Good evening Clutchfans. I would like to discuss a few premises that I believe are now agreed with by the majority (or at least a very sizeable minority) of people here. I will list them briefly: -A team constructed around Yao Ming will never win a championship. At this point the premise is more of an observational fact than some grand analytical feat, but that was not the case some years ago. -Moneyball is a failed philosophy because it results in a team of underpaid roleplayers who will either have to be let go or resigned at or above their true value before enough "assets" are accumulated to build a championship team. Again, at this point one only needs to observe the Rockets and Kyle Lowry's albatross contract to see how it played out, but people were eating moneyball up a couple years ago. -The Rockets tend to treat their players poorly, and this makes it difficult to attract superstars to a team with a great heritage that resides in one of the nation's largest cities. Again, this is something we all saw play out as even Chris "third fiddle" Bosh spurned us. We're probably better off without him, but in general it's bad that good players don't want to come here. -Carl Landry was a lot more valuable to the team than Kevin Martin is. Landry + a team of roleplayers/scrubs was respectable, whereas we're seeing that K-brick + a team of roleplayers/scrubs is embarrassing. We could be a .500 team this year if not for K-brick's 4th quarter disappearing acts. Anyone remember who was one of the NBA's elite 4th quarter scorers when he played for us? Unless you want to attribute most of last season's successes to Trevor Ariza, give Mandry his due. -Shane Battier has no business being a NBA starter, and has not had any business being an NBA starter as a Rocket other than the first year we had him when he could still knock down 3's at a decent percentage. Now what do these premises have in common? All of them were propositions that I forwarded a long time ago, years ago in most cases, and was referred to as a "troll" for uttering them. People told me I should go watch the Lakers instead just because I gave my honest analysis of where the team was going wrong. Yet now these ideas are the majority views here (or in some cases perhaps just a sizable minority but still widely held). This is my time to say "I told you so." Nearly all of my analysis over the years has been correct. The only mistakes I have made were underpredicting Kevin Martin's field goal percentage by 1.7% (as he did go on to shoot a stellar 41.7% from the field including a blistering 33% from downtown), and thinking that T-mac had more in the tank left than he did (his return showed that he still had skills but unfortunately his body could not sustain over the long term). I hope in the future when I propose an idea you disagree with, you will carefully consider its merits instead of calling me names. Just because you don't have the foresight to agree with me at the time doesn't mean you won't agree with me in the future after what I have predicted comes to pass.
You were called a troll and idiot, because you made idiotic elementary level graphs, had a hard on for McGrady, and still refuse to honor your bet. Honor your bet and GTFO. Thanks.
It's sad. The 2008 playoffs were our year because Mac could still beast with his postseason 27-8-7 and he finally had decent players around him inthe form of scola/landry/brooks, but Ming couldn't hold it together. Now the window is closed on them and they'll retire in disgrace.
You'd think it was Landry alone who was winning games for us. How about Brooks? End of last season, Rockets post-trade were doing as well as they did pre-trade. Trevor was getting triple doubles or near triple-doubles. It's all about balance. They got Martin to fill up the SG spot. With Landry, do you think we would have the production we have seen from Scola? This year, the fault is not with Martin and Scola but with the lack of production from the other players. Even Lebron, Wade and Bosh cannot win games by themselves. How can we expect Martin and Scola to do that? Even DM is saying moneyball does not measure all the intangibles in basketball such as team chemistry. Moneyball is valid; it's just that DM made a mistake in constructing a team that lacked athleticism and defense in the interior. Take away Ariza, add semi-healthy Yao, aging Miller and "nervous" Lee resulted in more defensive problems for us compared to last year. More than anyone anticipated. You can't throw away everything in moneyball just because DM made a mistake.
I never understood how people can use a small sampling of evidence to prove a point while ignoring overwhelming majority of evidence that disprove their point. Don’t people understand that bigger the sample size the more accurate the results…its basic science. I also don’t under how saying a team cannot win a championship with “blank” as its center piece is such an accomplishment… lets forget the fact that winning a championship is extremely difficult in the nba (Half the teams in the NBA have never won), or the fact that in the last 10 years teams centered around Kobe, Wade, Duncan, Pierce+KG, Shaq, Billups, have won NBA championships and thats 7 out of 450 players (1.555 %)…boy you stepped out on a limb by saying a Yao centered team cannot win a championship… And yea Rockets treat their players bad…that’s why free agents don’t come hear…cause your sooooo buddy buddy with nba players…face it there are plenty of teams for star free agents to choose from; if we don’t sign a free agent it means we are just 1 of the 29 teams that didn’t sign him… I mean think about it logically: go to MIAMI in the spot light with Wade, LeBron and Pat Riley or go to Houston…hm…yea we treat out players badly; that’s why they return after we trade them, that’s why they say they want to retire a rockets…yea your above the curve...sigh
Considering the fact that you lost a bet on the "things you were berated for", I'd say no they haven't proven correct. That Martin (or K-Brick as he liked to call him) would shoot under 40% from the field last year. Honor your bet...
Anyone that calls themselves the "Official Clutchfans Statistical Genius" should not be taken seriously BTW didn't you lose a bet?
