What is the ultimate goal? Winning a championship. That's the goal. The goal isn't to get to the second round. The goal isn't to get to the WCF. The goal is a championship. Now, knowing that this is the goal, deep down we all know that Parsons wasn't going to take the Rockets to the promised land. He's not that guy. He's not much different than a player like... Trevor Ariza. Paying Parsons that contract locks the Rockets in. It means they would riding with Parsons as one of their big-time players for the next several years and they would be greatly limited in vastly improving the team around Howard, Harden, and Parsons. They would be improved, but their ceiling would be limited and they would NOT reach the Finals with that core. They would always be a pretender. In short, some players may be worth it... but Parsons is not good enough to be worth hampering your ability to bring in other good players. He's not that guy. Remember... he's similar to Trevor Ariza. Now what the Rockets have is space and flexibility. They now have the ability to GET that next piece of the puzzle and build around a SOLID core of three great players. No more bad contracts like with Lin, Asik, and Parsons. They are free to really build the team up. Daryl Morey and the Rockets organization are trying to build a CHAMPIONSHIP-caliber roster. Not a roster that is good enough to make it to the second and possibly third round but never make it to the big dance. They now have the freedom to build the championship team they want. The Rockets are not going to win the championship next year. But they have set themselves up to make the moves necessary to build a true title contender in the very near future. Remember... this is not the ultimate goal: This is:
Just because you say Parsons could not do it, or be part of it, does not make it so. K. Leonard was not that guy last year, but lo and behold another year of growth and..... Parsons has not hit his ceiling - the Mavs are closer to a championship team right now than the Rockets as currently consitituted. Yeah, team ! DD
Maybe, but we still had the opportunity to use up all of our cap space (this weekend) and keep Parsons. Instead we still have some cap space and no Parsons.
Parsons leaves and people yell " THE ROCKETS ARE TANKING" ignoring that he has been replaced with a cheaper player with better defense and better jump shot
I understand this premise. Basically you play to win or don't play at all. That was the ultimate decision Morey had to make. I still think he should have matched him and thought abot figuring out how to trade him later.
Bosh would have cemented this most likely. That whole snafu sent the Rockets back to the stone ages. This is the most painful turn of events that I have seen as a Rockets fan in a LONG time.
Morey has been preaching flexibility. Just because you have flexibility doesn't mean you'll get big names.
By the way, the team next year is not going to be much different from the team this year. The starting line-up is virtually the same. Replace Parsons with Ariza. Not much different. Asik did not play much and did not have a great impact. The team was doing fine even when D-Mo was playing back-up center when Asik was hurt. Casspi, Garcia, Hamilton, etc. were not great. So really, the only loss is Lin. And I'm sure the Rockets can find somebody with similar production to pick up the slack there. This will still be a 50 win team next year.
No one wants to come to Houston - D12 and Harden are not working out as a draw to bring in other big names. is Love coming? Durant? NO
DD: always in the dark about the big picture. If Leonard was being paid $15million dollars this year, the Spurs wouldn't have had one of their other (more important) pieces. Leonard can be the finals MVP because of Duncan, Ginobli, Parker. Not in place of them.
Worst off season ever....and this was a very deep deep nba draft and many teams were willing to allow us to move up due to financial flexibility... we struck out in so many ways. I had so much confidence in our front office and they took that from me like a thief in the night. Furious
Of course. It's never guaranteed. But now, your ceiling isn't limited to the 2nd round. They still can hunt for that third guy to build around, and THEN operate over the cap. Parsons wasn't the guy worth doing that for.
Who are our three great players? The reality is that this was our best chance to get another star, with already two superstars AND cap space AND having Parsons's Bird Rights, yet we still came away with nothing. Why would we expect to have any better results with our next star free agent target when we came away with nothing during our best chance?
The Spurs already had their core in place. Leonard was a role-player who stepped up big-time. The Spurs already had their core.
It's not over yet... Jameer Nelson would offer more as backup PG than Lin did. Could we not get him for either vet min, or S&T for the non-guaranteed Gee? Then we have the MLE and BAE to bring in 2 other vets. Our roster this year could still be vastly improved on last year.
Spot on. We limited how far the team can develop long term, while making the team worse in the short term because we might get a third star while limited the trade assets a team trading a star would want, with a free agency class that lacks stars. I can't argue against the Mavs being better than us. They have the coaching edge, Chandler can guard Dwight 1 on 1, Jones gets eaten alive by Dirk, Parsons is better than Ariza. Our bench is even worse than last year. There are also plenty of examples of Parsons being hurt for us and our offense going to ****.
