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Its too bad Daryl Morey can't speak as candidly about it as McHale can, though I'm sure he'd LOVE to. Its just a different set of expectations for the GM
Just a numbers game. We had 3 point guards under contract and Lin got few looks during training camp. Oh well.
The crappy part about it is that if we had been successful in the Gasol trade early on, we wouldn't have had Dragic. Likely Lin would've out-played Flynn, but we wouldn't have had to cut him regardless. Because of the Gasol trade, we'd have had cap room to sign Nene. In other words, had David Stern not vetoed the trade, our line-up would be: Nene/Hill Gasol/Patterson Parsons/Budinger Lee/Williams/Morris Lowry/Lin The Rockets finally get that superstar deal they've been looking for for years... and the NBA Commissioner vetoes it. Gee, I wonder why Parsons is in the Shooting Starts competition, Budinger is in the dunk contest, and Houston got the 2013 All-Star game? Reparation?
That's why you create space but cutting Flynn. If there was no space then why entertain him by bringing him in...
Daryl has been pretty candid about it, I think.... I give him a lot of credit for being gracious about it and taking responsibility for missing it. To me though, Daryl deserves more praise than 27-28 other GMs -- he actually saw something in Lin as being a capable backup and picked him up with that intention (assuming Dragic was traded). I don't blame the Rockets for cutting Lin ... it's a shame they couldn't move Flynn, but without the Gasol trade, they had no room. I am pissed it's happening for the Knicks, though, given the draft pick debt.
i'll shudder if the legacy of that trade is that we missed out on one of the greatest point guards of this generation.
i'm not a knicks fan but i hate them far less than most on this board for obvious reasons. a relevant knicks team is good for the NBA overall. the city is pretty jacked. i just, as you say, am pissed given the draft pick debt.
I hear ya ... the Knicks won't matter one iota to me starting in late April. Until then though, I don't give a @#$% about the health of the league... I care about my health as a Rockets fan
It's all good for the PR, but these soundbites from McHale and Morey are more spin than unvarnished truth. Was Lin demonstrating he was THIS GOOD at the time? No. But we all noticed him in the preseason. The stone cold truth is, they weren't going to eat a guaranteed contract (stays on the cap, too) in order to roll the dice that Lin might be more than a preseason flash in a pan, especially not with Lowry and Dragic owning the PG rotation. It's not damning in itself, but it's one more brick in the wall for Morey. His moves in the past two years have been a series of backfires.
yup, gotcha. lin is a great story happening to the wrong team. but hell, we had our chance. hard to hate the kid though.
Not sure where the spin is, your "stone cold truth" is pretty much what Morey and McHale said happened.
Lowry, Lee, Parsons, Gasol and Nene That's a really good defensive five. It lacks an elite perimeter scorer but that team would have conference final potential. Sucks that Stern caved and vetoed that trade. I don't believe Stern at all when he speaks on the vetoed trade. He says that the trade never had his approval and he wasn't aware of it. Then why did everyone involved in the trade get the impression it was a done deal? I know this is old news but I wasn't upset when the trade was initially vetoed. But some time removed from it I'm bummed after seeing Parson's emergence as defensive force, Lowry's improvement and how the West feels wide-open.