It is clearly coach adelman, the rest of the mentioned moves won't result what it is now without Adelman. image that JVG is still our coach... PT for rookie to develop?
Code: Player Pos Ht Rafer Alston G 6-2 Derek Anderson G 6-5 Jon Barry G 6-4 Lonny Baxter F 6-8 Keith Bogans G-F 6-5 Ryan Bowen F 6-7 Rick Brunson G 6-4 Josh Davis F 6-8 Richie Frahm G 6-5 Stephen Graham G 6-6 Chuck Hayes F 6-6 Luther Head G 6-3 Juwan Howard F 6-9 Maciej Lampe F 6-11 John Lucas G 5-11 Tracy McGrady F 6-8 Yao Ming C 7-6 Dikembe Mutombo C 7-2 Moochie Norris G 6-1 Stromile Swift F 6-9 David Wesley G 6-0 Does anyone on this roster besides T-Mac, Hayes, Howard, Head, and Yao still play in the league? That's pathetic. What a god-awful roster.
I think it's worth mentioning the drafting of Carl Landry in the second round for cash. This move gave us a great contributor in Landry and also set up the bigger trade for Martin and Hill. We gave up nearly nothing and turned it into something huge.
It should be Artest trade, which makes us most near to the champion. however, Scola's trade has the highest return rate as the investment is too small.
Kevin Martin > Louis Scola. VSpan > TMac. Throw in Hill and the Knicks picks and it is pretty clear cut.
The Scola deal is obvious. The TMac trade should be up there too. The 3rd best is harder to decide between the Brooks pick, the Lowry trade, and the Lee trade. For now, I'd go with Lowry. Lee needs some more time to be confirmed. Brooks' is good but it's not as big a steal as Lowry, IMO. BTW, I don't think the Artest trade was so clearcut. It was a good trade in terms of value. But it didn't work out as well as the other deals.
Scola is the obvious choice, but I voted for Artest, because it was his toughness that got us to the second round. It was more attitude than performance, but he got us there. Our players have never played with more toughness.
I'd credit RA for having the rapport with Artest to bring him on board. There was a lot of doubt and skepticism as to whether Artest would behave when we traded for him.
Gotta be Scola. Not only did they pick up a great player for trash, can you imagine if the Spurs had Scola now? The Kevin Martin deal is #2 for me, followed by Artest.
I think Bogans still plays, but yeah, that team was awful. I didn't even recognize Anderson or Davis.
You just excepted out 5 of those players, and most good teams only have 10-11 guys who stay in the league long-term. And since this roster was constructed out of older players because the team was in Win Now mode, it is not at all surprising that many of those guys are either retired or out of the league. Other than the top 2 players on that team, though, this current roster is markedly better.
If you were looking just at efficiency of the trade, I don't think you'll find any trade better than the Scola trade. It was literally a trash for treasure move, it was like you gave a banana peel to some collector and he gave you a million dollars for it. However if you're looking at the biggest beneficial impact to the Rockets, it would have to be the Tmac+Landry for Kmart+goodies trade. It gave us our co-best player in Kmart, a legitimate lottery player in hill, a swap and a pick. If it weren't for the Tmac trade (say had we let Tmac's contract expire), we'd definitely be among the worst teams in the league right now.
Don't forget: With that trade, Morey also maneuvered the team UNDER the luxury tax threshold, saving Les millions of dollars in the process. That deal was so full of WIN on so many levels, it's ridiculous.
Well, I am the minority here. But I still think the Battier trade set up a team culture which continues to brew till now. Scola trade is great. We give up almost nothing and obtained a great PF. But I feel Scola lacks a little bit leadership on this team. This may be because he is a foreigner in the team since I think he is a pretty good leader on Argentena national team. But in term of the interest of the team, I chose the Battier trade.
easy. scola trade. gave up a wanna-be, non-contributor for a full time player in scola, who can man the post against most f/c in the league.
Scola for sure. BUT....Ron Artest DID help get us out of the first round of the playoffs. He was instrumental in that effort, hate him or not.
I voted for the T-Mac trade. While I'm sure the staff knew that Scola was an upgrade from VSpan, I doubt even they anticipated what a grand slam Scola would be. In the T-Mac trade, we just plain outmaneuvered the Knicks and Kings. We took advantage of the circumstances and parlayed assets at the peak of their value into a metric ass-ton of loot: Martin, Hill, the Knicks picks, and under the cap, too?
