Which (non)Events Had the Greatest Impact on Rocket History?

Seattle losing in back to back yrs in the playoffs.

 

well whatever happened, thank goodness we didnt sign him.

 

cocaine

 

This one is huge. It would have taken Rockets to the elite level. Rockets fans can thank JVG for next couple of years for the Brandon Roy miss. I, for one, will never forgive his ego for the mishap.

 

so, your top event was Ralph Sampson's injury. How is that a "non-event?"

I'm completely confused by this thread, then. I thought you meant (non) event in the typical way people write both "event" and "non event" by using paranthesis as an option; example, "Movies you (dis) like the most."

 

The Roy fiasco hurts. Funny thing is outside Houston, nobody actually knows our pain. If we had Roy, we would be talking about Championship every year for the next decade instead of getting past the first round.

 

One that I remember being mad at was us getting Pippen instead of McDyess, or something to the effect. I recall the rumors of McDyess wanting to play for us, but then all of that went away after we traded for Pippen. Correct me if I'm wrong here.

 

Roy fiasco? Am I that out of it?

 

Most of the drafts, trades, and contracts that occurred in the CD era set the organization's progress back (with few exceptions like the TMac-Frances trade, or the Yao draft, although I would have still taken Amare). Several teams have gone through two rebuilding cycles or more during that twelve year period. Essentially, the Rockets are running in place with both TMac and Yao appearing to be very fragile and likely in decline. The role players are being upgraded under Morey, but this will likely prove too late for the TMac/Yao era. The most likely break through was probably the Dallas series in 2005, but the "forty point blow out" ended all hopes. Success appears to measured by the bottom line alone, not by championships where players all want raises. Les has successfully avoided such a scenario.

 

I still don't know about the Tmac for Francis trade. I am heavily biased toward Francis so it's hard for me to separate out my bias. I think I'd rather have a good player that's liked by the fans than a great player that can woo the fans once and a while. The biggest factor of redemption for me would be the fact that SF3 legitimately loves this city. I think Tmac could care less. Then again, the numbers don't lie either, Tmac is consistently better than SF3. Then again, how many people wouldn't want Mobley back? I mean come on, Cat or Luther who would you choose?

I totally agree with you on the Amare thing tho. In the beginning I was a big fan of Yao, now, especially with the style of basketball trending the way it is, Amare would fit like a glove on this team.

 

I have to agree on the Sampson injury and non-trade to Portland for Jordan/Drexler, although I would reverse those 2. I also agree with the Brandon Roy debacle. I was pretty pissed about that ball being dropped. If you want to include a non-event as "non-playing," you could include Lucas/Wiggins/Maxwell drug suspensions as not giving us the team that would have been championship contenders for years earlier with Dream.

But, since the championship years, I think our drafting has been horrific, until Morey did whatever he did last year. In the 10 years after, only Yao was a decent pick. Our scouting was horrible, although we did very well in trades, and as a result often traded our picks. I agree, it seemed like Griffin was the right deal at the time, although losing him, instead of 3 good players, but was a serious loss.

But, I disagree with you on the Barkley trade. I think it was the single biggest mistake since the championship years. I really like Barkley, but think it put us on a track that killed us from becoming contenders for awhile.

Not only did Barkley not have the discipline it took to be a champion, but that decision led to a number of additional mistakes.

1) We lost Cassell and Horry for the next 10 years, but had Barkley at the tail end of his. He was never the same, although was a great rebounder, and yes, helped us past Seattle, who became a non-threat.

2) Clyde retired a year or two too early. Yes, he was on the downhill, but he still would have been a great assett at that time. When he retired, we went out and got Quitten, which was just as huge a mistake, and eventually ended up with all those bad contracts. With Quitten on the team, we didn't take Lewis with all three chances, because we didn't want to threaten Quitten, who was being very emotionally sensitive.

3) With Cassell as our starting PG, he'd still be on the team, with PG as a strength. We wouldn't have given Maloney that stupid contract, and McDeyss would have signed with us, fixing our PF spot a year later. (Unless he still got injured). He had said that the only reason he didn't go with us, was because we didn't have a good enough PG.

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But, the ones I'm surprised NOT on your list are in 99 and 02.

You made SUCH a big deal about how this would be something we'd regret at the time. You were a big believer in TMac at the time, and there was a possibility that he could have been included in the trade with Toronto. You said we'd always regret not doing the Olajuwon/Dickerson trade for Christie/Willis/McGrady and the 5/12. We could have drafted Shawn Marion, Andre Miller as well as Kenny Thomas. Now that might have affected whether we got Francis or not, but I think the Francis years put us into mediocrity anyway. But, you made a number of posts on how essential it was that we grab TMac at the time, whether Dream was in the trade or not, and from what I recall, there were other trade discussions.

But, at that point, if we hadn't traded for Barkley, imagine the team of McDeyss, Marion, Cassell, McGrady, Lewis, Christie, Miller, Horry, Willis, Mobely, AND cap room.

In 2002, there were trade options with LAC that were reported, where we could have gotten the 8th pick, but they were asking for Griffin and our #14, and we didn't want to give up Griffin. Imagine if we'd have gotten Stoudamire and Yao in the same draft ... rookie of the year and runner up in the same draft.


We've blown lots of chances in recent years ... ... but hopefully, we're back on track again ...

 

wow, good knowledge there...now that 20/20 hinesight roster would be a dynasty

 

Well, his name is Sherlock.

 

The non-trade of Sampson for Jordan+Drexler has to be the biggest.

The non-trade of Eddie Griffin for Rashard Lewis was pretty important too.

On the positive side, the non-trade of Horry for Elliot was good.

Oh, CD's non-taking of the head coaching job left it to Rudy T. who convinced Hakeem to trust his teammates and led us to the back-to-back.

 

I remember telling my friends that I wanted Jermaine O'Neal instead of Kelvin Cato when we traded Pippen to the Blazers. We probably wouldnt have Yao if that happened but thats what I wanted at the time.

 

Kids!

I'm going into the Wayback Machine now...

~1972: Come down to the last roster spot. The Rockets cut their fourth round draft pick (James Silas) and instead keep a journeyman PG (John Egan). Silas has a very solid career for the Spurs and Egan hangs on for a couple of years and ended up being the Head Coach in the mid- to late-seventies.

~1974: Rockets draft long-armed, defensive stalwart Bobby Jones from UNC who instead signs with the ABA's Denver Nuggets.

~1975: E.C. Coleman drowns; he was a young developing PF from HBU (?)

~1978: Rockets sign SF Alex English to a FA contract but Denver (or was it Indiana at the time) matches. At any rate, English ends up with a great career mostly in Denver.

~1979: With their first round pick (#17) the Rockets select a skinny 6' 11" center from East Texas State (Lee Johnson) and IIRC they never even signed him. As I recall it was an economy move.

 

Actually the meaningless win over Denver on 4/17/06 was the root cause of all. Otherwise, we will at #7 spot instead of Twolves...

 

Wiggins and Lew Lloyd getting suspended killed us. KILLED us. We beat the Lakers, in their Showtime Prime, in five games. They had no injuries. No excuses. We just beat them senseless.

Mysteriously, our two cocaine users are tested and suspended. I always wonder how that came down.

Cocaine is a stupid drug.