Yeah, the same Hakeem that posts videos on an IPad to give free agents to convince them to come to Houston. Yeah, the same Hakeem who sits courtside next to Les at a good number of home games each year. Yeah what a bad owner, he must have been so terrible to poor Hakeem.
Les is not cheap, but he's not rich either. He's in the middle of the pack. He's not strictly just trying to make money, but he'll strongly consider the profit. Sometimes it may hurt the franchise. Dallas overpaid and overstacked big men last year, and it worked at the end. If We could overpay(even pay a lot of luxury tax like other top teams) an above average center in yao's last playoff run, Mutombo/Yao may not broke down like they did and we are far better off now. That year everyone knew yao just came back from major injury and he's still playing heavy minutes during the regular season. Numerous posters here questioned where's the backup other than Mutombo from day one and there're all kinds of excuses. We all knew it's not impossible if Les overpay a serviceable center to take some pressure off Yao/Mutombo. We should overpay at that time instead of now desperately trying to overpay Paul/Nene, who most likely will not bring us the championship.
I don't see the point in threads like this. Les isn't going to fire himself. So, why bother? One of the few profitable franchises before the new CBA despite flirting with the luxury tax? He'd have several suitors lined up to buy if he wanted to sell.
Hakeem was no saint, he used to have a big ego and a lot of people thought he faked an injury, but in the end the owner paid him, made him happy and that's it.
If affecting an actual real life end result is the goal, there isn't a point to 99% of the threads here.
Oh I agree but I like playing along when I'm bored. That's another reason that Les doesn't want to tank. He'd be driving down the value of his franchise. He'd have to wait until the tanking was over (3-5 years) and the team was back in contender status (2-3 years after you find that stud) before he could think about selling. And then there is that possiblity that the tank doesn't work. So find your favorite animal and hop on.
Let's all pitch in and buy the rockets! If I sell my books, I got like 150 bucks. Enough for rights to Thabeet! Then I'll kidnap hakeem from Jordan and force him to teach the dream shake.
So why are you still posing beside a donkey to promote coffee? Same thing profit. If the team is not doing well, and he is not making profits, he has to sell anyways. What is more, he is getting old.
The problem is he wanted to compete every single year and if he would've been patient, things would've been different. To me that trade for Drexler was not necessary because we just came of a championship year and a lot of player did not like it. Olajuwon probably the only one partly happy because Drexler was his buddy. Thorpe was a work horse, a big reason why we won the championship and we could've used him against the Sonics as opposed to old Barkley. Maxwell going into the stands obviously had to do with it but he was still loyal, despite not getting a contract extension. We could've just waited and see what the team can do, let go of Maxwell at the end of the season and have a good future with Kenny, Elie, Horry, Thorpe & Dream w/ Sam & Herrera off the bench. Instead we got rid of Herrera who was replaced with old ass Kevin Willis and traded Sam & Horry for Barkley. This move was made indeed to win now and you can argue for it that it was the right thing to do but imo it was not. Cassell was already playing like great in his rookie year and replacing Kenny in 95-96. Horry was still playing very well so there was no need. Unfortunately with getting rid of the Thorpe / Herrera duo they needed a new PF. I do not care what other owners do, the truth is that Leslie has always looked for that star player through trade and never had the patience to get a good player through the draft and build around that player. Getting the 2003 first round pick was luck and Yao panning out too. Les took a risk but it was worth it as Yao would bring in a ton of money. How many teams have been succesfull by trading for an all-star as opposed to drafting one ? Not too many and we should know by now that Houston is not a city players want to come. The only reason they would play here is if they have to. I would rather draft a guy who you can make the cornerstore of your franchise and thus will show loyalty as opposed to seeking rental players in Stoudemire, Carmelo, CP3, Gasol or Howard. Scola wants to be here more than anything, but instead we try to get Stoudemire or Gasol for him who both have said they do not want to come here and the first would not sign an extension. What good is that going to do? I know Leslie is not the worst of owners, but do not make him out to be a saint. Just because he spends a million dollars on some draft picks, which is not a lot of money for him, doesn't mean he is not cheap. He is constantly looking to get under the luxury tax and it has hurt the team. Not giving good players contract extensions, only when your hands are forced (offer sheet) he has done it. Think about Deke who was very valuable for the 07-08 winning streak and team making the playoffs and basically not brought back. The only reason he did was because Yao & Tracy kept calling him, otherwise he would've gone to the Celtics. Now why in the world did he not sign him from the beginning as he was a great defender, even for his age, and a back-up center we needed since others were not available or we could not make a deal for ? Looks like money to me. That's the disloyal part I was talking about and I do not like it. Many players have the feeling right now, partly because of Morey, that they are indeed assets and other players around the league know this, they see it and probably talk to each other so who knows what our players are saying. Maybe they are advising other players not to come to Houston, if they haven't figured out for themselves the Rockets organisation is not about loyalty, standing pat on extending contracts and making cost cutting moves and again the Tracy and Adelman sagas.
Les is one of the top 10 owners in this league. He cares about the fan experience, he cares about winning, he enables his FO to make move without undercutting them at every turn. Our problem has been circumstances and a lack of luck. Mentioning him in the same sentence as Drayton is a serious insult.
If he cared about the fans he would know we can sit through a losing season or two so we can get a high pick and work from there. I admit, 09-10 and 10-11 were fun to watch and in both we could've made the playoffs which is good for revenue and the fans but in the end it has done the opposite of what it maybye does in Les' mind: give us hope for the future. Coming closing and being stuck with a low pick every year gets boring quickly and even with RA, my hopes for this season would not have been high.
I agree with y'all that Les would rather have a marginally competitive team for a team that outright sucks. However, there is nothing that proves that he wouldn't spend for a championship caliber team if the opportunity was there. But my argument is that having a flexible, profitable team, is a good thing. If winning (enough) = good attendance/profits. Then losing (enough) = bad attendance/loss Oklahoma Thunder as a model of sucking to become contenders is probably not a good example of how it should be done. I assure you, fans of the Seattle SuperSonics would not agree. Nor the San Diego Rockets. Or the Houston Oilers.
You can suck for Luck in the NFL, but you can only suck for luck in the NBA. There is no guarantee as to how long you have to tank, whether it is 1 year or 10, to get a draft pick or picks that will make this franchise elite.
Touche. But, at least with, say, a Fire Morey thread there's a chance that Alexander is thinking the same thing we are about his performance or non-performance and act accordingly. When looking at himself though, even if he had an epiphany and said, "I'm an idiot and I'm running this franchise into the ground!" he still wouldn't sell. If we wanted to speculate on something that Les might be actually thinking about, we should be talking about the company's financials, the potential gains from a sale, Alexander's personal portfolio, and how he'd like to spend his golden years. Can you imagine a thread called "Donald Sterling: It's Time to Say Goodbye?" Of course, it was time to say goodbye a couple decades ago. But, what's the point; he's not going anywhere and he must know on some level that he sucks as an owner.
That's not exactly his point. Generally people on message boards talk about things that at least can somewhat realistically happen. This is some chance Dwight Howard can come, even if it's a small one. There is some chance the Rockets can tank by trading away their core. There is some chance that TWill can crack the rotation. The odds of these things happening aren't great. But they aren't implausible. There is no chance Les Alexander stop being the owner in the near future short of something totally catastrophic.
That Hakeem needed to grow up, faking an injury to get a new contract was not very professional. Charlie Thomas held him accountable and suspended him, Hakeem didn't like it, and the players union after hearing the evidence refused to appeal. Then Charlie sat down with Dream on a preseason trip to Japan and worked it out man to man, the rest is history. It is not all one sided, sometimes. DD
There is a greater chance of Les selling the Rockets, than their is of the Rockets getting Dwight Howard... :grin: Do you like apples?
