http://thegame.podbean.com/ 1560 had Jerome on this morning and it was amazing that he has a job as a paid sports journalist. He said the 14 win season prior to getting Ralph Sampson was better then this last year because of getting Sampson next year. He kept saying that the Rockets didn't pick anyone up because of Les's personal set budget, and wondered why it was different from Drayton and the Astros getting criticized for not spending money. When John and Lance brought up the salary cap, Jerome said the Rocket's knew Tracy and Yao were going to be out all year and insurance was paying their salaries, so those injuries shouldn't have mattered, if Les had been willing to spend more money. Implying that he did not even realise that there actually is a real salary cap in the NBA and owners can't just spend as much as they want, when ever they want. He went on to make some other complete contradictions talking about the Texans and how he knew David Carr would be a bust before he even played, but people criticizing Amobe Okoye after 2 years were wrong because it was too early to label him a bust. Unfortunately something came up at work and I didn't get to catch the end of the interview, but he came across as some one who can't really give good explanations for his opinions, and doesn't research the topics he is discussing to a level one would expect for a journalist.
Yikes. I was this ignorant before (not now), but I'm not a sports writer with many years of "experience".
This saga between Jerome and Morey is classic. I won't forget this as the kick off of the longest summer ever. The summer of waiting for Yao.
"real" salary cap? I think morpheus is the guy who needs to go do his research. The NBA doesn't have a hard salary cap. They have what is called a "soft" salary cap, meaning you can go over but you'll have to pay extra because of some form of "tax" to discourage owners from overspending. Mark Cuban spends like a drunk sailor on his team, that's why they are where they are and we're here. Trust me, I'm willing to bet Jerome knows a bit more than you do. No offense.
So, I see that the 14-win season is good because of drafting Ralph. I take it that at least the coin-flip (no lottery back then) and the draft, if not the entire following offseason, is a part of the "season" that Jerom is judging. Presumably, if the Rockets lost the coin flip and ended up with, say, Steve Stipanovich, that would have been a bad season. Then the question is... how in the word can Jerome evaluate the 09-10 season now when the draft lottery and the draft (and free agency), which are a part of his definition of "season," have not happened yet? What if the Rockets wins the lotto or even drafts a future All-Star with a 14th pick? What if the Rockets end up trading that pick, along with players whose value was elevated by having an above-.500 season, for a star player? Will Jerome be happy then or will the Rockets still have been mediocre because they were 42-40. To paraphrase Chris Rock, men can't win an argument with Jerome because of our need to make sense.
Not true. The Rockets, for example, cannot just go sign Lebron or Bosh this offseason under the "soft salary cap" even if they are willing to pay tax. There is a reason why teams like NY were dumping salaries even if the cap is "soft." If a "soft cap" means what you imply it means in the post, NY could have just kept Jeffries and Hill and the picks and just sign as many max guys as they want as long as they pay tax. You and Jerome should pool some money together and hire a fact checker to share between you. There are set "exceptions" like the MLE, the BAE, the TPE and the Injured Player Exception under the rules, if you are over the cap, these set exceptions are all you can use to spend money.
Huh? You can only go over the cap if you extend your own players to new contracts. But you can't go over the cap to sign free agents (if you're already over the cap, the most you can pay for a free agent is the MLE). Which players do you think we should have spent money on? RyBo? MoTay? JHo?
Les has yet to ever pay even $1 in luxury tax. He has received millions of dollars in luxury tax revenue, however. And while our roster has probably been more efficiently structured financially speaking over the past decade compared to the Mavpricks, you can't deny that they have been a more successful team during the same period.
If you actually read what Jerome wrote you would know that his opinion of this season changes depending on what the off season accomplishes and what happens next year. If the Rockets win the 'chip next year or are actual contenders then this season was not a failure, but if the Rockets end up being "one piece" away from competing then the growth shown by the Rocket players was for naught.
Les Rings = 2 Cuban Rings = 0 I noticed when Solomon was pulling stats for his article he stopped pulling during the Rocket Champ years - didn't want the facts clouding his point.
Yes, that's exactly what I meant. I meant we could sign Bosh and LeBron and Kobe and go over the tax and everyone has happy time. Read the post before putting words into my mouth, and ditch the snide, condescending tone because it doesn't make you sound smarter. And to you comedians out there, I am not Jerome Solomon. I wouldn't be wasting my time on this website if I was. He's a professional writer for the local newspaper who gets paid to write his opinion, I'm pretty sure he's not interested in what 12 year old Yao worshippers and DaDakota wannabes have to say about the Rockets. oh what do you know? someone with a functional brain frequents the BBS!
ya let's keep using the "we got the Championships" argument while we can, because it looks like our beloved Mavpricks won't be 'chip-less for long while we drown in Les' money hungry ownership. btw, if you know anything about the 94/95 Rockets, you would know that the team was comprised of Dream and a bunch of mediocre at best role players. Not to knock them, I love them to death, but no one has ever won a championship with as little talent as we did. Shaq had Kobe, MJ had the best supporting cast of all time, Magic had kareem. Hakeem? he had an ape**** wing in madmax and a point guard who kept getting murdered by Harper. Then we got a past-his-prime Drexler to win the second one. My point: it had little to do with the management, EVERYTHING to do with a player named Hakeem Olajuwon, who, by the way, we got by tanking the crap out of a season and getting lucky, waaaaay before Les Alexander was the owner.
Heard it this morning, pretty good stuff. John and Lance really let Solomon have it and he did plenty of back tracking. I will say this Solomon made some decent points but I wish he would incorporate them more into his writing instead of having to explain himself later on. Saying that, some of his thoughts were REALLY off base and uninformed crossing over to borderline ridiculous.
We cannot sign a max guy without doing a a sign and trade and shipping out good players in the process. I think the comparison to Dallas is somewhat valid, but they also have done better with thier superstar(s) and the production they got out of them. Les has not gone into the lux tax rather smartly when doing so wouldn't improve the team. He has spent money on buying picks, etc. And didn't Dallas decide it was time to let Nash go for financial reasons?
Not hard to figure out he's (Deliberately? Happily?) talking out of his rear end. Hell, Feign is just down the hall if he needed a pointer on the salary cap. The Rockets spent cash to get Chase, Trezor, and Andersen...and if there were notably better players available obtainable in the same way, there couldn't have been many (DeJuan Blair?). They flipped Tracy into Kevin Martin. With not even 40 seasons in Houston, cracking the bottom 10 isn't that damning. Of course, I don't agree that this year qualifies. It was an entertaining, hard working group - very easy to get behind and support. I was shocked at how much I enjoyed this team, and it isn't hard to think of squads that were worse: 77-78: Should have been a great year, but Kermit punched Rudy in December, and they never recovered (28-54) 82-83, 83-84: Despite Solomon's idiocy, these two years were just garbage and a mess...especially on the heels of the miracle run to the 1981 Finals. 91-92: Underachieving, personal issues, generally a toxic atmosphere around the team. Darkest before the dawn, though. 97-98: Nasty taste in the mouth from the Stockton shot, and bad feelings held over from Barkley's playoff comments directed to Dream and Clyde. Clyde retired midseason because he detested Barkley so much. Dream, like the Rockets, was pretty clearly no longer elite. 99-00: Team an obvious mess after the Pippen experiment bombed. Barkley's career ends with a blown patellar tendon, and Dream doesn't have it anymore. 01-02: Rudy has clearly lost control of the team, injuries plague the team, games are largely unwatchable, another miserable season to witness. 05-06: Not shockingly, Yao and Tracy can't last half the season, and JVG has brought in such limited role players that the team is hapless in their absence. This may be the hardest team to watch night in and night out since the early 80s. Does this season get into the top 10? I can only count 7 miserable seasons, so maybe. But that's also another point against Jerome's columns - the Rockets have been so consistently above average over the years, including Les' tenure, that it's easy to qualify for the bottom 10 if you miss the playoffs. And that's remarkable. 2 years out of 3 since Rudy took over, we've made the playoffs. Since 16 teams out of 30 make the postseason, that qualifies as above average. The Texans? Never been. The Astros make the postseason 1 yr in 5 on average, mediocre or slightly below average for baseball. And they sure aren't on the road to return anytime soon. This franchise does the right thing. Les is a grade A owner. I'm fully behind the team and the direction. I'd be upset if Morey was a desperate GM making foolish short-term trades to make us round one fodder this year. We're very close to being a contender, and one big trade this summer could do it.
