As a true fan you deal with the ups and downs throughout the years, and who really knows how this season will turn out. I know the team will compete and make games exciting and that's what matters most to me. We may not be an elite team right now, but this team is never one of the bottom dwellers of the NBA and I think we need to be thankful for that.
True. You're also not required to make a thread that mirrors many others. You want to know how people feel, look at the millions of other threads.
I'm ok with not having Pau and Nene. I'll take my chances with this team that finished with one of the best records in the league(17-8) coming out of the allstar break.
Even without the man on your sig? I think we'll struggle with Hill and Thabeet manning the C spot. I can see em getting early fouls and we'd be forced to use Scola at the 5. We'd eventually get killed in the paint. Hoping for the best tho. I'm also ready for the worst. I'll just try to refrain and condition myself from ranting on our future post-game threads. With this lineup, we'd still compete but end up getting a another 13th to 16th pick. Get ready for a long 66-game season if we don't find a decent center.
This is me too. Gasol is a good player, but we've seen him pout and quit. Nen is a tease,but solid player. Having 2 guys like that eating that kind of money just didn't make sense too me. When this constant flipping or attempts fails, the rockets are stuck in the middle.
Morey is a smart guy, Morey had a plan. I believe in Morey's methods and his vision. Morey's plan got blocked by the league in an unprecedented move, which sets us back. and LOL at people that think that this will somehow start us on a rebuilding track. All this does is reset the timer. They will take the same approach, build assets and try to make the big trade. Theres no reason to be happy that this didn't go through. All this does is keep us where we are for another 3 years.
This could very well have been a wish of Mchale. I for some reason just can't fathom Morey, who is a salary cap wiz, who cuts major corners to save every nickle and dime, to commit $35 for 2 big men, neither of whom can be considered superstars. This to me was Mchale requesting size and something to work with, and while I can't blame him, I was not thrilled about having no cap flexibility for the next 3 years because of these moves. Build assets yes, but there is something to be said about the value of our assets. For example, playing the young kids more now will let us, and the whole league know what their true value is. Also, getting a top 5-10 pick will have much more value than the crappy 13th picks we've been piling up. IMO, but next off season, we could have better assets than we've had in quite some time. Lets face it, our assets just ain't got that much value. Look at what NJ gave up for Willimams and Clippers for CP3 as 2 examples. Without true lotto picks and / or young studs, you ain't getting a top tier talent. [/QUOTE] No, I think going into this season, unless we were to acquire a true stud (CP3, Howard, other), our main goal should've been playing the young kids more. Isnt this why we brought over McHale, because he's good with young bigs? So he can train up Patterson / Hill / Thabeet / Morris? Gasol / Nene would have prevented this while only getting us to be a 5th seed at best in the West. To me, that is not a good result. We would still have been behind Mavs, OKC, Lakers, SA, and possibly also Memphis. So while I'm not exactly happy that we got screwed, I sure the hell ain't sad either.
Like practically everybody else here in regards to this deal-or-no-deal nightmare the Rockets have been in, I am stunned by what has happened for different reasons...but I did want to give myself time to digest it as best I could before I made any comment on it. I think it can be ageed upon that David Stern, no matter how pragmatic and unbiased he may perceive his involvement in the management of the New Orleans Hornets' basketball operations to be, acted with a definite conflict of interest in terms of his overarching responsibility as league commissioner. As a laywer himself, Stern is more than capable of parlaying his action to veto the three-team trade between the Hornets, the Rockets and the Los Angeles Lakers as some sort of homogenized, defacto managing of the Hornets' franchises' fiscal fortunes (which are bleak, to say the least...which is why the NBA stepped in to purchase it in the first place)... ...but the largest reason why teams have owners and general managers (and why, if at all possible, you keep both those titles and responsibilities separate) is so that financial decisions can be reviewed separately from the basketball or organizational decisions. GMs decide what money needs to get spent on what players, and the owners decide if they want to foot the bill, basically. Financial solvency and competitive balance are generally mutually exclusive. Donald Serling always keeps the Los Angeles Clippers operating in the black, but the team rarely wins...where across town, the Lakers run up huge bills in essentially the same market and are usually very competitive. San Antonio has run a model franchise for the past decade both financially and competitively. You're basically going to run your organization however it is you want to run your organization. But generally, great owners aren't necessarily great general managers, and vice versa. No matter what Mark Cuban thinks. Whatever complaints were levied at Stern by owners who found some sort of injustice or unfairness in the trade particulars, should not have had any bearing on his decision to circumvent this trade at the eleventh hour. Any suggestion made to the contrary is disingenuous, at best, because that's exactly what happened. In spite of the recent past of Stern's alternate meandering, dictatorial, or aloofness in his public dealings with league matters, he has been largely responsible for the financial success of the NBA over the last 25 years, and it has benefitted everyone involved with the NBA greatly. And that's where Stern's involvement with league matters should stop. I'm a Dallas Cowboys fan. Have been since before Jackie Smith dropped that touchdown pass from Roger the Dodger in the back of the end zone at the Orange Bowl in South Florida in 1979. The club has had a total of three owners in its nearly 50 year history. None of them were as meddlesome and as arrogant as Jerry Jones. Jones figures because he has the money to spend on them, he also knows a good football player. If Jones took a page for Bob Kraft in New England, he'd focus on making the organization money (which he does do well) and let the football people alone and let them do their job. It's hardly a secret that the largest reason why Jimmy Johnson left the Cowboys prematurely (and won a Super Bowl in absentia, as a result) was because Jones thought he was a coach or a talent evaluator, and said so too many times. That isn't even the case here with Stern. I bet he would readily admit that his cumulative basketball knowledge will fill up a thimble. So to step in and say that he vetoed a trade between franchises because of "basketball reasons" is beyond intransigent. I would have sooner believed him if he had simply said that if the Hornets were going to give Chris Paul to the Lakers, he would have liked to have been in the loop from the beginning. So that thimble-full of basketball-related acumen he has could be brought to bear. But having said all of that, my own personal feelings on the trade itself (mainly, a chance to get a top-tier player...and that is what Pau Gasol is, in spite of how he is generally perceived) was a worthwhile gamble on Daryl Morey's part. His underlying strategy the past three years has been to acquire enough attractive trade pieces (or players, if you don't want to hurt anybody's feelings) to be in a position to move like this when the opportunity arose. Daivd Stern is a smart guy. He has to know that, even if he is trying to save a franchise that is proving (at least in its current market...and it probably needs to move to Seattle, just my hope) that it is not going to survive where it is, he cannot unilaterally decide that as a league commisioner in the morning, and as one team's general manager after lunch. Running the league catch-as-catch-can isn't the best business model, I gather. Oh well. Gasol would have been nice to have for a season or so, but it's not the end of the world. The Rockets were going to have to overhaul the roster and their approach sooner or later anyway. There's always the draft, right?
Based on the votes so far, 40% were more concerned with what the Lakers were trying to do. Just like Dan Gilbert. LOL
not so... I was against the trade bc I thought we were giving up way to much for a 31yr old Gasol.... the lakers gettin screwed was a bonus!
Other than a trade chip for someone even bigger I don't like the idea of having a 31 year old as your long term investment. We are not going to the Finals every year.
I feel for all parties--including CP3, the Lakers, Demps, and others--especially the Rockets and its players because this was a heavyhanded, mafia-like, dickmove made by the NBA, Stern specifically. I hope David Stern never sets foot into the Toyota Center and, if he does, I pray that everyone in attendance spew vitriol and obscenities at him every second he sits there with that smug look on his face.
