ESPN: The Case for Howard in Houston

[K-Low_4_Prez]

Originally Posted by coachbadlee Wow, 7 years of suckage! This is my worst fear for the Rockets when Dwight runs off.

We sucked because we didn't have a farm system at all!

[Kruze10]

Originally Posted by K-Low_4_Prez We sucked because we didn't have a farm system at all!

Well, they did until 06. They decided to patch holes with overpaid veterans like Carlos Lee, Ty Wiggins, and freaking Tejada. Sure they were solid players but nothing great. In 07 they didn't sign any draftees either so that was incredibly stupid.... don't get me started on the Astros.

[OremLK]

Originally Posted by Kruze10 Well, they did until 06. They decided to patch holes with overpaid veterans like Carlos Lee, Ty Wiggins, and freaking Tejada. Sure they were solid players but nothing great. In 07 they didn't sign any draftees either so that was incredibly stupid.... don't get me started on the Astros.

We had a good farm system under Hunsicker. It gradually dried up until it hit rock bottom around the time Ed Wade was hired. He improved the farm system some and a lot of the credit for the Astros currently having solid farm actually does go to Wade. New GM Luhnow had a fantastic first draft too.

Any this is a big time digression. Baseball is a lot different from basketball. It's slower moving in every way. A couple awesome drafts in the NBA can have you back in the thick of things within a few years. Having a couple awesome drafts in baseball still takes 5 years to pay off.

[Mr.Rocket85]

Good post. Great logic.

[K-Low_4_Prez]

Originally Posted by OremLK We had a good farm system under Hunsicker. It gradually dried up until it hit rock bottom around the time Ed Wade was hired. He improved the farm system some and a lot of the credit for the Astros currently having solid farm actually does go to Wade. New GM Luhnow had a fantastic first draft too. Any this is a big time digression. Baseball is a lot different from basketball. It's slower moving in every way. A couple awesome drafts in the NBA can have you back in the thick of things within a few years. Having a couple awesome drafts in baseball still takes 5 years to pay off.

Yeah unless you are the Nationals and you luck into Two Phenoms!! Grr good thing Mark Appel ot whatever his last name Is went back to college so we could draft him next year! But this ain't a Astros forum so that's about all I got to say.

[OremLK]

Originally Posted by K-Low_4_Prez Yeah unless you are the Nationals and you luck into Two Phenoms!! Grr good thing Mark Appel ot whatever his last name Is went back to college so we could draft him next year! But this ain't a Astros forum so that's about all I got to say.

Nationals are actually a longer slower story than people think though. Getting Harper and Strasburg certainly helped get them over the last hump, but they already had lots of other good young players coming up. Ryan Zimmerman, Jordan Zimmermann (lol), Danny Espinosa, Ian Desmond, etc.

[ShiniKashi]

Hey this is the GARM, not the Astros forum...

[OremLK]

Originally Posted by ShiniKashi Hey this is the GARM, not the Astros forum...

Yeah yeah yeah but aren't you sick of talking about Linsanity/Dwightmare

[JMAD21]

As long as its a reasonable deal (no lamb or parsons) then nothing bad can come from getting Dwight. At 1st I wanted nothing to do with a Dwight trade, but that was when I thought we were getting a top 5 pick and didn't think that was worth trading. But now, especially after getting Lin, I think there is a real shot that he would stay long term. And even if he did leave, we could do a S&T for either Bynum or Lopez/Marshon.

[rolyat93]

Originally Posted by DreamShook Micheal Wilbon too.

Dan Le Betard's show is pretty funny.

[rocketjunkie]

Originally Posted by davidkconover Second good article ESPN has cranked out about the ROX today. Please lock if already posted. http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/pos...ard-in-houston The case for Howard in Houston By J.A. Adande One of my first college journalism professors, who always used green pens to correct our assignments, would have these Dwight Howard reports looking like a rainforest by the time he finished with them. There’s been speculation about Howard’s next destination since before Christmas and we’re well past the Fourth of July with no one able to provide definitive answers to the essential journalistic questions, the Five W’s of Who, What, Where, When and Why. I’ll take on that last one -- Why -- at least as it pertains to the Houston Rockets, the most curious of all of Howard’s suitors. He’s never expressed a desire to play there, yet general manager Daryl Morey is relentlessly chasing Howard. Others around the league wonder about the fervent pursuit, which has already seen the Rockets use the amnesty provision on Luis Scola as a means to clear salary-cap space, all so the Rockets can accommodate the Orlando Magic’s wish to shed weighty contracts in addition to Howard. It doesn’t seem to matter that a strictly two-team trade would leave the Rockets in the exact same situation as the Magic: a non-championship team stuck with bad contracts and a superstar who doesn’t want to stay around. So why bother? As one person familiar with the Rockets’ thinking put it, no matter how small their chances of keeping Howard might be, that percentage is still higher than their chance of getting a player of Howard’s caliber -- a true franchise player who has come within three games of a championship -- through the draft lottery. History is against the salvation-through-the-draft model. Only six No. 1 overall draft picks have won a championship and a Most Valuable Player award while playing for the team that drafted them. So that’s why the Rockets are still in this, even as they trudge uphill and against the winds of logic. Why would Howard stick in Houston? Well, part of the Rockets’ plan is to clear enough salary-cap space to go after another major free agent next summer, and provide him the second superstar he’d need to pursue a championship. They’ll have the “home-court advantage” when he becomes a free agent, with the ability to guarantee him an additional year and approximately $25 million more than anyone else, as the Brooklyn Nets just did with Deron Williams. Remember, by opting in for the final year of his old contract that was negotiated by former agent Aaron Goodwin, Howard kept his new agent, Dan Fegan, from receiving any salary commission from him this season. There’s lost money to be made up, so wouldn’t that provide incentive for Fegan to get Howard to sign the most lucrative possible contract -- the Rockets’ -- next year? Second would be the Jeremy Lin factor. If the Knicks don’t match Houston’s contract offer and Lin becomes a Rocket, Houston would resume its role as Asia’s NBA team. The Rockets already established business relationships with Chinese companies who bought courtside banner ads while Yao Ming was with the team, so they’re perfectly positioned to market Lin -- and Howard -- in Asia. Howard wants a global brand, and he’s already made efforts to establish his presence in China. Playing with Lin would help that cause. Chinese television scrambled to add Knicks games to the schedule after the Linsanity craze last season. Imagine how many Rockets games they could broadcast knowing his schedule months in advance. Howard should consult Tracy McGrady, whose jersey was among the top four sellers in China from 2006 to 2009 while he played alongside Yao. T-Mac’s No. 1 Rockets jersey outsold LeBron James and even Yao himself. All of this doesn’t mean this trade will happen. Heck, there’s still a chance NO Howard trade happens and he goes through the season with the Magic. But at least there are a couple of reasons the Rockets would take the chance and why Howard might actually reward them for it.

This is my conclusion as well. If we get Lin, Howard will come and stay. China represents his biggest endorsement possibility if NY and maybe LA are closed off, esp if Lin is here. The only problem is the Knicks will probably match just to piss off the rockets and decrease the chances of him coming here. That is why Lin is worth the contract - as a player he is not, but as a player and off the. Kurt he definitely is, and as a player and off the court and as an inducement to Howard staying he is even more worth it.

And coachbadlee, I understand why you want a rebuild. The young ones are exciting (esp right now when they're not up against veterans). But you make yourself look foolish by saying first there's no chance he's coming and then there's no chance he's staying. There's clearly a very good chance of the first, and at least a decent chance (to increase if we get Lin) of the second. The five cities that offer him markets will be closed if he is traded to the rockets. If you had a proverbial Gun to your head - would you rather go to Dallas, Atlanta or Cleveland and make $80m or stay in Houston and make $105m? Remember the other five teams he would prefer cannot sign him bc they are OVER THE CAP. They can only trade for him and if he is traded to the rockets the rockets would say no. The rockets have done their calculations. Even if they tank they have 40 plus percent chance of a number 1-2 pick in the draft. then you have to multiple that by the percent chance that player is even close to Howard. They understand that those odds are less than the odds of getting and keeping Howard. And the beauty is if they miss out, Morey finally has his excuse to rebuild in earnest because Les won't be able to force him to go for mediocre anymore. So we'll be off the mediocrity track no matter what.

Finally for those who say the rockets would become Orlando west, the big difference is no matter how much you don't like morey, his ability to find and draft talent is far superior than Otis smith, who paid $122m for rashard Lewis and paid for the rotting corpse of arenas and overpaid for Vince carter, richardson and turkeyglue among others. If Howard resigns here morey would have five years to put the right pieces around Dwight, which is a skill he clearly has. Also, those contracts have run more than halfway through so we have. Ore flexibility than Orlando does.

[vinsensual]

Originally Posted by ShiniKashi Hey this is the GARM, not the Astros forum...

Listed in order of most to least in this thread:
Exclamation points > Astros talk > Rockets talk.

[bloodwings19]

Originally Posted by coachbadlee Beltran got us to the world series then left after that. We haven't even sniffed playoffs since. The same will happen with Howard.

Beltran and D.Howard are two totally different scenarios. If I remembered correctly, Beltran was traded in the middle of the season, with Dwight we will be trading him before the start of the season and importantly, before the trading deadline. With Beltran, Astros rolled the dice after the trading deadline to re-sign, now with Dwight we will have at least till March trading deadline to get it done. I'm pretty sure that if Dwight does not sign a contract with the Rockets, we will be shipping him by the trading deadline unless Rockets are blowing the league away in wins. Rockets will not let player(s) do what Dwight is doing, controlling the Magic.

[groovemachine]

Who knew Carlos Beltran was the key to understanding the Dwight Howard enigma. Fascinating.

[MONON]

Originally Posted by coachbadlee No case is a good one for Howard coming to Houston. You can spin all kind of ways and it would still be a terrible idea for Houston.

I can't believe you read Adande's article & said that. Maybe you should change your moniker to coachbadcomprehension.

[rocketman84]

Espn is starting to see the light....

[OremLK]

Haha. Pingalore on Orlando radio saying Dwight is going to go to the Lakers. What a dumb*ss. Apparently he said it's where the league wants Howard to go.

[rocketfan83]

Good article. There's not going to be a lot of destination cities who have cap room next summer take your chances. Hopefully they get Lin, trade for Dwight and bag 1 more decent player that should be a top 5 team in the west at least..

And Carlos Beltran was here like 3 months he owed us nothing. Neither will Dwight but the difference is the rockets can offer the most money.

The Astros sucking for so long has nothing to do with Beltran he was a semi disappointment in New York. It was bad ownership and terrible GM things the Rockets do not have right now....

[jscmedia]

Lamb and Lin
I Would be all in
Dribble pop score

[ROXTXIA]

Originally Posted by Disciple of RP The (slow-pitch) softball pitcher of sports interviewers. Seems nice, though.

Better than STEPHEN A. "HE SHOULD PLAY IN NEW YAWK' SMITH, but Smith has toned it down a bit.