Not offended. Just don’t like Harden. I respect his game, but I’ll never be okay with how he forced his way out of Houston. The city and org deserved better
so he should have stayed become tank commander? or stay and carry the team to playoffs and 1st round exit? or just wait until he is traded?
Did they deserve better? The fans don't show up for games, constantly trash our own players, and the owner has turned the organization into a trash heap.
I don't think a small loud resilient group of 10 or less represents our fans. I've been wearing red and mustard before tilman and before les. I was wearing red and mustard before harden, morey, Tracy, Stevie, Yao, Maloney Pippen/Barkley(99ers...you get the picture. I can be obejctive and call them out and still want hte best of them. @roslolian apparnetly feels like if you can't cahnge ownership, you should shut up. So in that logic, all of us here have essentially no effect not just on that, but on players, coaches...so should we all just shut up and come here and sing praise...Wtf is this, north korea? Can't be objective? an owner doesnt equal the team, he just is a piece of the puzzle and his job is finances and really only to overpay during contention, then he can enjoy that sweet club with crazy great numbers that has a line to joi. Just like role players have their spots and importance, coaching, staff infrastucture, facilities, stars...there are much more facets that make a championship organization rather than just how espn/tmz will lead you to believe its played 1-1. Thats why these 'legends' who had 'toughness' they want on harden have all demanded help or demanded trades or left like Lebron, Mj, kobe bc it takes a lot and they don't want their work wasted just to make one dude profits, even if a couple fans on here do. So i tihnk most fans I meet here just want whats best for the team. The last thing we want in fandom is to focus on the owner, but we're just focusing on the trajectory of the team...if you're not thinking what went wrong when a no 1 seed goes to the bottom of the leaguee with not one important game played last year for us paying with oour time and money that he raises price on. If you're not at least understand why for the first time a president, coach, gm, ass gm, star, role players, vets all left some left A lot of mony on the table to leave here....then you are not going to be sensible on how to learn from your mistakes nad move on. And tahts what its about. Look at Sarver. He was a bottom tier owner known for doing what we did, 1st round picks for savings...yea I'm sure you can find a bad contract when he did that @roslolian but championship teams end up costing way more money you have to take risks, you have to take swings and misses, but if you're multiple times in the WCF, and no one seed and the players are voting your guy mvp...thats your window. not to guarantee a finals, out of milkwaukee, nets, sixers, nuggets, jazz, lakers, clippers, suns, nuggets, trailblazers...who can guarantee a finals? What kind of obscure unattainable goal post only an idiot would accept? But sarver ironically changed. Why is it ironic? he paid the guys we wouldn't directly and he showed 101 NBA economics(Pay attention @roslolian) He kept a "contract alive" That means when your at the cap, you can only spend in limited ways but if you have bird rights or contracts as assets you can still at least have a shot to get better via trade or such, there are no guarantees in this league. It moves fast, you take swings when you have great players in their prime. And they weent and traded his expiring one year deal of trevor ariza that very year to get Kelly Oubre....They ended up packaging Kelly Oubre and Rubio to get another guy Tilman for some reason leaked was a bad contract(he has a weird way of hurting his own assets to absolve himself of criticism)https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/...-the-worst-contract-hed-ever-seen-per-report/ And traded them to for Chris Paul. Their whole narrative and trajectory has changed from a low franchise now to best but on our side we have tilman still lying sying we went all in(go look at hte transactions, almost all were guided to save one person money-tax savings- not any fleiblity for moves, but literally trading first round picks to get UNDER the tax during contention window and ignoring bird rights, other 2nd rounders(what up kmj...2nd rounders can be good, cheap swings) and then lying about it to ushttps://clutchpoints.com/rockets-ne...houston-getting-under-luxury-tax-was-a-fluke/ So theres no humility, he deflects and blames, Imagine i f you're a star player generating a lot of revenue and you have options and the owner takes the mike to the press after a loss where he just cheaped out your team and demanded they learn how to win for him publicly...this is while he traded rotation players for savings mid season. So yea, everyone shares blame in the taem harden morey, they ALL fell short. but the main theing when you evaluate you see the limitations and more importantly the disrespectful to the fans of blantantly lying to us about the story...not many owners do that...most shut up and listen even though they are titans in their industry...almost as if basketball can't be run like a Landrys https://rocketswire.usatoday.com/20...tta-tells-final-hours-of-paul-westbrook-deal/ he is literally quoted bragging he superseded his basketball ops to push westbrook trade he publicly lied about MDA's contract and went to press about ithttps://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id...amn-turmoil-unsettling-vibe-surrounds-rockets like imagine people telling you your so not loyal because a new owner came to your job and changed the culture made your job harder lied and blamed you....? think about that. the stuff he did you don't see anywhere around the league and in 3 short years...nah i don't blame morey, tad, harden, pj, westbrook, MDA, Bzdelik for all wanting out of a guy who puts his ego first and makes your job o competing harder than your contemporaries So I hope he goes via Sarver...redeems himself and pays...but he has been a trainwreck. @Salvy ...no video needed,
you're missing again...yea cohesion, chemistry....the lakers were better than the pistons in 04...pistons just fit better. So once again Melo may be a former all star, but him and MDA's fit...I'm not sure if you saw, there was no one else who wanted to sign him thats why he came for the minimum...he would contine and almost be out of the league that year. Do you really think he fits with melo and MDA? You don't have to know much about basketball to know that....but he was a minimum, go look at how many minimums other teams eat when they are competiting and cut just to get better...you've gotta swing, this isn't a science, there isn't a formula, even the best gms and coaches make blunders...even mj said hes failed more tan succeeded, its about continuing to swing and then giving yourself a chance at magic. Thats why a 6th seed Clutch City team became the lowest seed to win the ring...I hope you're old enough to know about that...it takes talent AND cohesion...this isn't baseball, they aren't on the mound themselves...there is spacing and even guys like tucker and ariza get guarded by space as people don't leave their man so there fore they are still effective otherwise these guys shoot between 3-9 shots...the scoring isn't what we're paying em bud. so melo was a minimum swing, failed...he was gone after 10 days. minimum contract, thats less the 2nd rounders many times Then the other minimum, james ennis. You know MDA has a short rotation, its habit and then also necessity with an owner and apparently his fans @roslolian demanding everyhing be economically efficient when the other contenders are paying tax and taking swings so giving us a disadvantage right from the start because he some how resonates with the owner. ITs a real sweet love story and all, but it doesn't help our Rockets basketball Team. JAmes ennis was a minimum you can only expect so much, tehres a reason why he was at the minimum, but still he played in our rotation. Go look at playoff margins and plus and minus, the margins are small. your bench depth or anyone for any possession can be an edge or disadvantage.thats just championship level teams. But he was playing and we traded him...for a top 55 protected 2nd rounder, you read that right No replacement. Then we got dleague pick up Daniel House. He turned out to be the best replacement. In january we sent him away for 2 months, mid season, while our stars play 38 minutes and compete....until it was tax friendly...thats a real "winning culture" making their job harder and instability while saying you're going all in. As you know about the trading the pick...morey has made mistakes, go find me a Gm who hasn't? owners are billionaires thats why they eat some of them and you only have to do it during contention...now tilman can run this like a landrys again bc no one is asking for tax, but when you have prime players in their prime...you swing and a team like Gianni's 1-4 loss during his mvp last year season can have some lucky bounces, injuries as it happens each year an now they made history...I'm not sure if any of the fans are praying marc larsy's tax bill forand assets for pj tucker are making em sad....OR GS they invested in a winner, paid 66 million in tax even with klay out, but no one is really scared for LAcob whose worth less than Tilman. But here we are. And then after he does teh above, he goes to press and ***** on his own team and says he the new owner needs to teach them? e eeLol, thats dolan and sterling level bullshit, find me any owners that aren't at the bottom of the barrel who do stuff like this, you can get rid of MDA...but lying about his contract to the press? Like bro, you can make changes, but him lying and deflecting and blaming just like in real life i you had a boss who did that...you may be looking for greener pastures unless you have that north korea dear leader follower attitude, hey but we need those too man. landrys aint a great success just bc one man. you be you.
But bringing up Green Bay is a really bad example...Aaron Rogers is one of the biggest stars in football and absolutely lives the life of a celebrity. The guy is hosting gameshows and is probably the most hollywood QB in the NFL. Also, OKC would never be the fashion capital, that's correct...but a superstar player can still be a massive global star playing in OKC because the NBA is a platform, a global platform. Also, I think a lot of these players are lied to about big markets by agents and a lot of behind the scene stuff. So that's why they flock there. It's not like Julius Randle and Kemba Walker are about to become major stars in the league, won't even be top 20, won't get shoe deals, won't be starring in anything...not over say Lamelo or Luka or Giannis, all in smaller markets. My only point is you can absolutely be the most popular player in the world playing in small markets and have the largest brand in the world too. You don't need the Lakers or the Knicks for that. Lebron was the biggest star in the NBA playing for Cleveland. Shoe deals, commercials, whatever he wanted. KD too. KD even got his own movie while playing in OKC. The league is a platform. Back in the days, they'd only play 4-5 teams and if you didn't have the team on your local networks, you just didn't see them. Now, you can see any team you want (for a price...or knowing your links) so you won't ever miss a guy like George Gervin on the Spurs. I guess my point is...the league isn't going to not promote someone because they play for Utah. Nike isn't going to not offer them a shoe deal. Brands won't avoid them because they play for the Timberwolves. What stops players from being stars in the NBA is not the market they play in anymore. It's either the lack of style they play with (Like Duncan) or the lack of personality they have... (Like Duncan) Jalen Green (pending how good he is when the games actually matter) could be a star if Alaska was given a team. Now, the lifestyle of a city, I think that has WAAAAY more weight than the whole brand thing. There is definitely a difference in living in OKC vs NYC. There just is. Those cities definitely have that going for them.
i dgaf what that narcissistic diva sob has to say - about anything! Screw Blames Hard-on and the horse he rode in on... dude is dead to me!
You made some fair points. But you seem to equate "building a brand" to getting shoe deals and commercials. I agree that those things don't have anything to do with which team you play on as long as you are good and have a personality. What many of those players are thinking is not just that. They want to be connected to the upper class celebrity circle. And places like Milwaukee and San Antonio don't give you that. Why would Melo insist on being traded specifically to the Knicks? Because his girl was a celebrity there and wouldn't come down to Denver. He stuck with the Knicks even though they were a crappy team for years not because he was loyal or they had a well-run FO but because he just didn't want to leave NY. Kobe stayed with the Lakers after they were no longer a contender. You think he would do that if he was in Charlotte? You think superfriends would get together and plan to form a team in Memphis or Minnesota? LeBron left Cleveland the minute he knew they would not be good anymore, even though he grew up there and should have a great sentimental incentive to stay. You think he would leave the Lakers (or even the Clippers) like that if he grew up in LA? Watch AD. When LeBron and friends retire, will he force his way out of LA like he did from NOLA? Don't think so. He would rather wait for another superstar to join him and plenty of stars will want to. Location matters when the players can freely choose where they go.
It did and it didn't. Harden put up astounding numbers with his stint in Houston. Its heartening to see him leave, but it will not be regretting if he returns.
He wasn’t asked any questions about accountability. And as one of the leaders on a pro team with 3 of the best players in the league how can you not be confident about your team? What leader or player on a contending team isn’t confident about their chances of winning? And in this era of player empowerment where a lot of players are tied to entrepreneurship why is it wrong for him to desire a market to build his brand? He never promoted his brand either. He simply said one of the reasons he went to BK was to expand his brand when asked the question what he wanted to do off the court. And he was asked directly about body armor. Stop hating just to hate. Let the man be. Sheesh
But again, Aaron Rogers is the most celebrity QB in the NFL and he plays in Green Bay? Why is that? Because that's what he wanted to do. Like the man is a top 5 QB, if he wants to go to celebrity parties and network with celebs no one is stopping him. Noting stopped Tim Duncan from being connected to upper class celeb circle but himself. He didn't want that. If Lamelo Ball wants to network with celebs no one is stopping him but himself (and honestly, if I were him it's not something he should be focused on and that's another topic) As for Melo wanting to go to the Knicks, he was a fool. Did that help his brand? If anything it hurt his brand. He was a bigger star playing for Denver than he ever was losing in New York. Yea, he got fooled by his team that this was going to be a positive move for his career and influenced by his wife whose main goal was to be a socialite. It is what it is. Kobe almost left the Lakers though? The only reason he didn't was the Pau Gasol trade but he was very much by his own report done with the team. Him staying loyal to that team was very much dependent on them winning. He could have definitely still be a global star playing in Chicago or whatever other team was on his list. As for Lebron, Cleveland wasn't good anymore because he left. He was the sole reason they were good, which was the point of him leaving that they didn't do anything to help him win except just rely on him to drag them to the playoffs anymore. I'm not sure AD is any more popular than he was in NOP tbh, I don't think anything changed there. The only reason Giannis isn't dating some actress and show up at celeb parties and runways is because he simply doesn't want to. The reason Harden does is because he wanted to. Harden was doing the same things he's doing now when he was playing here, very same things. A great example is Scottie Pippen was a better player than Rodman but which player was more of a celebrity? Why was Rodman more of a celeb than about 95% of the NBA at the time? Because he put himself out there. He colored his hair, he screamed for attention, he partied with celebs, dated them, did all he could to put his name out there. Now Rodman is a household name. This route is availiable to every NBA player. Like if Anthony Edwards wanted to spend his offseason going to the playboy mansion and celeb parties nothing is stopping him except himself and probably his team might try to keep him focused on development...but they are not going to tell that man "Sorry, VIP only." the amount of money he now has gives him access to those people and playing in the NBA gives him access to those people. He just has to make an effort to get involved in it. So even if you're just talking about hanging with celebs I don't see how playing in OKC prevents that for you. But players get convinced by wives and agents that they need to go to LA and New York, nothing about brand or anything, just that those cities have better nightlife. Let's remember that the biggest name in the NBA right now are Luka and Giannis.
