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[Chron] Rockets going after Howard AND Paul

Discussion in 'Houston Rockets: Game Action & Roster Moves' started by The Cat, Jun 9, 2013.

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Jharden13 Member

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betterhomesbytj said: ↑

Josh Smith will NOT get the MAX Anywhere!
Click to expand...

He might

#441 Jharden13, Jun 11, 2013

sammy Contributing Member

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KiLLiN said: ↑

Wow amazing article on a great owner!
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<iframe width="420" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/3_CF3tALIuI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

#442 sammy, Jun 11, 2013
BasketballReasons Contributing Member

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Just send him this

#443 BasketballReasons, Jun 11, 2013
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Great article! Side note: that quote of Francis is really telling of his personality :grin:

#444 OTMax, Jun 11, 2013
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in theory, getting Howard and Paul is ludicrous. I (like others) have a very strange feeling that is exactly what we are about to see. I predict that D12 signs early in the process and Paul states his desire to be signed and traded to Houston.

#445 Francis3422, Jun 11, 2013
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Francis3422 said: ↑

in theory, getting Howard and Paul is ludicrous. I (like others) have a very strange feeling that is exactly what we are about to see. I predict that D12 signs early in the process and Paul states his desire to be signed and traded to Houston.
Click to expand...

Our best chances are if we can convince the two after July 1st and then have them push their teams in a united front come July 10. Also start lining up deals for Asik and Lin and TRob as a fall back and credible threat to outright signing both. As unfavorable as it would be for us, I think one of the two would then cave and do a SnT. So if it happens, I imagine it will be almost simultaneous.

#446 pwnyxpress, Jun 11, 2013
harden man Member

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lol....chris paul not coming to Houston!

#447 harden man, Jun 11, 2013

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J.R. said: ↑

[ESPN the Magazine] Is signing Dwight Howard the next bold move for Houston Rockets owner Leslie Alexander?

ON A SUNNY DAY in late May, Leslie Alexander, the Rockets' billionaire owner, sits in the living room of his towering wheel-and-spoke-shaped $18.3 million mansion in Southampton, N.Y. The sweeping space overlooks the Atlantic Ocean, but it is spare, with just a couple of idiosyncratic touches: a large photo of Marilyn Monroe ("I dated her," he jokes) and a small sculpture of a cat, fashioned out of auto parts, that he found in a French village.

Alexander looks out at the waves crashing against the sand, just beyond his capacious deck and inground pool. What more could a man want? A month shy of his 70th birthday, Alexander, who was last estimated by Forbes to be worth $1.2 billion in 2006, doesn't need much. But for Houston, the team he's owned for 20 years and that hasn't won a title since the back-to-backs when he bought the franchise in July 1993, there is at least one person he covets. Neither Alexander nor anyone on his basketball staff would dare say the name for fear of a tampering fine from the league, but his first name rhymes with "might," and his last name starts with H, ends with D and includes "war" in the middle. (Despite their apparent carefulness, the Rockets did end up receiving a small fine for what the Houston Chronicle reported was a series of stories produced by the team's website that mentioned certain free agents.)

That is why on June 30, the day the billionaire hits his next decade, he doesn't have a lavish event planned at his tony estate. Instead, he'll be having dinner with his Rockets management team. Conveniently, they'll be in Los Angeles, and when the clock strikes midnight on the East Coast, unrestricted free agents across the NBA will be allowed to start negotiating with clubs. If any maximum-contract free agents happen to be cruising through Hollywood at 9 p.m. Pacific time, Alexander won't mind if they stop by for some cake.

It's no secret that the Rockets, along with the Mavs, are the whisper-circuit front-runners for the privilege of paying Dwight Howard the maximum of $87.6 million over the next four years. In Houston, the team has been carefully planning for this moment since at least last season: remaking the roster, plotting payroll cuts, letting players plant seeds this offseason. But the one thing the normally reclusive owner has rarely done is put himself out there. Most players, and most of his fellow owners, simply know him as well as he'll let them. Through two championships and four Hall of Famers (Hakeem Olajuwon, Clyde Drexler, Charles Barkley and Scottie Pippen), he's never had to sell himself. Ultimately, though, he understands that contracts like the megadeal Howard is seeking are between an owner and a player, which means he will personally have to close anything the Rockets proffer.

"I don't remember the last free agent we had who was a megastar," Alexander says. His cadence is quick and his accent -- "better" shades toward "bettuh" -- remains rooted in West Orange, N.J., where he was raised the son of an insurance broker and a housewife, and NYU, where he graduated in 1965. He points out that in his early days as owner, sought-after stars recruited themselves: "We just got them."

That's because he hit the ground running as few team buyers ever have. By age 50, Alexander had built a fortune managing money -- from Wall Street trader to investment company owner, picking up a law degree at Western State (now Thomas Jefferson) through night classes along the way -- and when he decided he wanted to own a team, David Stern pointed him toward Houston.

The Rockets had gone 55-27 in 1992-93, and their franchise player, Olajuwon, was only 30. But the region was suffering from a severe oil and gas bust, and Charlie Thomas, who owned a string of Houston car dealerships, sold the club to Alexander for a bottom-of-recession price of $85 million, with just $20 million cash up front. In Alexander's first year, the Rockets beat the Knicks, his favorite team when he was young, in the NBA Finals. The following season, they repeated against the Magic, giving Alexander rings in his first two seasons.

Houston's success made the Rockets a go-to destination for All-Star veterans trying to win in the shadow of Michael Jordan. Alexander swung trades for Drexler in '95 and Barkley in '96, and acquired Pippen as part of a sign and trade in '99. "They were trying to come to us," he says. "They wanted to play together. There was no courtship, really."

When that edition ran out of gas, Alexander targeted younger stars, trading for Steve Francis nearly two months after Francis had gone to Vancouver in the 1999 draft. Three years later, he selected Yao Ming, making Yao the first overall pick and putting Houston far ahead of the curve in tapping vast markets of Asian fans. In 2004 he dealt Francis for Tracy McGrady, who wanted out of Orlando. He got lucky with Yao, but as Alexander puts it, "Once they don't want to play where they are, we really target them."

Initially, he enjoyed the camaraderie he had with a roster of mature, thoughtful players and  liked hanging with Rudy Tomjanovich, who coached the Rockets from '91 to 2003. But with an influx of early entrants and high school phenoms over the past decade, Alexander has faded from the locker room. "With younger players, it's a much more difficult process," he says. "I tried making a locker room speech once, and when I was done, Stevie Francis said, 'Can I borrow your plane?' and cracked up."

Still, the Rockets have had just three losing seasons since Alexander bought them, and after half a dozen years of haggling with the local American Hockey League team, the city and voters, a new arena, the Toyota Center, opened in 2003. The team generated $26.6 million in profits last year, making it worth $568 million (nearly seven times what Alexander paid), according to Forbes. Together with the Astros and Comcast, the Rockets launched their own regional sports network, which promises to be even more lucrative  than the 10-year, $600 million cable deal it had with Fox.

That is to say, Alexander pursues his goals with a passion and finds straightforward ways to achieve them. For instance, he cares about animals -- his yellow Lab, Joy, is a rescue dog -- so he called around, asking where the biggest need was and built a sanctuary in Middleburg, Va., for older and abused horses. He wanted to make wine -- "great wine, not just wine" -- so he bought 22 acres on Long Island, hired David Abreu, one of the country's top viticulturists, and started producing chardonnays and cabernets in 2001. A friend in real estate told Alexander that a Gramercy Park penthouse coming on the market would be a great value, so last year he bought it for $42 million, a record for a downtown New York residence.

What Alexander has yet to do is bring another NBA title to Houston. In 2006 he hired stats wunderkind Daryl Morey away from the Celtics, naming him GM a year later. It's true that for a few seasons after the peak of the Yao-McGrady era, Morey proved more adept at assembling spare parts and clearing cap space than developing or acquiring stars. Houston missed the playoffs three straight years as well.

But Alexander remained patient while fans and local media grew restless. He has the practical confidence of a man whose life experiments have worked out; he forms a long-term plan and doesn't waver.

"My memory of Les will forever be seeing him in his office, overlooking the practice court, watching the financial markets move on multiple computer screens," says Shane Battier, a Rocket from 2006 to 2011. "He obviously understands the value of data and information."

In the NBA, that means understanding the value of stars. Last July Alexander and Morey made a bold move by signing point guard Jeremy Lin away from the Knicks. Four days before the start of the 2012-13 season, the Rockets brokered a deal with the Thunder for shooting guard James Harden, picking the pocket of a team in a difficult situation, similar to the acquisitions of Francis and McGrady.

"I went to Harden on the team plane and said, 'I know there's a lot of pressure on you,'" says Alexander, who admits to having the kind of affection for Harden that he held for his first group of stars. "He's 23 years old. I told him when I was 23, I was making $80 a week. He was shocked."

Alexander has rarely let emotions get in the way of smart business moves, and Houston is fully prepared to discard a batch of contracts to fit a prime free agent like Howard under next season's $58.5 million salary cap.

The catch is that the man who can buy just about anything will need more than money to seal the deal that could make the Rockets champions again.

Asked specifically what he'll do differently this summer to recruit the free agents he wants, Alexander replies, "I think there's enough of a story here, you know what I mean?"

Will Dwight?

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Holy smokes. Lex lives in an 18 million dollar mansion. That's almost as much as the wayne manor .
"I think there's enough of a story here, you know what I mean?"
uh oh, the commissar is going to jump on this one again.

#448 conquistador#11, Jun 11, 2013
onreego Member

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conquistador#11 said: ↑

Holy smokes. Lex lives in an 18 million dollar mansion. That's almost as much as the wayne manor .
"I think there's enough of a story here, you know what I mean?"
uh oh, the commissar is going to jump on this one again.
Click to expand...

It's his way of saying bring on the luxury tax

#449 onreego, Jun 11, 2013
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The one thing Chris Paul has done really well is keep anyone and everyone from knowing what he wants to do.

No one outside his inner circle has a clue whatsoever of what he's thinking.

Anyone taking odds on him right now is an idiot, it's quite literally chucking darts at a board.

#450 Aleron, Jun 11, 2013
Last edited: Jun 11, 2013
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http://instagram.com/p/abxGNxAYzi

A little cryptic. Why does Dwight like this?

#451 Fair Dinkum, Jun 11, 2013
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Fair Dinkum said: ↑

http://instagram.com/p/abxGNxAYzi

A little cryptic. Why does Dwight like this?
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Because he's Houston bound.

#452 RedDynasty, Jun 11, 2013
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RedDynasty said: ↑

Because he's Houston bound.
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Agreed. I think it implies he's certainly not happy in LA.

I think he's playing games which I don't like.

#453 Fair Dinkum, Jun 11, 2013

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Fair Dinkum said: ↑

Agreed. I think it implies he's certainly not happy in LA.

I think he's playing games which I don't like.
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There will be people who say "It's likely out of context, it probably is unrelated!"
But the quote is too perfect for his current basketball situation.

#454 RedDynasty, Jun 11, 2013
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Fair Dinkum said: ↑

Thanks for the transcript J.R.!

You're plan doesn't work. We are currently about $4.4m short of offering Dwight the max ($20.5m).

After you S&T Asik+Lin+TRob (20.4) for Dwight, you will be short by about 2.8m to sign Chris Paul to the max ($18.7m)

You need to sign Dwight outright first and use the 150% rule to S&T for Chris Paul or give away Asik and Lin and Jones/D-Mo elsewhere to create the cap room again to sign CP3 outright.
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is it easier to create a $4.4m cap space to sign Dwight outright or create a $2.8m cap space to sign CP3 after we landed Howard easier?
package Jones+white for a future pick would do it. i can even see DH12 and CP3 each take a $1.4M pay cut to play together.

Clippers don't need Asik and Lin when they have DJ & Bledsoe, but Lakers would like a package of Asik+Lin+TRob.

#455 Hard Rock, Jun 11, 2013
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Shaq: Dwight Howard is too nice

[Audio]

#456 J.R., Jun 11, 2013
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Hard Rock said: ↑

is it easier to create a $4.4m cap space to sign Dwight outright or create a $2.8m cap space to sign CP3 after we landed Howard easier?
package Jones+white for a future pick would do it. i can even see DH12 and CP3 each take a $1.4M pay cut to play together.

Clippers don't need Asik and Lin when they have DJ & Bledsoe, but Lakers would like a package of Asik+Lin+TRob.
Click to expand...

I'm hoping it's sign Dwight then use the 150% rule in a S&T for Paul.

#457 Fullcourt, Jun 11, 2013
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just reading the comments section made me laugh so hard...

gmoney888: D12 u have not accomplished anything yet stay with this organization and become a legend because so far you're a slightly above average center
Click to expand...

#458 Morlock O, Jun 12, 2013

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Morlock O said: ↑

just reading the comments section made me laugh so hard...
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Does anyone speak r****d? (not morlock, his quote) What is he saying

#459 Aleron, Jun 12, 2013
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Fair Dinkum said: ↑

http://instagram.com/p/abxGNxAYzi

A little cryptic. Why does Dwight like this?
Click to expand...

In basic terms, what it means is, "if you don't accept me for who i am, you can **** off"

What it means to Dwight, i don't know, maybe he's tired of being told he's not as good as ***, not as professional as ***, never going to be as good as ***

#460 Aleron, Jun 12, 2013

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