Let me make sure I understand some of you complainers correctly. Are you saying it is the Rockets fault that Lowry had the illness and Dragic looked like an all-star PG in his place? What, are the Rockets suppose to limit Dragic to 15mpg and play scrub PGs 30mpg to keep Lowry happy?
I hate to say it, but we all kind of knew this was going to happen when the lady referee incident occurred. I believe there were a couple of "Good bye Lowry" posts.
He had 3 bad games where he went 0-whatever. The first one was his first game back (0-3). The 2nd one was against New Orleans (0-5), and the third one was against Golden State (0-3)... after which he didn't play anymore thanks to a sports hernia. You take his first game (of course he's going to be rusty) and his last game (played 7 minutes and it was obvious he was hurt) away, he shot 37% from the field and 34% from 3. You take all of those 0-fer games away, and he shot 41% from the field and 40% from 3. Pretty damn good considering he was coming off a month long absence and wasn't in shape.
I've been in denial about the whole dragic vs lowry situation. After hearing lowry's words it really sunk in that only one will be in rockets red next year. I love both of these guys. They are our two best players in my book. They bring it every night.
Lowry played like ass after the infection. I'm not holding that against him, but at no point after he came back did he deserve to start over Dragic, who played magnificently. It isn't about what Lowry's done to warrant being traded. He's been great. But if moving him can improve the team then that's warrant enough.
Dragic creates more problems for opposing defenses. If salaries were not a consideration I would pick Dragic.
Coach made it Clear with the minutes he wants Martin and Lowry gone. I agree, but I don't think Lee is consistent enough on offense to be the full time starting 2.
People are blowing the coaching thing way out of proportion. They were INJURED. Both of them. My brother was a college pitcher and had the same shoulder injury that Martin had and it ended up sending him into early retirement from the sport at 21. I dont think Martin's injury had anything to do with McHale. Same with Lowry, unless McHale went and stole some exotic fungai from a petri dish at the UH chemistry lab and put it into Lowry's drink. Their decrease in minutes didnt have squat to do with McHale.
When you openly and publicly refer to your players as assets on countless occasions and, by extension, imply how they're all expendable, don't be surprised if those same "assets" turn right around and do the same thing when they're unhappy with their situation. Everybody knows this is a business, but they don't need to be constantly reminded of that and have it shoved in their faces all the time. It creates unnecessary tension, which results in situations like this where a player is less inclined to try and handle this matter internally and more prone to going public with his desire to be moved, which ruins his trade value.
http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=218910 this is some of what was being discussed within the organization. the source was legit, fwiw.
I'm not saying he deserved to start after his infection. Of course he should come off the bench... his legs were weak and he was out of shape. And I understand where you're coming from on the 2nd part. Like I said, it seems obvious that keeping Dragic and trading Lowry for something will help the team... but, in my opinion, I don't think Dragic is ever going to live up to what he did as the starter for most of the end of the season. Teams are going key in on him, and it's going to hurt late in games (just like it did at the end of the season). If there's anything we've learned over the past couple of seasons, it's that adding more "assets" to this train of "assets" isn't helping anybody. I think it would be better, in the long run, to show Lowry that he's going to be the team's PG for the future. You may be losing Dragic for nothing, but that's a risk I'm willing to take (personally). That is just my opinion, and I know people are going to disagree with it. That's just how I feel about it.
Every NBA team has players that don't play as much as they want and are not happy about it. It's a fact of life when you have 15 guys on a roster and teams only play 8-9 guys in the rotation. This is not unique to the Rockets. Where it is more of pronounced with this team is that Morey has decided to fill all of the roster spots with players who have the ability to be rotation players (or at least the potential to do so, in the case of the younger guys) instead of having the Ryan Bowen & Rick Brunson types who know that they are lucky to be on a roster and getting maybe 10 mpg for the non-rotation spots. I'm sure Rick Brunson would have made less noise about his minutes than Brooks, Lowry or Terrence Williams. It may make for better headlines on the Houston Chronicle, but is it really a good strategy? One benefit of having the depth and suffering through some of the disgruntled-ness is that the team is in a better position to pull the kind of trades they tried with Gasol and Howard while still retaining enough talent around their new acquisition to compete. Worst come to worst, they can at least turn existing talent into future picks while remaining competitive (what they did with Brooks and Battier).
Lowry is a competitor,but he is being unprofessional about the situation. Dragic may leave, leaving us with a disgruntled and unfit Lowry. I am disappointed with his behavior.
