This fiction that Broke Fertitta and Stone have been parroting and now has trickled down to this forum that the Rockets spent all their assets going for a championship is hilarious. They sent one first round pick for Chris Paul in the Les era then never traded a first or prospect again other than to dump salary until the disastrous Westbrook trade Broke Fertitta forced through. The Rockets aren’t in a poor position because they “went for a championship.” They’re in a poor position because Fertitta is an idiot. Don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise.
Until they win a ring, the goal of winning a ring hasn't been accomplished!! of course i don't think the Francis/Mobley for TMac deal included draft picks way out in the future
You know what seems to be pervasive throughout this forum? It's the IT'S ALL FERTITTA'S FAULT brigade. God forbid there's nuance to any move. How is he "broke" when he traded away low-cost assets (draft picks) for an "all-in" gamble on a very high-paid Westbrook? That move was designed to be win-now. It failed, but that certainly contradicts "cheap" ownership when the move was a desperate attempt to appease Harden. If that trade didn't happen would the team be in a better spot today? Certainly. But it also wouldn't have guaranteed that they would have won a title in 2020 or 2021. Could Chris Paul be moved for another player or assets? No question, but what move would have kept Harden in Houston, other than Durant coming to Houston -- and that was never going to happen.
First rounders under Morey (NOT TILMAN) 2006 Rudy Gay (traded) 2007 Aaron Brooks 2008 Nicolas Batum (traded) 2010 Patrick Patterson 2011 Marcus Morris 2012 Jeremy Lamb (traded) 2012 Terrence Jones 2014 Clint Capela 2015 Sam Dekker (traded) Sure... keep on believing we didn't sell our development for trying to win now, win now, win now, win now, never develop, win now. Last time we had a first round pick was in 2015. In 2016 Tilman was not our owner, in 2017 Tilman was not our owner, in 2018 after the CP3 trade where more of our future was already sold off, he became owner and the draft picks all vanished before he sat at his desk. I haven't been the biggest fan of Tilman (especially for failing to pull the trigger on Garrett Temple and JaMychal Green), but I'm not putting the mortgaging of our future on Tilman. That belongs to Daryl Morey. We've had nothing coming up and staying with us for 14 years now and I'm sick of it. No youth movement at all. Tilman has been here for 4 seasons and inherited most of the idiotic 'win now moves' that Morey left him with. Going for broke on Harden's last year by grabbing Westbrook was a risk that Tilman pushed, but what were we supposed to do? The Harden and CP3 combo was no longer magic. Westbrook and Harden were magic until Covid-19 derailed. We tried to win, we tried to win again and we tried to win again. And we paid the price. We're living that price, but all that we're left with was what Morey left us with. He spent all our assets and we've got no rings to show for it. Morey ducked out and Tilman is taking the heat. So bring that crap you're dealing to some other table. I'm a realist and I have a good memory. Apparently you need to have yours checked. At least the Westbrook firsts are all protected. This year is protected in the top 4 (swap). The 2025 swap is protected if we are in the top 20 and that seems likely. The 2026 is top 4 protected and becomes a 1 million dollars and a 2nd rounder if that doesn't convey. Seems to me that we've gotten a little less desperate and a little more shrewd since Tilman showed up. Before that, Morey was out there wilding our roster. It was fun back then with Morey, but now we've all sobered up and Tilman is sitting there. The guy that got us trade drunk for 14 years is gone off to ruin another team's future in exchange for winning now and ignoring development. Hate on Tilman all you want, but get your story straight kid. I mean, kad.
Why don't Brooks, Patterson, Morris and Capela show "traded"? Out of that bunch, TJones is the only one we just flat-out cut.
We kept each of those for at least a hot minute. Only Capela did we develop into somewhat of a star. I think the rest were traded almost immediately or within a year.
You left out Montreal Harrell. Morey drafted him in 2015 then shipped him out two years later in ‘17. MH was the 6th man of the year in ‘20.
Beautifully said. Loved Morey when he was in Houston, or rather one had confidence in Morey usually, somehow, pulling a rabbit out of a hat on more than one occasion. Still, Morey was a degenerate gambler and bailed on the team when Harden decided he wanted to diva his way out of town. As we've mentioned, Fertitta thus far can be criticized for being a jackass and for a couple of questionable moves (the handling of Shumpert never made much sense). He pushed for the Westbrook trade which didn't work out, but at the time was not terribly unreasonable based solely on Chris Paul's diminished play in the 2019 playoffs. Again, bad trade, but a rebuild was unfortunately inevitable without young talent to take over. How Fertitta manages the team going forward, and in particular when they're ready to compete is when it's time to judge him. I get that people want to crap and somewhat fairly scapegoat him as ruining the franchise, and even proclaim him "worse than Dolan", but I just don't see it like that. You mentioned your a realist. I'm a pragmatist. Similar. It's not great that the franchise is now in rebuild mode, but no use over stressing about something one cannot control. The future has a glimmer of hope, which can brighten if the Rockets keep their draft pick on lottery night.
It isn’t bad if you win. We never won it all so that’s that and now our foundation crumbled when one piece (Harden) fell. That’s a shitty foundation.
To me a proven young star is one that can definitely be at least be the Robin on a championship team, and I doubt that many of those trades have ever happened for any future HOF? Now have a few trades netted a player who in 5-6 years reached their absolute ceiling and achieved that status; maybe, but they were by no means proven or expected. And those trades were by far the minority.
The concept of win now is not a bad thing but it has to be done smartly. They kept trading away 1st round picks who are normally the rotation starter level players on cheap contracts who help you win titles. With Hardens star level contract and smaller star level deals for Dwight and first year Paul salary, they got away with paying for a lot of those rotational/starter level players along with the benefit of the salary cap bumps. But that was not feasible long term especially when Paul got the $40 million a year deal and with Westbrook. That is when not having kept some of those picks with high level players on rookie salaries hurt the Rockets. Sure you can find some hidden gems, but never enough of them to really get you over the top especially against a historically good Warriors team or any Lebron led team.
I've been saying that for a while. The down fall started when we gave Paul that ludicrous contract. I assumed that it was a unspoken commitment when we traded for him. If that's the case, then maybe trading for him was actually a pretty high risk move given Paul's injury history.
