Not a very impressive list of transactions. When your biggest offseason acquisitions are guys like Ronnie Brewer and Omri Casspi, chances are you aren't going anywhere. Which is exactly what happened. I expect a greater haul of role players this offseason.
This has to be one of the most unintelligent posts I have ever read on this site. Kudos on that, I guess. I don't think people like you understand just how valuable Asik/Lin's contracts will be this year. Especially in February when it's possible that teams are having a fire sale (Maybe a superstar will be up for grabs!) as they always do and want ~30 million off their books (the value of Lin/Asik contracts). And that'll be during the midst of the Rockets (hopefully) championship push after Howard/Harden have been together for nearly two years and competent role players are acquired during this upcoming off-season. Crazy thoughts. It's amazing what thinking long-term and not being short-sighted reveals.
That obviously includes the assumption that McHale isn't a "strong coach," and I would be inclined to agree with you. He's obviously effective. The record since he took over speaks for itself, but is he getting the most out of the talent he has? Does he give far too much free reign on the court to key players, and does he tend to back away from giving them hell when they depart from the game plan in a big way? Does he manage minutes as well as he could? Aside from the starters, is he sporatic about who he plays? Do his substitutions make the best use of the talent we have on the bench? Did the departure of his top assistant to coach the University of Houston Cougars during the stretch run to the playoffs and the playoffs themselves, not only expose a weakness in the defensive coaching of those that remained, but expose a mistake by Morey in letting him leave when he did? If Kelvin Sampson's contract prevented Morey from keeping him through the end of the season and the playoffs, wasn't that on Morey? All fair questions, along with more questions I'm sure we could think of, given a moment. In other words, Kevin McHale is an effective coach. The won/loss record is admirable, but as effective as he has been in that regard, is he effective? It's a fair question. My thoughts about McHale as coach of the Rockets (and I was very much against both firing Adelman, and hiring McHale, which well and truly freaked me out) have been like a roller coaster ride. What seemed like a steady diet of highs and lows. Stretches where we seemed to be world beaters, and then stretches when we would inexplicably reach depths of hapless mediocrity. A bench player might have a marvelous game, and then not be seen for days. Another would seem ineffective and inconsistent, at least to this observer, yet McHale would keep trotting him out there. All in my humble opinion, of course. So again, has Kevin McHale, seemingly effective at winning during the regular season, really been effective? And assuming Morey and Les retain his services for next season, the burden for that decision, and its outcome, will rest squarely on the shoulders of Daryl Morey.
Let me put it this way. What was the biggest gaping hole in our lineup last offseason? PF What's the biggest gaping hole going into the playoffs? PF Morey had all off season and a whole regular season to upgrade PF but chose not to. Defensively the gap between Asik and Dwight is minimum but the gap between Jones and WC playoff PF's is as huge as Grand Canyon. By not making any upgrade at PF is a Morey's blunder. If people did not think it was a blunder, then it's a waste of a year in Dwight's career; (not a knock on a second-year Jones) we had no chance with Jones as our starting PF in the post season. So which one is it? I agree that Asik was huge against LMA. Whose fault was it that we had all season to develop on court chemistry between Asik and Dwight or TT but decided to abandon it after all but 9 games? Now the playoff came around, all of a sudden, Twin Tower sighting! They couldv'e easily chosen to play TT sparingly throughout the season but also decided not to. Are there any professionals in our FO or coaching staff who are experienced enough to know it takes more than 9 games to develop chemistry between two good players? From the way this post season turned out, I guess not.
For those not getting the OP's point: Morey failed to bring better role players to support our superstars. The Freak has had these concerns throughout the season. I totally agree with him. If we don't get Morey's third star next season, and the roster stays essentially the same, there will be lot of pissed fans.
So let me get this straight. Morey turned a team with old roleplayers around into one of the youngest teams in the league with two legit stars and a couple of young but really good role players. And what you are critizicing is, he didn`t trade Asik for junk? Asik is a great backup 5, Asik is great insurance for D12 and Asiks contract ends the summer of big FAs. Those are all reasons to keep him. But we are paying him more, than what he brings to us, so that`s why we should try to trade him. But a trade only makes sense, if we at least get compareable value back. We tried, no team offered something acceptable. You really want a GM that panicks and just takes the best offer? Sure Morey chose felixibility over winning now - because there was no way he could "finish" this team this season. We just got our second star, this team needs time to gel. We have Asik and Lin, two players that cost us more than what they are giving us, we have young PFs that are just now starting to feel comfortable on the court. This is not a finished product. Basically what you are saying is: it is not enough to turn a franchise going nowhere into a franchise with 2 legit stars, all their draft picks and a bright future - no, you say in 2 years he should have turned that franchise into a championship contender. I believe no team did what Morey did before, and definetly no team did what you were asking for before. And don`t start with Miami, they had a legit star and massive capspace - and they`ve got the best player on the planet. And it still took them an extra year to win the title.
I agree that we should have moved Asik this summer, and perhaps Morey's asking price was too high. But I don't think holding onto Asik was the end of the world. With Dwight a year removed from back surgery, Asik was good insurance and potentially 20 solid minutes a night. Perhaps Morey underestimated how much of a b**** Asik would be about the whole thing. But there were other ways to address out PF deficiency. Trading Asik didn't necessarily equal, Aldridge antidote. I think cutting James Anderson was a mistake. I think trading Aaron Brooks (our best 3-pt shooter by the numbers at the time) was a mistake. And if Morey should have traded anyone, it should have been some sort of package of DMo and Lin. I see the McHale thing both ways. There are definitely better options out there and I don't think he makes good in-game adjustments. But I also think he's done a decent job with an ever-changing roster of super young players and he probably deserves one more year with this group. But it's hard to be mad at a guy who digs up a near allstar in the 2nd round and locks him up for the minimum for several years. A guy who lands the biggest free agent in recent memory. A guy who stole an allstar from OKC. A guy who helped build the best farm system in the nba. A guy who keeps finding diamonds on minimum deals like Beverly. Great GM. Not perfect, but probably the best GM the city has had ...in any sport. We're probably just one more piece away.
