With the exception of Yao - we've pretty much re-made our entire team every offseason and mideseason for the past 4 in a row. Just counting rotation-ish players look at the evolution, new names in bold, departing names in italics : 02/03 (beginning) Yao/Cato/Collier Griffin/Taylor/Thomas Rice/Hawkins/Morris Mobley Francis/Norris 02-03 (end) Yao/Cato Griffin/Taylor Posey,Rice Mobley Francis/Norris 03-04 (beginning) Yao Cato/Taylor/Braggs/Padgett Jackson Mobley/Piatkowski Francis/Norris 03/04 (end) Yao Cato/Taylor/Witherspoon/Padgett/Oakley (his cup of coffee is still warm -ha) Jackson/Piatkowski Mobley Francis/M.Jackson 04-05(beginning) Yao/Mutumbo Howard/Taylor/Witherspoon/Padgett Jackson/Bowen/Nachbar McGrady Ward/Lue 04-05 (end) Yao/Mutumbo Howard/Padgett McGrady/Bowen Wesley/Barry Sura/James 05-06 (beginning) Yao/Mutumbo Howard/Swift McGrady/Bowen Wesley/Anderson Alston/Barry 05-06 (end) Yao/Mutumbo Howard/Hayes McGrady/Bowen Wesley/Bogans Alston/Head Now this is not to suggest that a Cato/Griffin/Juaquin Hawkins/Francis/Mobley starting 5 would have blossomed with 4 years together - but is it just me or does it seem like the Rockets have had way too much turnover to keep track of over the last few years? Maybe I'm just getting old - but doesn't this sort of hurt our chemistry? Granted, lots of it is due to injuries and such - I just thought that we've been playing revolving door for players quite a bit recently.
That's what happen when you don't have draft picks, and your FA pick ups are often too old/injury prone.
The TMac trade decimated the depth of the team. Only way to stay competitve is by signing talent on the cheap, which means old players. You have to replace the old players relatively quickly, hence the turnover. But I really like the direction the roster has been taking. Right now the biggest concern is stocking up on wing players, which is the easiest position to fill imo, whether it be trade, draft, or fagency. We could use an upgrade at pf and pg, but it is by no means a pressing need, and the rox have time to luck out in finding an upgrade on the cheap, and who knows, maybe they already have(the books are still open on Swift and spoony as far as I'm concerned).
Yeah, lots of turn-over, but you have to remember that we've gotten better every year, as well, except for this year. And we would have been better this year if we hadn't had all the injuries. And we could have been even better than that if DA and Swift hadn't been flops. They seemed like good acquisitions at the time, but honestly, always wished they had gone after SAR instead of Swift. Even if it cost us quit a bit, because he would have been a solid player, solid 3 or second-option scorer. Oh well, can't change it now. But back to the point--aside from injuries this year--each of those years have been improvements from the previous.
While I agree with you to a point, I think the "too much turnover" argument only works on a youthful team, which we certainly are not. (although, to CD's credit, we're making strides in that direction) Despite all of our roster changes, we still don't have a single player aside from Yao and McGrady that we want to build a future on. (Luther is the heir apparent, but he desperately needs to break through the rookie wall to solidify his position) Until we bring in a third, and preferably fourth, player to complete the foundation of the team, our role players are going to continue to be a revolving door. This is actually the perfect opportunity to cut our losses and make a serious move to fix our depth problem. If we keep trying to patch our problems with temporary solutions, we'll end up doing what Philly did by squandering away Allen Iverson in his prime. We need to take advantage of T-Mac and Yao while they're still at the top of their game, but to do so we may have to take a couple of steps backward first.
Absolutely, I wish they have traded Wesley by the deadline when other teams were interested in him. If the Rox can't make the playoff due to Wesley, so be it. What's so good of it if Rox makes the playoff this year and burns out at round 1? Let's be honest, this team is not good enough to be in the final. This season is gone, let's build for the future.
That's why I said we need to use the rest of the season to play Lampe, Fitch, Head, Hayes and Bogans alot! Heck, make this the starting lineup! They are all young, and if we can turn one of them into a starter that we can build around along with Yao and Tmac (maybe Rafer), then mission accomplished. Here is what we have: pg - Rafer (for the next 2 to 3 years) sg - ??? sf - Tmac (for the next 5 years) pf - ??? c - Yao (for the next 7 years) We need a young starting calibur talents on the 2 and 4 positions. Howard and Wesley are serviceable, but they are both too old and not good enough for either the short term or the long term. Swift and Bogans are serviceable backups, but not good enough to start. We need to address the 2 and 4 badly this offseason.
No doubt about it. Turnover is affecting our chemistry. It's no coincidence that the three top teams in the league (Pistons, Spurs, and Mavs) have kept most of their team together for a couple of years now. The Mavs after years and years of overhauling the roster after disappointing playoff performances, have stopped making blockbuster deadline deals, and blowing things up in the offseason. And now they are seeing the fruits of their patience (as much as I hate to say so. ). Unfortunately for the Rockets, I don't see how this team is good enough to keep for a couple of years in order to let them gel. Juwan and Wes are old and will only get worse from here on out. Swift, Bogans, Hayes and Head may or may not be good enough rotation players, but I'm not that optomistic about this bunch. Rafer's a decent enough PG, but his 3pt shooting probably isn't going to get much better. He's only slightly below his career average. So there's the problem. This team needs time to gel and maximize their potential. Unfortunately even at their max potential, this team probably isn't good enough to contend. So we could very well have to revamp the roster anyway, thereby resetting our "Chemisty Clock".
I agree that we have too much player turnover. I tend to blame it on JVG because he seems to keep complaining not having the right players. But I don't know if it's all his fault. I feel that we don't have a long term plan after we got TMac. What we kept getting in JVG's first 2 years were old players. I understand that having smart and savvy veterans is important for winning. But these players are all quick fixes. We weren't going to win big with Yao still maturing. We've got to develop a stable core so that when Yao and TMac both hit the peak of their careers, we can contend.
I just tried to list the major rotational players (with the exception of Oakley, just to make fun of him) - if you list the short time-role players who came and left but did play important minutes for stretches (Andre Barret, Rod Strickland, Lonny Baxter, Moochie v. 2.0, ....etc) the list gets even longer.
What turnover? With the exception of the last 2 years, our roster changes are entirely changes to inconsequential minimum players. That happens to every team. Boy, imagine telling that Braggs or a 40+ year old Mark Jackson + an almost equally old Oakley impacts the roster. The only arguably impact change in the early years was losing Posey. The other non - minimum change was a Spoon Moochie trade, pick your poison. Of course, we did end up picking up the tab on both of them. Even in the last two years it wasn't because we were purposefully trading the roster just to trade the roster. The ONLY splash trade was for TMac, which decimated our roster and some positions and we were trying to re-adjust for that. In fact, we are still re-adjusting for that.
