll be here next year.

"One hundred percent, I'd rather be a Rocket. But it's a business, so you never know."

The Rockets have not spoken with so much uncertainty since Hakeem Olajuwon's contract expired after the 2000-01 season. The injuries and illnesses of the season that followed and the promise of a high draft pick in 2002 that became Yao Ming were indications the nucleus would be kept together. Last season's progress, derailed by a late-season slide after Rudy Tomjanovich's medical leave of absence, made players believe they could do more if given another chance.

But Friday, the players left for the offseason, wondering if they were to some degree seeing the breakup of the old gang, almost as if change, more sweeping than in the past, was inevitable.

"What happens happens," Cuttino Mobley said. "What's best for the team. If I get traded, if Steve gets traded, whoever gets traded. It's a bad thing if you get separated from your family. Steve and I are family on and off the court.

"It will be hard to see the guys split up because we were together so long -- me, Mo (Taylor), (Kelvin) Cato, Steve."

Those four players have been together since Taylor was signed as a free agent before the 2000-01 season. Van Gundy praised his team's camaraderie and chemistry in the team's final meeting and again publicly. But since the trade of backup point guard Moochie Norris, the rest of the nucleus that had stayed together through the lottery seasons seems to have accepted a certain inevitability of change.

"We definitely feel the same way we did last year," Taylor said. "This is probably the best bunch of guys I've been around. We took a step reaching the postseason. We didn't have the result we wanted. Now we want to improve. We don't want to just be a seventh seed.

"He (Van Gundy) just thanked us all for what we did this year. We went from the lottery to a seventh seed. He was certain we could be a championship team. We do believe in him. We want to win a championship, too."

With that in mind, the Rockets' players believe they still can improve together. No yearbooks were signed. Plans were made for lunch, not reunions. But amid the confidence, there was uncertainty.

"With the nucleus of players we have -- myself, Yao, Cuttino, Mo -- hopefully everybody will be back," Francis said. "We all dipped our feet in the water. We've been to the playoffs. The only thing we can do is get better."


http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/2542688