Someone needs to start a website devoted to the firing of "King" Solomon. It's not fair to the sports fans of this city and its an insult to the Houston Chronicle and journalism as a profession. There are thousands of other deserving sports writers that could do a better job. Seriously, someone please design a website, please, please
Naw, I was just replying to Durvasa's idea of a debate between Morey and Solomon and how Morey would own Solomon the same way Biden owned Palin in the vice presidential debates.
After reading this thread, I have come to the conclusion that PointForward mus be Solomon lol, good one
I'm so glad the Rockets don't buy into Solomon's way of thinking. It would be really rough to watch the Astros and Rockets go in absolutely no direction whatsoever.
I dont agree with the sampson comparison, but there are some valid arguments in terms of les being like drayton. I think and said 2 or 3 yrs ago that yao mings bacvkup shouldve been on this roster. The guy didnt have to be special, just a 7fter who can block some shots,rebounds, dunk the ball around the hoop when he's close. When mbenga was sitting there making 800k a couple of yrs ago, i thought the rockets shouldve pounced and gave him 4 yrs at about 2m per for his services. Yao's backup is going to play and play alot. This offseason with it known yao was out and the rockets using the injury exception for trevor, they still had the mle left. I thought with his age and his old team being way over the cap, signing fasenko from utah as a long term backup would have been good. The rockets could have developed young players and made the playoffs, but the rode the shortest center in the league train. The money from making the playoffs balances out the 1m they would get from being over the tax by a million or so. Overral, they did what they can do, i just dont see how adding a part time player is going to thrust the rockets into the upper echelon when theyve never been that when he was at his best.
The clown is just looking for attention. No one would read his stuff on the Chron if he wasn't saying outrageous stuff.
I'm getting a good laugh at all of the rocketsheep bleet out their "hatred" of Solomon simply because he argues that the Rockets are mediocre and that their fans tolerate the mediocrity. Judging from all of the experts around here who have set themselves up as the definitive authority on all things Rockets, he appears to have hit some sort of nerve. While I happen to think Solomon too easily dismisses the fact that this team was supposed to miss the playoffs once the blueprint for its very being went up in smoke when Yao and MeMac disappeared, I have to agree with him that all of this celebration over their finishing 42-40 is unwarranted. Yes, they survived a season where the 2 players who were supposed to make up the foundation for a contending team were removed from the the equation and yes, they played hard tough and hung in there for the most part and it was inspirational on many levels. But this is the NBA and it's results that matter and feel-good story or not, the Rockets simply didn't get the job done. I don't think that big trade 5 years ago to get MeMac (the one that ripped apart the team in the process) was made so they could stagger to a 42-40 finish (and (yet) another trip to the NBA lotto) 5 years later. I believe the objective was to win a championship and not take another step sideways. The sad fact is that they are no closer today that they were 5 or 10 years ago and that is the reality that no amount of name calling or insults can erase. By my count this now makes 6 times since 1999 that they have wound up in NBA lotto land. I only hope that this time (with Morey) they actually wind up with something to show for it. One of the prime reasons they are where they are today is because of the horrible job done in years past by management in evaluating and securing talent (only one player from 5 lotto appearances and he's a big question mark going forward). And before I get delunged with "Morey is a genius" and "Trust Morey", I have to point out that it was Morey who tossed away a nice young player and a draft pick for that a-hole Artest only to end up with zip to show for it this year. It was exactly the type of move I watched CD make time and time again while many of the folks here cheered him on. Because of that, I no longer have much faith in Morey to remake this team because of the daunting challenge that lies ahead but I remain optimistic that he may actually surprise me this off season in a good way. Time will tell.
Because that would be like staging Ali in his prime against an amateur fighter. Solomon would be knocked senseless within the first minute.
Pretty much. The more Solomon tries to defend himself, the more he reveals his ignorance. So does PointForward.
So basically, Rocket's biggest mistake in the last 7 years was trading for McGrady (Morey had nothing to do with this). Was anyone NOT excited about McGrady coming to Houston at the time of the trade? Was anyone not hopeful about Yao + McGrady when they seemed to click? Does anyone have an idea of how to trade Yao and/or McGrady in the last 3-4 years that would have been feasible (i.e. not Yao + McGrady for Lebron ). If you go with the assumption that Morey could not trade Yao/McGrady over the last 3-4 years, then it is hard to see how he could have done much better under the circumstances.
Please point to the celebration. I'll wait. Also, for those saying Solomon must like the Astros, he did say he is a bigger fan of Ed Wade then most people. When pressed to name Houston's best GM, he said Morey probably gets the nod because he hasn't made AS MANY mistakes as the others.
Honestly, this **** is like saying the KG trade was stupid for the Celtics because they're not in a good situation now. The Artest trade was a no-brainer, and we needed him throughout last season. It didn't work out because McGrady showed his mental weakness when the chips were down and Yao got injured, but when you have that much money devoted to them, you have to gamble they'll be decent players. And frankly, given how big of a monkey the failure to get past the first round was for us, it was well worth it.
I hate this argument. It is the dumbest ever. Thorpe was an 1992 All-Star. Robert Horry has seven rings and is well-known for being Big Shot Rob. Some think he should have some HOF recognition. Sam Cassell was an All-Star in 2004 and had over 10,000 points for his career. Kenny Smith was the freakin Jet. Vernon Maxwell held the NBA's record for most 3-pointers made in a season from 1991-1993 and was a great defender - even against MJ. Elie and the rest were the role players. Oh, and we had a guy named Drexler too...
I enjoy how Solomon looks at 42-40 and just based things on that. No one ever bothered discussing the things that transpired within the team outside of Yao and that Tracy guy.... 1) Aaron Brooks developed into an integral part of the offense. He became a guy that you can count on, along with Lowry, to keep the ball running on missed shots and long rebounds. This will save Yao's mileage a long way if the offense can move without him on opportunity points. 2) Luis Scola's development into a full time PF. He's developed the ability to score on the port more efficiently than last year. 3) Kevin Martin in a Rockets uniform would be a welcomed addition to a SG spot with EFFICIENT scoring. What's even better, is that the ball still moves around and the offense does not grow stagnant watching the SG dribble the air out of the ball while waiting for the PF to find a way to get open. 4) Team chemistry and development. I could see this being a situation similar to the Bulls during those 1.7 off years that Jordan took. While Yao is not Jordan, the similarities lies in how much the team improved when given time. The Rockets allowed the upper role players to develop into borderline all-stars, while young players put their stamps on the team rotation. This, and the idea that we have a lottery pick and two possibly great picks along the way if NY fails in their pursuit to become at least a mediocre team. Now, for PointForward's post. (I did not go back to chk his name, so I went by memory.) There is a salary cap in basketball. Cuban spending money is a testament of drafts and pitching his own players in sign and trades. They performed well in previous drafts with the likes of Dirk, Josh Howard, Devin Harris, and Marquis Daniels. Once you're over that soft cap, you can only resign your OWN players for huge contracts. The Rockets, on the other hand, were left with little to no salary assets when Morey took over. Does anyone remember a team of Yao, Tracy McGrady, and a cast of Ryan Bowen, Bobby Sura, David Wesley, Scott Padgett, Clarence Weatherspoon, Juwon Howard, Jon Barry, etc? The only way to spend money and keep money was to somehow sign one of these guys to a huge (yet short) contract and.. trade it as an expiring contract?? Does that make any sense to anyone? What it came down to, is that the team has to draft well, and work on maximizing your assets. Morey was brought in and drafted the likes of Brooks/ Landry/ Budinger/ etc. He utilized the MLEs, etc to bring in players that have a net worth compared to their salaries. Just because a team might trade a player, does not mean they'll trade their $15 mil a year all star for your 13 mil a year bench player + a draft pick. People want things in return. As it stands, the team's trying to build a championship contender. What's the point of spending all this money to go as far as you can this year, and not develop the players because they're waiting their turn? As someone pointed out, that's basically the Astros's game plan. Applying bandages until it completely breaks out and you have 7-8 players that can't do anything in terms of play efficiency or trade value. How did you think the Rockets got there? They kept trying to apply bandages to savor the last years of Hakeem. The only difference, was that they were still trying to contend and it made sense at the time, but this is the aftermath of those years. Barkley, Pippen, bad contracts and bad picks = losing the value of the contracts of your players. Unless you want to spend money during your bad years to the likes of Cato, Mo Taylor, Glen Rice, etc., I'd suggest the team play it smart and do what's necessary to get the most out of your money and build a team with valuable contracts. Or we can forget "Moneyball" and play "Isiah-ball" and gather more bad contracts.
