It's somewhat of a double edged sword. As an owner, Les's job is to sell his team to fans. He wants to make money by keeping ticket sales up. At the same time the team's ultimate goal is to win a championship. The ultimate goal is to obviously accomplish both, but unfortunately it can seem nearly impossible to accomplish both. As we all know, not every team is capable of winning a championship. There are two main methods of pursuing a championship. Lose, lose, lose in hopes of capturing cheap talent via the NBA Draft or to stay competitive. There is allure to just giving up on a season in the hopes of having a better future and securing a big talent. However, there is no guarantees! Losing is a huge gamble! When you commit to being horrible you may be stuck there for decades!! Sometimes the gamble of tanking pays off, but it rarely does. Even if you get the first pick in the draft you can't guarantee that your player is going to be the best in that draft. Look at Michael Olowokandi (1998) or Andrea Bargnani. Meanwhile there are other players in 1998 that end up being more talented later on like Dirk Nowitzki (#9) and Paul Pierce (#10), or even Brad Miller who went undrafted. In 2006 Rajon Rondo was arguably the best player in the draft and he went #21! Hell the "best player of all time" didn't even go #1 in 1984 (I love Hakeem!). The all time career assists and steals leader went #16! Even if a player appears to be a sure thing, health is not a guarantee. The careers of Greg Oden, Ralph Sampson, and Yao Ming are classic examples! The Rockets are wanting to sell seats and merchandise by putting the best team possible out on the court. Although this time can be frustrating for fans and improvement seem to be far and few between, this is the best way (IMO)! If our team just falls and over dies. If they don't even try to win, wouldn't that be a lot more embarrassing than a team that just simply needs a talent overhaul? Even though we are seemingly stuck with "mediocre" talent and we are not improving that much, there are plenty of other teams that just learn to make the most of where they are at. Another team that has been continuing to slowly rebuild their team like we have is the Indiana Pacers. As of today they are ranked the 4th best team in the East! What is their team comprised of? SF- Danny Granger (17th pick NBA Draft) 2011 stats: 14.7 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 1.6 spg, 1 bpg Appears to be having a slow start to the season, but has proven that he is a major talent. He averaged 26 ppg one year! C- Roy Hibbert (17th pick) 2011 stats: 15 ppg, 9.8 rpg, 1.36 bpg, 55% FG He's been slowly developing into one of the best centers in the league. If he continues to develop he is going to be an All Star PF- Tyler Hansbrough (13th pick) 2011 stats: 12.2 ppg, 6.2 rpg, 1.18 spg Hansbrough has what appears to be mediocre stats, but he is tough as nails and hustles his tail off! PF- David West (18th pick via free agency) 2011 stats: 11.2 ppg, 6.7 rpg Comparatively he is having a down year, but the five years prior he averaged 19.15 ppg and 8 rpg. Very solid player! SG- Paul George (10th pick) 2011 stats: 10.8 ppg, 1.1 spg, 2.7 apg, 4.6 rpg That's pretty solid for a bench player. I think we're getting an idea of how deep the team is! PG- George Hill (26th pick via trade) 2011 stats: 10.7 ppg, 1.6 spg. Very solid defensive player that can come off the bench and score in bunches! He had 30 points, 7 assists, 5 steals against us just a couple of years ago. PG- Darren Collison (21st pick via trade) 2011 stats: 10.5 ppg, 5.5 apg, 1 spg, 50% 3pt FG Another very solid point guard. He really helped out NOH when Chris Paul was injured during his rookie year. Have patience Houston! Our team will eventually be back in midst of things!
Well besides the Pacer players, the list is similar to where you could throw Patrick Patterson/Chase/Chandler up there on it and it all is the same. Role players. George has star potential and Granger is probably a tier or two above a Kmart type. Morey has proven he can pull role players, but to get the star caliber, you probably need to be inside the top 8 or so.
for how long are we gonna slowly rebuild. This is the perfect season to rebuild 1) The season is short, meaning we r gonna get thru the agony and pain quicker, plus the draft will song be around the corner 2) Terrible all around team-at best, they r playing for 7th or 8th seed 3) We dont really have a lot of vets who will hurt from a losing season except maybe Dalembert, but he knew the roster before he took the cash 4) Etc The Rockets might never get a better opportunity than now. Morey better swallow his pride and have his geek squad come up with exciting tanking plays
Do you believe the Pacers have any reasonable chance of winning a championship in the foreseeable future?
It took how long to get this nucleus? The Pacers aren't going nowhere. They are not winning a championship with there leading scorer averaging 15pts. They are still a mediocre team. If they would have tanked, they would have some top 5 talent in there and would have a lot of potential to go somewhere down the road. You gotta take risk. We don't have any superstars and can't get one via trade or FA. You can argue all you want about former bust but you must take risk in order to take it to the next level. If we don't tank we will just be a 14th seed team or the 8th seed for multiple years. I'm tired of the Rockets being irrelevant outside of the city of Houston and China. If Kyle had Barnes, Lamb or Rivers on the wing he would be getting the credit he deserves.
They're an also ran, a playoff team. So what. Is that all you want? If that is all you want, then we can make a couple trades and get to 4-8 in the playoffs. That is where Indiana is at and that is where they are maximized at UNLESS they make a major trade for a top 10 player. They will NEVER win a championship as currently constructed. They will simply be another good team. If reaching the playoffs is good enough for you, then we should follow Indiana's example. Indiana, amongst many teams including our own, needs a superstar player, and they need more size and skill in the interior.
The Rockets are just as good as the Pacers; we just play in a much harder conference, which means we finish in 9th place every season. We need some star power to catapult into contention, and basically our only hope is that D-Mo comes over and develops into an All-Star. He’s our highest ceiling prospect right now, and it’s not looking like we’re going to find star power anywhere else.
I don't see them having much of a chance of winning the championship in the foreseeable future, but then again I didn't see a Pacers team of... PG- Mark Jackson/Travis Best SG- Reggie Miller/Jalen Rose SF- Chris Mullin/Jalen Rose PF- Antonio Davis/Dale Davis C- Rik Smits A solid team, but no real super stars to be able to take the Chicago Bulls to 7 games in the ECF. They were a solid team with a bunch of role players and no real super star. This current team has the possibility to be a lot better. The only team in their way of going for the title was the "best player of all time". He was in the way in lot of teams... All I'm saying is that we aren't hopeless where we are. If we are patient and Morey slowly builds then we will eventually be where we want to be...
Tanking is not the answer. Competing is not the answer. There is no answer. Let's all go jump off the top of the Toyota Center to protest the futiliity of it all.
Anything could happen. The Pacers have enough talent because they have been patient and smart with draft picks that they will built up a lot of assets. The Pacers could simply approach the Magic and offer them a trade similar to what the Clippers offered for Chris Paul... If the Clippers were able to get Paul for... -Eric Gordon -Chris Kaman -Al-Farouq Aminu -first-round draft choice acquired from Minnesota for Paul Then maybe the Magic would be willing to accept a package that included the following players for D. Howard... -Danny Granger -Roy Hibbert -Darren Collison Or whatever salaries would make a trade work between the two teams...
Playing guys like Lee, T-will and Patterson more is the way to go. Trade away Scola, Bud, and Martin for expiring contracts, picks, and/or young guys with potential could be a possible way to go. Being in purgatory for this long will start to seriously backfire in revenue.
You're kidding, right? This current Pacer team couldn't win 2 games in a 7 game series against that previous team.
the way i see it, is that this team, sucks. its really quite simple, we suck. with one of the most impressive drafts coming up this offseason, we should really consider trading some players away for solid first round picks. cleveland had the 1st and 4th pick in last years draft, and they are not a bad team now. if we could get our hands on another lottery pick (since we will most likely receive a lottery picky cuz we won't make the playoffs) then the rockets could really be something special in a year or two. FIRST SOLUTION: GET A FREAKING CENTER
by the op's logic, then we should tank. we dont have good attendance. the only time attendence increases is when a texas team comes in or if the other team has superstars. maybe we should hedge our bets and try to acquire a superstar the only way we know how. trade and DRAFT.
Lets see everyone, would you rather have a couple seasons of suckitude/tanking resulting in a team like the OKC or Chicago or would you rather be stuck in mediocrity forever only to be like the Pacers? Hard decision...
OKC's results from tanking are very rare especially so soon. We could also potentially end up like the Raptors, and Wizards