It seems that the longer we wait, the less likely we are to bring in another FA. While dream is sitting in his 9 million dollar home along with his 80 million dollar bank account bickering over whether he is to get 5 or 7 million this season, all the other key FA are starting to agree to deals with other teams. AD agreed to terms on Thursday, as well as DR with the Spurs. I read this morning that C-Webb is close to terms with the Kings and it seems Marc Jackson is also going to take Seattle's 5 mill a year unless a better team or a better contract comes around. Heck, even the Bulls are making more off season noise with Oakley and E-Rob than the Rockets. If this keeps up the only FA left will be Matt Maloney and Chucky Brown. So Dream do us all a f...ing favor and make up your mind ! ------------------
CD does not look worried to me. So why should we? DrPep concentrate on Dan, Griff Mo-T, and even Colson and Densch and forget about the phantom FA. They are all gone and we still have ours. ------------------
I feel your pain, drpepper, but I gotta agree with the last post. ------------------ Rarely is the question asked: Guns kill squirrels than REDRUM to fools across the nation?
You're starting to piss me off with your lame topics! ...well you're not really pissing me off, but your topics are lame... ------------------ President of the CC.net Realist Club, everyone needs a dose of reality once in a while...
well if we had some free agents commiting then I bet this thread wouldn't exist. but there seems to be some type of hold up.....Some people believe that if we just bring back the usual suspects ,we'll be a contender. I know we go a god pick up in EG, but he won't be a key player at 19. Dream was great and all, but the dude will be 39(some say he's really older, but lied to play at U of H) next year and is still wanting major jack! Lets offer him 5 mill(which is very reasonable) and add a 2 mill incentive if he can play 60 games. We gave him around 30 mill the last two seasons and only played in about half the games. We need to move on with or with out him. If we are gonna keep Taylor, go ahead and start negotiating. We don't need to stop talks with everyone just because Dream is pouting. Heck, we should even bring Nazr in to give dream the motivation he needs. There is no reason we can't sign both. Especially now that SA has become expendable with the draft picks and the emergance of Dan the Man. ------------------
This topic is starting to piss me off. This is the same d*mn thread as the other 50 that are on this board. Lets stop the madness. I would much rather see 50 threads on how Damn Lanky going to be an all-star this year because he scored over 20 points in two consecutive minor I mean summer league games. ------------------
For these UNPROVENS you would trash a legend? You complain Hakeem is old, but he isn't looking for a long term deal. You complain he is hurt, but wasn't Marc Jackson hurt last year? DRobs bad back didn't stop the Spurs from coughin up the dough. His injuries were not serious or season ending. You say he's not worth the money? Jackson played half a good year...IN HIS WHOLE CAREER. For this you would trash a legend? Nazr played a THIRD of a good season...IN HIS WHOLE CAREER. And both Jackson and Nazr will want long deals, even though they could both be the next Kelvin Ike Austin Travis Knight Dwayne Schitznus Joe Klein Jon Koncak Cato the Second. There is NO proven history with these players, and yet you would dredge up decades old accusations to smear Hakeem and make them look favorable? Todd MacCulloch just got $30 million bucks. Is he better than Hakeem? Hakeem was rated higher than Nazr or Jackson in any ranking I could find. There are not many good big men around in case you haven't noticed. They are sorta hard to come by. Oh, I mean PROVEN big men. And I wonder about YOU, Mr. Dr. Big Shot Pepper. If you had the opportunity to test the free agent market to see if you could make more than your current $3.85 per hour sacking groceries by moving from Krogers to Randall's, would you do it? Or would you say, "Gee I've been working my way up from $3.35 for 10 years now, and boy Kroger's sure has treated me well!" If you did test the market would you want people to dredge up the fact that you really got a GED instead of finishing high school? Or that you really married your FIRST cousin? Would you think it is relevant or fair to discussions about your salary as a "Retail Packaging Technician?" And as I wrote in the other thread, you are ASSUMING that you know what is going on behind the scenes when you DON'T. You know what they say about that: When you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of you and....well, you. ------------------
There's a world of difference between a guy that's made millions upon millions of dollars taking a pay cut to a lowly 4.5 million a year compared to a normal everyday worker being asked to take a cut in pay. That's a weak analogy... ------------------ So you run and you run to catch up with the sun but it's sinking, Racing around to come up behind you again. The sun is the same in a relative way but you're older, Shorter of breath and one day closer to death.
BGM, The principle is EXACTLY the same. Why shouldn't we all get what the market will bare for our labor? Just because most people don't make millions of bucks doesn't mean Hakeem should settle for less than what his labor is worth. And why SHOULDN'T he? Sure he doesn't have to worry about an eviction notice or getting the phone cut off, but does that mean he shouldn't try to accumulate money for his family and their future generations, his charities, and his off the court businesses? PLUS, the rest of us keep on earning until we retire or die. Basketball players have a limited time to make their money before they get out. ------------------
Hayes street is right. If friggin Todd McCullough with his worthless, unathletic STIFF self can command $6 M a year for 5 years, no Rockets fan in their right mind can complain about Hakeem wanting at the very least McCullough type of money (not for a long-term deal obviously). And it is ridiculous to attack a legend's character based purely on gossip and speculation. "Heck, we should even bring Nazr in to give dream the motivation he needs" Nazr Mohammed is a total joke. He put up some misleading numbers mostly in GARBAGE TIME playing for a horrible Atlanta team where someone had to do something. He is slow-footed, has no post game, and is a weak defender. The man flat out sucks. This is your idea for a replacement for Olajuwon? Please! Mohammed would not even beat out Cato for a spot in the starting lineup. He's worthless. ------------------ Get Cato out of there...
HayesStreet I agree with everything you say 1000%. Its deplorable to want a Marc Jackson or Nazr Mohammed over an Hakeem, those quys have done nothing in their NBA careers outside of the fact that both played for two of the worst teams in the league. They call this way of thinking as "the grass is always greener on the otherside". ------------------
First, there is a difference between standard of living (housing, clothing, food, property) and quality of life (do I have a nice green lawn I can walk barefoot through, do I have nice warm weather). If quality of the weather was the only thing he was thinking about he probably wouldn't care about the cash. Most of us, even rich ones, can't afford to live like that. Second, Hakeem's position is that he should get fair market value for his skills. He never said anything about quality of life, except to say that he'd like to stay (but not at ANY cost financially to himself IF the market will bear a significant difference somewhere else). Strange as it may seem to those of us NOT making millions of dollars, these guys do not sleep on mattresses stuffed with thousand dollar bills. Hakeem more than likely has a large cash outflow (as do most of us) for taxes (income and property and capital gains etc.), staff (both for personal - trainers, housekeepers, gardeners, painters, tutors for children, security etc, and professional - agents, PR, staff at his clothing company, accountants, lawyers, etc.), investments (most of which probably tie up extremely large - by our standards - amounts of cash, and I'm sure a lot of other outflowing expenses. Thus he is not trying to get $10 million instead of $5 million because he really doesn't need it but he'd like to jerk the Rockets around. People who invest and control millions of dollars, especially when their window is closing to collect that money on an annual basis have to make complex starategies to insure that they can meet their obligations AFTER their days on the dole are over. Could Steinbrenner keep handing out money if he didn't get his $100 million every year from TV rights? No. You have to realize that some people pay more in taxes for their property than we make in 10 years. This is pure conjecture on your part. There is no factual basis to say one way or the other what this does to the Rockets flexibility because we DO NOT KNOW the current state of negotiations with other FAs. Name one FA we've lost because Hakeem wants fair market value. ONE? I didn't think so. Because you are paid well does not mean fans should feel free to demean someone's character, especially when he has: done a lot of charity in the city of Houston, lifted the embarassing mantle of "Choke City" off of our fair city, increased the overall net worth of the franchise with his exciting championship caliber play and the two championship banners he has raised - for which he DESERVED to be "well paid" as you put it. I think your memory is either short or convienently on the skids. Any NBA franchise will do what it feels is best for itself first, just as any company that any of us work for will do (notice layoffs/"downsizing"/restructuring, corporate realignment). Why should we expect Hakeem to do differently? I don't expect you to take less than what you can get on the fair market for your labor. Do we expect Bill Gates or Warren Buffett or even Jimmy Buffett to do this? No. The PRINCIPLE I support is that you should get what your blood, sweat, and labor are worth, whether you make $5 an hour, $100k a year, or $10 million a year, the PRINCIPLE is exactly the same. To do that is NOT BEING GREEDY, it is the way capitalism works (labor = capital, capital = standard of living). Once his playing days are over (VERY SHORTLY) he will have lost the ability to make that kind of money at his chosen profession. Don't you think a doctor would charge more if he could only work till he was 40? Or anyone else? As I said before, I don't expect the Rockets to give Hakeem one cent more than they feel they can afford, and you don't even have to want him back, BUT those of you who paint him as (Greedy)(Selfish)(Untrustworthy - a liar I believe was said)(holding up a FA process that would otherwise be smooth and peachy) have either no KNOWN FACTS to back this up, or are being ridiculously slanderous to a fine human being who is doing what is natural to him and the rest of the people on the planet - asking to get paid what he deserves as a quality professional in a specialized field with few (maybe ten on the planet) peers at his skill level. Whew! ------------------
The guy lives in a palace, he's loved by people all of the world, he gets gifts from kings in other countries. He's been making serious cash the last 5 years or so. He can demand market value all he wants to, my point is there's a world of difference between a guy that relies on each and every paycheck so he can support himself and a guy that lives in a palace having to choose between 4.5 million and 10 million. If this one or two year contract with a difference of 5 million will really impact his future after he retires, then no matter how much he makes it won't matter. He's only got 2 years left in him, the most he'll make is maybe 10-15 million for those 2 years, do you seriously think that 1 contract will affect his future post-retirement? Dude can go for market value, but you can't compare him to Joe Schmo that being asked to take a paycut. Joe relies on that paycheck, I'm sure Dream could last a pretty long time without a paycheck. Plus don't NBA retirees receive cash from the league after x amount of years? What I think will happen w/o anything to back it up is I think Dream will go to a playoff team (yes I know we're on the verge of becoming a playoff team, but I'm talking about a proven playoff team) for the 4.5 exception and he'll try to make one last run for a championship. It doesn't really matter to me what he does, just as long as he does it so people will stop freaking out about it. I agreed with you Hayes in your previous post up until the whole Millionaire vs Minimum Wage comparison. Dream can get his, but I don't think the money matters to him as much as respect and playing for a team that's already been in the playoffs the last few years. ------------------ President of the CC.net Realist Club, everyone needs a dose of reality once in a while...
