[Reality Check]The State of the Franchise

Hey Clutchfans...after yet another loss, 5 losses out of 5 games and no wins...quite frankly im depressed about this team. I'm not gonna bump old threads or whatever to prove i was right all along and whatever blah blah blah..but after looking at this team lose game after game...I can't help but have to make a serious reality check about the franchise that we all grew up to support.

Before I start:::::::: to the resident geniuses and PhD professors in Coolness and Wittyism of the board..I know you are the most flyest stylistic coolest people in the world posting the funnyest replies the world has ever seen in .."TL, DR, Cool story bro, you're an idiot, blah blah blah..." Hey hey I can only dream of ever being so cool and coming up with scholarly replies like that. Don't worry, keep them coming...it only helps to bump the thread more and more. oh and Thanks for the free labor..

To those that are not so cool and are interested...hear me out.

WHAT THE FRANCHISE IS FACING RIGHT NOW

Before when some fans of other teams would tell me.."oh Houston is just another playoff feeder team...they only exist to keep the league running and playoff brackets functioning...they are the same year after year with no direction and stuck in the middle of nowhere.." Now before I would COMPLETELY disgard those comments and label them as rubbish as I believed we always had the potential to go all the and the only thing blocking us from doing that was HEALTH. I thought we are legit contenders and with a full rotation healthy we are champions for sure.

But now? Not so much.

Put it simply, we are the Charlotte Bobcats/Milwaukee Bucks of West...nowhere good enough to be anything more than an 7th or 8th seed but nowhere near bad enough to get anything more than a fringe 13th or 14th pick. role players galore and aplenty but they all suck when you need them to step up. translation: no future.

look at it this way...we are celebrating and rejoicing over simple acquisitions like budinger/ish smith (with homer favoritism members needing their eyes and brains checked asap [i dont wanna drag names out of the box but we all know exactly who they are] .....look people, IT SOUNDS LIKE HES A BIG DEAL BUT HE REALLY IS NOTHING TOO NOTABLE. I LOVED AND LOVED THE BUDINGER ACQUISITION OVER AND OVER...but for him to be a potential starter and get big minutes on a team with such high expectations??? laughable x10000. Budinger is a GREAT player if he was to be a spark off the bench playing 20 mins a game or so...but right now, HE SUX for the role we require him to step up into. Starter? Maybe for the Lottomatica Bologna.

Look, I LOVE MOREY TO BITS and LOVED EVERY SINGLE ONE OF HIS TRADES AND DRAFTS(apart from a few which I will explain here-------)...FROM BROOKS TO LANDRY TO ARIZA...they were brilliant outside-the-square acquisitions and they turned out fantastic and seduced all the fans including me. I mean like, WHOA...This guy is really something special! .

However, hes made some inexcusable irreversible mistakes like BATTIER FOR GAY/SEFOLOSHA/ROY AND ARIZA FOR LEE...AND THOSE TRADES ARE having a serious impact on the team and its future.

RIGHT NOW, we NEED AND mostly expect Yao Ming to be playing at an allstar level again and lead this team to the finals. but u know what? if Morey was any good he wouldnt NEED Yao Ming to do anything more than just being an Andrew Bogut or a Mehmet Okur. Just look at the Lakers...their all-star level center Andrew Bynum is not even playing and they are dominating the league left and right...Morey has gotten us some huge deals like the much-loved Martin trade which I absolutely adore...but hes also screwed up in a few crucial vital places which is costing us right now in the worst way possible. You can get a Battier through free agency but you aint gonna get a Rudy Gay or anything close to it.

PUt it this way, if he was David Kahn..at least David Kahn can get his team a top 3 pick every year right??? Maybe out of 10 drafts of picking in the top 5, David Kahn can at least get one legit star blindfolded right??? Until then, they will get their annual shot at Harrison Barnes and John Wall and Perry Jones and Blake Griffin...u know a blind mice can bump into those once in a while if they have a team as bad and sucking as the twolves right now. This year the sucker picked yet another bust in Wesley Johnson, and gave away Al Jefferson for a 2nd round pick, but you know what? Hes gonna get a big slice of the Harrison Barnes/Kyrie Irving sweepstakes. Morey? He could try for Donatas Motiejunas if hes lucky.

But Morey? Hes not good enough but hes ALSO NOT BAD ENOUGH. Hes making us into the Charlotte Bobcats in a way. His opportunistic appointment of Rick Adelman was fantastic. But on the other side, it is leading the team to be stuck in no mans land with an awesome coach that gets the maximum every single ounce of production from his players to ensure no talent is wasted and no discipline is ever leaked through...We will always don a winning record and get a playoff spot mostly. and TROUBLE IS? WE BARELY HAVE ANY LEGIT TALENT TO DO ANYTHING MEANINGFUL AND NO IMMEDIATE WAY TO IMPROVE. especially in the west. and we will never get a top 10 pick in the draft. and we will never have any capspace room either.

If Mark Cuban was our owner, I can say we can reload year after year and get better. But we have Les and hes not gonna trade for Chandler when he knows we have Haywood.

Non of our players are really legit all-star level players. I'm the biggest fan of Yao Ming in the world (trust me on this...I have 5 of his posters in my bedroom [not naked thanks ] and I own all of his jerseys dating back to his Shanghai days which I bought last time I went to China in 2004.]...but lets get back on topic...Yao Ming is not an all-star level in terms of production anymore and he isn't going to get much better. Even if he returns to his former great self, his age means he will slowly decline and his domination won't be the same again. Scola is playing out of his mind right now, but is he an all-star? Is he getting any younger or better? How is the team doing with Scola being the top-dog? Battier living up to his reputation? Martin is legit, but what did T-Mac win in Orlando again? Brooks is also legit, but Tony Parker needed the best PF of all time to get anywhere.

And the thing is we have little room to improve with no salary cap room and Les not willing to go much above the luxury tax. Our players have pretty much reached their ceilings and have zero upside. (Hill/Patterson excluded). Aaron Brooks isnt going to get better. Martin isnt going to get better. Courtney Lee isn't going to play more than 25 mins per game for his career.

Its also mind-blowing how we went on a salary-shedding spree admist the middle of a championship contending run. Lets face it, the Ariza trade was a pure salary dump. I punched a wall the day the trade went down and I was pissed off about it for weeks after the trade and still am now. Lee is nothing special and it was just pure PR machine running on super high when Morey said they've been coveting Lee for years. You really think Lee is that much better than Jermaine Taylor/Von Wafer to require giving up a starter? Small Forward was once our strongest position. Now Small Forward is a glaring hole with no immediate solutions in sight.

My point is, if you have a legit foundation, player would flourish. Just look at Dahntay Jones and the Nuggets, Courtney Lee and the Magic, Arron Afflalo of the Nuggets, James Posey of the Celtics. Right now, Budinger/Hill/Lee etc are not going to do much to help the team win if they are starting at C, SF, SG etc etc on a team like this. And if they are starters alongside Anthony? Howard? Rose?

WHAT THE TEAM WILL BE LIKE THIS SEASON


Aaron is probably gone for the next month. And Lowry is day-to-day. Ish starting will ensure we lose most of our games but once Aaron comes back we'll win again. Morey is not short-sighted enough to make a trade to address this.

Martin is gonna miss his 25 games. Scola is gonna get tired half way through the season after battling it out in the world FIBA champs. Battier will get better. Martin will get batter and be an all-star. Hill will help the teams heaps and heaps more than he is right now. Miller will adjust. Budinger will light up the scoreboard. But he'll also get lit up too so he can't play more than 25 mins per game.

We are losing now, but we'll win our share soon enough. We're are going to make the playoffs and probably go on a 22 win winning streak or something. Gonna get that 7th or 8th seed. We can't get any higher unless Yao plays regular minutes. In the playoffs if we play well we'll reach the 2nd round and then lose to the Lakers or the Spurs... I dunno.

POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS

1: WE NEED A TRADE FOR THAT ALPHA DOG. Carmelo. Iguodala. Josh Smith. Gerald Wallace. Danny Granger. Joe Johnson. Without them, Aaron Brooks will have to be our number 1 option. And we all know what happened last year.

Go all in on that superstar. I don't care if we have to give up Lee/Budinger/Hill/Hayes/Battier/first round picks/or even Scola. I know if we swap Scola for Josh Smith, Josh Smith will blossom into a Webber passing/blocking/defensive monster kind of power forward next to Yao.

2: TANK. If we continue like this we are going to miss the playoffs. The west is super tough this year and Clippers/Warriors/Hornets/Grizzlies are legit playoff contenders. We'll get a top 10 pick and can continue to develop talent and rest Yao. Trading off Battier and Hayes for future considerations will ensure we are even worse than we are right now.

3: LET YAO PLAY MORE MINUTES. This will ensure that we win and get a top 5 playoff spot. But again, is he going to get injured again?

4: MAKE YAO INTO A ROLE PLAYER. This will mean we will go back to our uptempo offense and disregard Yao and concentrate onhis defensive abilities and rebounding and shotblocking. The team has Martin and Scola and Brooks back later on hopefully. Which alone means we'll get into the playoffs.

5: TRADE VETERANS FOR YOUNG PLAYERS WITH BREAKOUT POTENTIAL. We can use Battier and Hayes etc, who still have some value around the league, and trade them to a contending team needing that extra veteran. For example, Battier and Hayes to Atlanta for Marvin Williams could be a great trade. Marvin is still young and with the right system he could blossom. Battier for JR Smith..JR still has upside and Adelman could be good for him. Hayes for Martell Webster could be another one.

Jermaine O'Neal was a no-name before he got to Indiana Pacers. Tracy McGrady was a star before he became the best player in the league upon arriving in Orlando Magic.

What do YOU think? Whats happening with the team? Do we need a change? A trade? Or are we fine as we are now.

 

I saw that trade. But I feel Brooks is untouchable on this team. He is the only chance we have of winning against the Lakers/Heat.

 

I think we already got the answer.

 

You want another first-round bounce?

Winning games is meaningless if all it means is another first round bounce. Hence why I said we're the Bobcats/Bucks of the West. I've already stated in my post that we will make the playoffs this year even if no changes occur. However, you are satisfied with this?

 

I'd LOVE to talk about the Chanlder trade. But do we have a Haywood? You still think we would have gone for Chandler if we had Brendon Haywood? The difference is right there. Morey/Les would not have gone for Chandler if we already had a legit center. But Cuban did. You don't see Cuban doing Ariza-type salary dumps do you?