We cannot go the unproven route. We have James Harden for 2 years. We cannot go unproven. Durant is in a walk year. - OKC Thunder We cannot go unproven. James is capable of leaving us at any time. - Cleveland Cavs We cannot go unproven. Conley is in a walk year. - Memphis Grizz We cannot go unproven. - Boston Celtics We cannot go unproven. Players love Mark Jackson and we could upset them. - GS Warriors Oh wait... This is gonna go as well as Luke Walton's Lakers & Alvin Gentry's Pelicans.
If this doesn't say Les made this choice, I don't know what else does. Les is a business man. He saw an investment trending downward and wanted a way to get interest back in that investment quick. Put some potentially entertaining basketball in front of fair weather fans and profit. It's not about winning, it's about money. That's why he refuses to tank and wants to chase names all the time. Winning is nice but money talks.
Draft busts - White, Dekker, Mook over Kawhi, TJ etc Bad coaches hired - McFail, JBB, Pringles (?) Bad contracts - Corey Sewer, Jerry Lin etc
Mid to late 1st rounders can't be busts, too little is expected out of those drafting spots McHale was a bad hire (JBB was just a midseason replacement, not a real hire) and he had nothing to do with the Pringles hire Brewer was terrible. Lin was fine given the situation of the team at the time
LES: "All you naysayers, and there are a lot of you, concerning defense..." HOLLLLLLLLLLLLLY S********* THIS REALLY GRINDS MY GEARS! Yeah, there are lot....like 95% polled! LES: "He's won 60 games twice in his career. Only Doc, Pop & Kerr have done that." Yeah and all 3 had ridiculously awesome rosters built through the draft.
Are any of the others, outside of the ones that Les mentioned, active? Any of them? WTF did you think he meant?
Mid-to-late first rounders CAN be busts if you pass up really good players and/or if you get nothing out of the guys you do wind up taking. We've gotten zero out of Dekker thus far and he's already needed back surgery. It's too early to call him a bust, but he ain't off to a great start. Royce White absolutely was a bust given how he contributing nothing as a Rocket and was taken ahead of guys who've had pretty solid careers up til now. I disagree also about it being fine that we signed Lin. We turned down Dragic over a 4th year player option to sign Lin instead and then wound up coughing up a first rounder in order to dump his contract 2 years later. Considering how weak our roster is right now, it wouldn't hurt to have had that draft pick(not to mention the one we gave up to the Nuggets in order to lose to the Warriors).
First of all, Les didn't say active. But again, even if you give him the benefit of the doubt, WHO THE F-CK CARES?! What does winning 60+ games twice even mean? D'Antoni's also LOST 50+ games in a season 3 times in his career. And he did that more recently than those two 60+ win seasons that Les seems so enamored with. Funny how that stat seems to be overlooked by our wise owner.
Exactly. Who the f*** cares? Well, except you apparently. You're the only person that's taken the time to do research to prove him wrong and gone on a multi-post tirade about it.
All those pictures say is "the Rockets hired a new coach". Nothing more. It speaks nothing to what happened behind the scenes.
No, Les cares. He and Morey love to throw out meaningless stats. D'Antoni's won 60+ games twice in his coaching career. The Rockets are the 3rd winningest NBA team in the last 10 years. The Rockets have had only 2 losing seasons since Les bought the team(it's actually 3). Only 3 or 4 other teams have made the WCF in the last 10 years(it's actually 9 other teams). You wanna know what numbers I care about? 0 titles in the last 21 seasons. 0 trips to the Finals in the last 21 seasons. 1 trip to the WCF in the last 19 seasons. 3 playoff series victories in the last 19 seasons. 8 trips to the lottery in the last 17 seasons. When Les starts to give a damn about the latter stats(assuming he's even aware of them), then I'll stop ranting about his emphasis on the former which mean nothing to a fan like myself who's suffered through nearly 2 decades of mediocrity under his ownership.
D'Antoni is crazier than I thought, there is very little chance of getting big contributions from Ariza and Bev, he is correct about Capela. He needs to get serious and work really hard. It is a make or break season for him. We need talent, plain and simple. Morey needs to get to work.
