Even though the Rockets had a good season and will likely make the playoffs, their progress was greatly overshadowed by the one made by Memphis, who not only made a bigger improvement in wins versus last year, won the season series against us (finishing with a humiliating blowout), but have an actual chance to win the Midwest! This has been discussed in several threads, so I decided to poll the boards' opinion on what made the biggest difference. Sure, Grizzlies have a very deep team, but that makes the biggest difference when somebody goes down, and thankfully the Rockets have not had major injuries this season. So why the big difference? Please vote and comment. To me the last choice, the owner, is the most comprehensive and encompassing. It all comes from the top. Couple of years ago Jerry West was happy to lead a quiet life in retirement after suffering from exhaustion in L.A. Memphis' owner would not give up trying to recruit him. At the end West decides to push him away and names a number so ridiculous that he knows he would not go for it. Except that Heisley agrees to it. First thing that Jerry West does? Signs Earl Watson (??) to a multiyear contract at $1.3M per. Nobody has heard of Watson, so noone would give Watson more than a minimum deal. What that does, though, is sends a message to all players and their agents: the Memphis Grizzlies are ready to spend, come talk to us! Next, despite having a worse record than the Rockets in 2002 Memphis only gets the 4th pick in the draft. No problem for Jerry West and Micheal Heisly. They draft Gooden and then trade him for Mike Miller. Mike Miller is a former rookie of the year and is due a contract extension. Orlando is not prepared to pay him, so they take Gooden who has three more years on his rookie contract. Heisly pays Mike Miller, despite having to pay Bryant Reeves and Micheal Dickerson's contracts until insurance kicks in. NExt, the Grizzlies offer their entire MLE to James Posey. Les Alexander and Carrol Dawson's balk and sign Eric Pisskowski insted, saving a couple of mills a year. (Common misperception is that the Rockets chose Jim Jackson instead. CD let Posey's term sheet expire because he had agreement with Pisskowski. Jim Jackson's deal came much later, when the Jazz agreed to take on Glen Rice's deal in exchange for a first round pick. So what happened was that Alexander saved money twice: first he saved by signing Pisskowski over Posey and then by signing Jackson over Rice) You would think that after such a spending spree Heisly would welcome the relief coming this summer when Wes Person's $7M contract expires. Wrong! Grizzlies trade Person to Portland for Bonzi Wells who has 4 more years on his contract at $8.5M per. What we have at the end is the Grizzlies who play in a small market have the 10th highest payrol in the league and the best GM. The Rockets who play in the fourth largest market in the U.S. have the 19th largest payrol in the league and a joke of a GM. That's where our problems are. You can blame Steve, you can blame Cuttino, you can blame the JVG and the other Nu Yowkerz, it all comes from the top, IMO.
it is not the Posey deal, it is not Francis or Mobley or even the general talent level CD and Rudy made some BAD BAD BAD BAD BAD personnel decisions that prevented them from making the little deals that can cause a 8-10 game swing during a season. The Grizz stole Wells from Portland, they got Posey for the MLE, they already had a couple of nice players in Gasol and Williams - the West just had more flexibility. the Rox have Cato and Mo T's garbage contracts (and acquired Spoon's for Mooche) - they have the Griffin debacle and they wasted (yes I said wasted) that draft pick on Boki With more flexible contracts, a draft pick in last year's draft (which was much deeper than the Ming draft) and personnel that actually show up for practice ("we're talkin' 'bout practice ?!?") maybe they can make some moves last summer - either FAs, trades, or moving up int he draft for one of the top 10 players but years of bad bad bad decisions have killed the Rockets flexibility - we should be probably be thankful that we have Ming and Francis - because they are both better than any one player on the Grizz
If the Grizzlies had JKidd as their PG, that might have been a substantial difference. Even with the bad year Francis is having, I don't see JWill having a more positive impact on team performance. Remember that JWill was the standard of boneheaded play in the NBA before Hubbie came in. Currently SF3 and JWill are about equal as far as PG skills. If you look at their asissts, Jwill averages 6.8 per game, while SF3 6.1 per game. However, Houston averages 33.2 FG per game, while Memphis 36.4, which means that SF3 asissts on 18.4% of the team's FGs, while JW on 18.6%. Not a substantial difference. Of course, Francis is a much better scorer and rebounder. All in all, I think it is hard to argue against the fact that the Rockets top five players are better than any five players the Grizzlies have. It is when we have to go to the Pisskowskis and the Snackbars that we see the biggest dropoff, while Memphis sees virtually no dropoff in their level of play, no matter who is on the floor.
You can say that, however, remember that the Grizzlies are not less burdened with Big Country's deal and Micheal Dickerson's deal. Also remembr that there were two occasions where the Rockets just stuck it to the Grizzlies just because of pure luck. First, SF3 declines to play for Vancouver and comes to play to Houston. Then, in 2002, The Grizzlies with the 3rd worst record get to draft 4th, while Rockets with the 5th worst record get to draft 1st. Yet, they were able to come from under these misfortunes, only because of comittment to invest in the team and make the team better.
Not counting a lucky bounce in the lottery, what is the record of Rocket's management over the last five years. The SF trade was the last positive move. Ok, JJ was a very nice pick up. So let's look at the positives: 1. Traded for SF 2. Drafted YM (lucky bounce) 3. Acquired Jim Jackson Now the negatives: 1. signed MN to a bloated contract (now CW) 2. signed MT to a bloated contract 3. singed KC to a bloated contract 4. let Posey slip away 5. the hideous trade with Utah (an exception never used) 6. drafted BN 7. signed Pike, who now rides the bench Did I forget anything? Raven
actaully Dickerson retired, so while he might get paid, he is not a salary cap fixture for seven years (see Mo, Mooche, and Cato) otherswise you post proves my point - the West has done much more than CD which is why they have a better record than the rox. I only point out that they would love to have SF3 and Yao - to emphasize that point... image how good they would have been with both those guys AND the great GM work West handled.
We lost Eddie Griffin who is a big part of our future before the season even started, which really hurts. Yao is a second year player and very inconsistent in the first part of the season. JVG has issues with our star player and they weren't really buy into his system until late in the season. Team is not very deep so injure play much bigger role than Grizzles. Wait for next season, the Rockets is one player away to be a real championship contender.
I think a team that never had more than 30 wins in its almost a decade of franchise history is going to pile up talents because of the NBA lottery system. Only Yao and Stevie, and an aging JJ(dont count Oakley and Spoon) were top 10 pick in their class, while Griz has a slew of top picks in their prime such as Gasol, Swift,Battier, Miller, JWill,Wrightl. If I were Memphix, I wouldnt be too giddy about the future of their roster. It lacks a an achor on both ends. Esstentially that team is stocked up with abundance of good players but not the great(maybe the exception of Gasol, 2 year with Griz). They are all going to demand fat contracts when the current ones expire. How is West going to manage then. Is Memphis on the verge of being an Power House of more of flashing in-out type like the Suns. The latter is more likely IMHO.
I suspect that Hubie will step aside in after this year or next and West will start consolidating talent (trade two good players for one great one). He will build around Gasol, even though he's softer than tissue paper, he gets good stats when he gets minutes
I agree with Kayman and #5. It is less CD's (25%) fault than Les's (75%). Les has been bad with a lot of deals/drafts, but he did draft KT and acquired JP. We could have had JP (or KT), JJ and maybe another player if Les was willing to spend the money leagues rules allow to keep these known solid players . Les has become a cheap ass and wanted to fatten his wallet. It is hard to improve the teams competitive situation as a GM in such circumstances.
You know kayman, I just love it when you post. Know why? Because logic doesn't apply to you. Have you ever wonder WHY we didn't sign Posey to a ridiculous contract? Well guess, what, it's because we signed MoT, Mooch and Cato to ridiculous contracts and could only get rid of one of them, taking up almost 1/3 of our cap space. Now you want to sign James Posey to another ridiculous contract (especially considering the shrinking cap space), which extends past Yao's rookie contract and Cat's contract. So let me guess, in the future you are going to whine when we didn't sign black player XYZ as well? But to your credit, you are making progress in your posts. This is the first post of yours in a long time in which you didn't say all white players suck, all European/Chinese players are soft, Posey's good and we lost him because our racist cheap white owners or Kobe Bryant isn't guilty because he's black (Note: I am overlooking the Pisskowski comment). That's improvement.
Wait a sec, how is it Les' fault the roster situation stinks? Isn't it CD and Rudy's (now JVG's) job? How exactly do you prove he's cheap? Les spent the money for everybody Rudy wanted. What more do you want? Just in the non playoff years, Rudy wanted Steve, Les got him; Rudy wanted MoT, Les spent his money; Rudy wanted Moochie, Les opened his wallet. I won't even go into the handfuls like Drew, Maloney, Rice, Anderson, etc (and so far I didn't even extend it to the championship runs). This is the first year that Les actually got some relief in his wallet and people are whining he's cheap? Give me a freakin' break.
Ok, regarding the contract situation. I have a theory that a lot of moves made the past offseason and the spoon trade were the preparation to make rooms to sign Yao. I am not a bean counter, so I might be wrong here in terms of the dollar amount. Had we signed Posey with a fat long term contract, how would we be able to sign Yao at Max? You got Stevie and Yao at Max, Mo and Cato locked up at near 10 mil a year. The room is very small after those contracts. As a gm or owner, he gotta be careful about it, especially when Posey wasnt that impressive at all last year as a Rox. Well, on the other side, I do think Posey would've made us better this year.
Thanks Kayman. I could not say it better. At the time of the Posey move I said I prefer to be wrong with Hubie and the Logo than to be right with CD and Co. I would like to add that JVG cannot rely and trust youth like Hubie does; JVG cannot work with a long rotation and Hubie can; JVG went and got old non-athletics to play on his team. Talking about saving money, I would have kept Hawk and Tmo instead of getting myself tied up with Pike and Padgett, etc. If we can see what Swift is doing now, lacing people up with a sweet jumper, I would think the same kind of patience with Tmo would be paying dividends. If anyone in the rocket organization can tell me that they did not know Collier would start coming around like Brad Miller did, they should be FIRED. As I said before this rocket team is less talented that the one we had going into Rudy T's last season despite the loss of EG. Yes this year's team is going to make the playoffs but that team would have been further along and would probably more resemble this year's Grizzlies.
I am not sold on a team anchored by Gasol just yet. He's a great talent, probably one of the top most 4 atheletic centers along with KG, TD and JO. However, he's been pretry much the same for almost 3 season, great stats, but not great team result before this year's key addition of JP and Wells. Unlike Gasol, the scary part of our bedrock is that Yao still has tons of room to improve himself upon. The fututre of this league is with us, we just need to be a little bit patient. I hope Memphix is reading this.
I will grant you that MoT, Cato and Moochie are overpaid. And this is CD's fault, I've b****ed a lot about these three contracts. But you know what, you can't fix one mistake by making another. Now, I'd like you to take a look at the Grizzlies: 1. Bryant Reeves was given a max deal and was paid for two years before the insurance kicked in. 2. Dickerson is still paid $6M/year until the end of the year when insurance kicks in. 3. Lorenzo Wright has had some good games, but is no more worth of his $6.6M contract than MoT is worth of his $7.8M contract. 4. JWill is also slightly overpaid at $6.2M Did all of these red hering deals (mostly made by Stu Jackson) prevent the Grizzlies from signing Posey? No. Because at his current deal Posey is a steal. You may say that he was signed to a ridiculous contract, but all I know is that you are some dude on a message board and the guy who signed him to this "ridiculous" contract is the brightest mind in basketball, while the guy who passed on Posey is the guy who signed Moochie, Cato and MoT's deals and the same guy who drafted Mirsad Turckan, Bryce Drew, Jason Collier, and Bostian Nachbar. Now, you may say Dawson is a r****d, and this is not Alexander's fault. Well, who hired CD? Who fired Steve Peterson? After all, couldn't Alexander bring in Jerry West in Houston? Or any other personnel person who knows a little bit about talent? I also take an issue with you saying that I have labeled all white/Asian players as soft and bad. I challenge you to find a single post where I have said something of this sort. All I have complained about is Alexander reserving the end of the rotation for white scrubs. This is very well documented and we can go over it again if you wish. Obviously, if we could get our hands on a Dirk or a Kirilenko, I would be exctatic, the problem is that such players are hard to find, while the Pisskowskis and the Nachbars are a dime a dozen...
Funny you should question someone's logic. The likelihood not resigning Posey gets us any closer to cap space is slim. We are well over the cap, like the vast majority of teams in the NBA, and this is unlikely to change any time soon NOR was realistically impacted by not matching Posey. Posey's contract would have expired the same years as MoTs or the year before--and that would have been the time to re-evaluate Posey and other long term moves to surrond Yao with role players. Even all those years of those contracts Les has made a lot of money off the Rockets AND freaken taxpayers built his team a new arena. Further, by my take Les freakin lucked into a brilliant player and marketing tool in Yao Ming, and now is just fattening his wallet over making his team the best it can be. Rockets fans and the City deserve better. He should be run out of town if he does any more moves like the ones last offseason. Again, CD 25% of the problem, Les 75%.
