Dwight's first season playmakers: Harden, Parsons, Lin, Brooks, Beverley Dwight's second season playmakers: Harden, Prigioni, Shved (traded), Terry, Canaan (traded), Smoove Dwight's third season playmakers: Harden, Bev, Terry, Lawson (released) Dwight was worth it. Skimping on playmakers wasn't worth it. The Parsons-Lin team was the best of the 3 teams and the most fun to watch. Last year's team won 2 more games and got lucky in the playoffs but they weren't as good a team as the Parsons-Lin team. Lin wasn't the perfect fit next to Harden, especially with Parsons playmaking ability next to Harden. But Lins playmaking ability was needful for the bench unit and it made us so dangerous offensively. If we had kept both guys with Harden Dwight and they stayed healthy and worked together for the last two seasons there's no telling how good they would have been. We significantly downgraded our playmaking and the diversity of our offensive attack when we let those guys walk and replaced them with more limited players and never acquired a primary distributor who was a better distributor/handler than them and Harden. We downgraded at those skills instead of upgrading them. Now, if we aren't careful, we could significantly downgrade our defense and rebounding (even worse than it was this season) by replacing Howard with a lesser player. We've gone from 2 superstars (Harden and Howard) and a star (Parsons) to 2 superstars and a bunch of role players (Hardens words) to now 1 superstar, a few role players, and some scrubs. Hindsight is 20/20 and we'd better look at these past 3 seasons and learn from them or we'll simply repeat them again.
Dwight's career stats have been better than most centers and even tho he is declining he's still a top 10 center
You guys have short memories. The happiest Rockets days for two decades were the trade for Harden and signing Dwight. I grinned from ear to ear that July day.
Definitely worth it. It might not have worked out, but the opportunity was there to get him and I'm glad we did.
you don't need a hindsight 20/20 argument when common sense was all that was needed to predict Howard's rapid decline based on what 'kind' of player he is.
Yes hindsight is 20/20 but you have a horrible memory and are taking away wrong things from what happened: 1. The Rockets were consistently over cap and right near under the lux tax during the Dwight era so they weren't really skimping on anything in terms of money spent Rox were spending as much as possible while still under lux tax 2. The Rockets playmakers as you mentioned are pretty crappy players, Lin can't even beat out any of the other starters on a horrible team and Parsons has always been injured ever since he signed that contract so I don't even know why you are saying things would've been better, more likely they would have been worse! Ariza has been way better than Parsons has performed, he has been off but that's because he's not making 15M like Parsons, and at least he's healthy and playing out there instead of injured again. 3. Saying the Lin team was the best is ridiculous what do you call last year's team? Lin team couldn't even beat out Portland at least last year's team reached the WCF. I think the real lessons moving forward are: 1. Morey's philosophy of "We'll get guys first then worry about chemistry later" is wrong. 2. Morey's philosophy how coaches aren't important is also wrong. I think that as a really smart guy (from MIT) and working with other smart guys and even with an owner who is also a smart guy I think the Rox front office has developed a certain kind of hubris, even arrogance, against the rest of the NBA and how things are supposed to work. While some of their ideas are correct (like how midrange Js need to die and 3s are god), others tend to run against common sense like their extreme risk-seeking behavior when it comes to picks (little Melo vs Kawhi) and total disregard for the human element when it comes to bball players, sometimes you get so lost in the numbers you forget these are real people and won't always perform just like in your spreadsheets. In retrospect, I think Morey just made 2 major mistakes in the Dwight era: getting Mchale as coach instead of a legit coach and also trading for Ty Lawson despite his horrible drunk status. I was for these moves also at the time however combination of these seemed to destroy this team, Lawson erased the team chemistry that existed last year and Mchale wasn't able to keep everyone together. I think Morey by now should understand coaches account for more than the ~5 wins he keeps talking about, a great coach can keep everyone together and make the best use of people available. I think who the coach turns out to be will determine the success or failure of the rox in the next 5-10 years.
Worth it. Everybody wanted Dwight. Even the lakers wanted to keep him even though his one year was a disaster. It was worth the risk. Ultimately It led to one good playoff run but those are the breaks.
When you consider his tenure here with him deciding not to exercise his player option, you know it didn't go well here. Again, we could've and should've done better. I like Morey's obsession with getting stars, but he invested poorly in Dwight. He wasn't even good enough to make the all-star team the last 2 seasons.
I disagree with your disagreement. Dwight was still a damn good player his first two seasons here(when he was healthy at least). I think what ultimately has soured people on his 3 years as a Rocket is that they underachieved in the postseason in 2014 and they underachieved in every respect this season. But 2014 was not his fault. He was a beast in that Portland series. The main culprits were Harden who was awful, Lin who cost them Game 4 and made numerous other costly errors, Parsons who was inconsistent(his biggest contribution was fouling out in Game 3 which led to Daniels being on the floor), and McHale who was badly outcoached by Stotts and made almost no adjustments. 2015, I got no complaints. Yes, Dwight was a non-factor for a good chunk of the regular season. But he was again a beast in the playoffs. The dude played on one leg in the WCF. Coming up short vs the Warriors had nothing to do with him. 2016 is where I think he lost the Rockets fanbase. Despite his numbers still being somewhat solid(at least compared to most NBA centers), he really didn't have much of an impact this season. The team defense was awful, he clearly no longer had the athletic ability he once possessed, and his attitude stunk(in fairness, everyone's did). And worst of all, Playoff Dwight never surfaced. He sucked against the Warriors. And don't anyone quote me his stats. He sucked.
yes it was worth it. up until this year this team enjoyed some good times. The winning mentality was alive again instead of being stuck in the middle. He brought plenty of excitement and buzz with him back to the city. Just unfortunate the team peaked last year and how incredibly frustrating this season was. However, none of us could see this coming based on how they finished the previous season.
Sure. It wasn't my money. The Rockets weren't going any further with McHale/JBB as coach either way. We'd have Asik instead, and he's fallen off a cliff since then. Do I want him back, knowing what we know about him, though? Nah.
Hard to say when we don't know what the alternative was... But remember that Dwight helped take the Rockets from a 45 win 8th seed team to a 55 win 4th seed and 56 win 2nd seed team with a Western Conference Finals appearance. It obviously was not the ultimate prize, but it certainly wasn't a failure.
You can't say it wasn't worth it when this team ultimately did make it further than it has in almost 2 decades. They made a WCF, which is far more success than this team usually has Did we pay him too much? - absolutely Am I glad he is done as a Rocket? - absolutely Is he among my personal top 5 most hated rockets of all time? - absolutely
With Omar + Chandler + Lin on the team we got lost in the first round twice. How's that better than anything
Well we didn't win anything and only made it past the first round once. Was it worth it? I guess 20/20 hindsight says no. Would I do it again? Yes. Because it makes perfect sense. An athletic big and a dynamic wing. Those two could have been something special, but egos and nonsense got in the way. I don't put that all on Dwight, nor do I put it all on Harden. The organization should have realized the issues with personnel and gotten the appropriate surrounding players and coaches to deal with it. They didn't and we imploded. But who else could we have gotten? I would still like to see Dwight return and I think he will.
