Well the difference between those mediocre teams during the McGrady and Yao era vs this current team is that those teams had the talent to win. Even if they never did. While this current team has no chance in hell to ever win anything.. Those teams with Yao and McGrady, had the talent to attract another star to join the roster, where this current team just doesn't. This is the sad and unavoidable truth. This current roster will never attract a star in free agency, they won't have a high pick by which to get their hands on a top talent and teams like NJ/Thunder with high pick talent will always out bid the Rockets. If this team ever hopes to escape this never ending cycle of mediocrity they will have to sink to the bottom, in order to rise back up to the top. Which involves moving Kevin and Scola...
You're mixing up two different things. I think many are "satisfied" because they think the Rockets org has performed admirably given the circumstances. Of course no one is thrilled at the lack of playoff success.
In my opinion you are SERIOUSLY underrating the team we have. How can you be so sure that none of our players have high ceilings? Lee, Bud, Lowry, Dragic, Patterson are all young and have plenty of room to develop and improve. Throw in Hill/Thabeet/Williams and thats over half our team that we still aren't sure on how good they can be. two superstars AND another good player away? It could be argued that miami, okc and la are the ONLY team with two superstars in the entire league right now. Other than that its pretty much all 1 superstar with well above average TEAMS put around them. Sometimes its hard to see the above average team when there is no superstar for them to surround, but believe me its there. Drop Howard in as our center and we are fighting dallas for the 3rd seed AT LEAST. Yes ONE guy would make that difference. When your offense is as good as ours and the effect howard has on a teams overall defense, I can't see how that team wouldn't contend. We are NOT that far away. We got the team we just need our dominate guy. Why people think we need to destroy the team to get the 1 dominate guy is beyond me. l
But the Rockets fielded contending teams as early as the 2008-2009 season (two seasons ago). Many even thought if Yao could come back 100%, we could potentially contend with just one more big move this season, so I would argue we weren't even on the mediocrity path until Yao finally put a nail in it this December with his latest injury. Either way the team has been on the "mediocrity tread mill" at worst two years and at best three months. That is why you are impatient. If you can't even wait one off season for the Rockets to regather themselves after the devastation of having 40 million dollars in cap space tied up in Enron stock, then how are you going to wait the four to infinity years it could take to rebuild the team into a contender? If you're just upset the Rockets haven't won a championship for you in the past decade and are pouting about it, then fine. This seems to be the generally feeling I get from most posts here lately, and I just don't really see what their is to discuss there. I mean, yeah I wish they would win a championship too.
I understand where you guys are coming from. But all I care about is the end result. I don't care if we win 50 games.. I want to go deep in the playoffs. That's why we watch basketball, right? We want to see our teams win championships! At the end of the day, you have to look at the results for what they were: one playoff advancement. Some people will say, "we were always a 50 win team!" Ya, so? We weren't contenders. We thought we were. We liked to feel disrespected. But in reality? We were 1st round fodder mostly. You can't call yourself a "contender" if you can't even get out of the first round. You know what they used to call us? The "dark horse." These are the contenders.. but don't forget about Houston as the dark horse! You know why we were the dark horse? Because every year people expected us to be challenging for the WCF, and every year we got knocked out in the first round. You can blame whoever you want for our failure, but it doesn't change the fact that we failed. The past decade+ has yielded mediocre results. It's why I hate the idea of going forward with Martin/Scola as our two best players; all I see is another 5+ years of non-playoff advancement. And I'm not bashing Morey in any of this -- he's made moves I've liked and haven't, but nothing that's stopped us from being a top team (or made us one... yet). But some of you guys would rather root for the Rockets to get the 6th seed than the 7th seed.. who cares? We're still facing a top team and we're only hurting our draft position. Yeah LTF, but you're talking about like one draft spot!!! I'd rather my team get a higher non-homecourt seed than draft a few picks earlier! Spoiler Yeah, one to two draft spots may not make a difference. But it could. And the fact that it could make a difference is appealing enough for me to not care if we play the Mavericks, Lakers, or Spurs. And to steal a line from a well-known poster... Maybe that's just me.
It's funny that you used Brandon Roy, a man who's knees would have died out regardless of team. And his team? Dead to ****ing rights for years and why??? INJURIES!!!!
Brandon Roy would have had issues, but if they let him rehab inxtead of going for the rush back surgery, his career might well have lasted until his early 30's. They've been doing LARS surgery outside the US for this stuff, but it still needs some development, however it's still a MUCH MUCH better option than simply removing the stuff.
Well you gotta keep in mind...B. Roy wanted to play...he had to have begged and pleaded...if not, then...DAMN...
Most professional athletes want to play, but I have trouble believing that removing the cartilage...all of it.... wasn't on the unethical side of medicine. It's not even that it was a knee reconstruction, it was done because it was causing irritation.
I lol every time I see the tank people make those very frustrated posts about us being mediocre for many years...... like the tank strategy guarantees us a contending team next year. But then they say that all they care is the end result, If there is no ring or very close to it, it is mediocre. I guess you only see basketball if your team is winning, says alot about the sports mentality some fans have. If you don´t win you suck. If your strategy doesn´t give you immediate results you suck. Adelman, sucks. T-will sucks. Martin is fools gold. Lets trade all our players for the entire Cavs roster, let´s have the worst record ever, let´s have empty attendances. Let our winning history transform in a losing mentality. Let´s suck for 5 years, and be the next OKC, BUT WAIT, have OKC WON A TITTLE??? Let´s suck for 20 years, and draft Blake Griffin and all those very young talented Clipps team, BUT WAIT, are they really 23-40???? Things that people need to realize: It is possible to trade for a top 3 pick in the day of the draft, meaning you can have a top pick without having to suck or sell all your good players, and by doing this you are trading for a sure thing, instead of sucking, losing money, and with a hight probability of not drafting the number 1 pick. And like someone said, I think people don´t realize just how close we are from contending against an old LA team. If Howard landed tomorrow in Houston, I bet with all of you that we would be the favorites to come out of the West (just look how bad the Magic look against Portland tonight, our team without Howard >>>>>>>>>> Magic without Howard). People will say that I am crazy to think that it is possible, but it is as possible as drafting the number 1 pick. In fact I give a higher chance of landing Howard then a top 1 pick, simply because that would depend on our GM, instead of depending on lottery balls/probabilities. My point is not to say this or that player will be a Houston, my point is, if I could choose between being competitive and wait for a sure thing (proven talent) to be available, I take that, instead of depending on luck/probabilities to land an unproven/risky talented young man. Do you think that if Melo Bosh and LBJ don´t win anything in the next 3 years they will remain in Miami??? Do you think that if Melo and Amare don´t win anything in the next 3 years they will remain in NY??? More plausible scenarios: Do you think that if Magic doesn´t win this year, Howard will not leave??? Do you think CP3 will remain in NO??? Do YOU REALLY believe D Will will sign an extension with the Nets??? PeAcE
Sounds like the Rockets. Brandon Roy would have taken us a lot further than Shane Battier ever helped us to, even with his knees. Blame Portland's management for signing him to the ridiculous extension despite his knee injuries; good thing our GM has the "no extensions" policy. And Roy was only meant as a real world example. I could float any number of hypotheticals where our trade package is more enticing because it involves having a higher pick. Good questions. Here are some slightly more relevant ones: What the hell do we have that the Magic would want for Howard? What the hell do we have that the Hornets would want for CP3? What the hell do we have that the Nets would want want for Deron? I look forward to the next few years when these superstar players are traded for high draft choices. Then we can shrug our shoulders and continue minimally upgrading so that we remain in the 6th-8th seed playoff hunt. We're gonna get a superstar! Nobody can match the assets we have to offer! Morey has positioned us perfectly to land a franchise player.. we have the best assets in the league! post-trade deadline.. Wait.. so we lost out on trading for a superstar with no "destination" list because we didn't have Derrick Favors??! Whose not even playing that well but teams like his potential?!?! We don't need a high draft pick! Teams won't be able to match what assets we can offer to Orlando/New Orleans next year! And the cycle continues..
Yes, the almighty "one year cycle" continues. Be more dramatic. All we need is a legit center to be a 50 win team again, there's quite a few good ones out there this offseason.
Oh, ya? I'll make sure to let Daryl know he can cross off "superstar" on his shopping list. I didn't realize we were no longer in the market for one. One legit center huh? Okay, let's take a look at whose realistic: Samuel Dalembert Kwame Brown Kurt Thomas Jeff Foster Hammed Haddadi Eddy Curry Kendrick Perkins has been taken off the market. We won't come close to getting DeAndre Jordan or Marc Gasol as both are RFAs. Tyson Chandler? Good luck prying him away from Cuban. We're a Samuel Dalembert away from getting 15 more minutes on the treadmill!
Btw stop saying "treadmill". Yes, we know you don't go out and waste money on old washed up guys when you are a bad team. This isn't some new idea. There's a reason only a handful of terrible organizations with inexperienced GMs fall into this category, namely Charlotte. Whoever said it was probably like "Oh hey if I give it a nifty name like treadmill people will think this is some new novel concept and quote me for months."
Ok, say you're the best GM in the world. You ended up in Yao Ming draft with the top 3 pick, and Houston got Yao Ming and the Bulls got Williamson. What now? All the talent picking ability in the world won't help you if there's no talent to be had. There's a reason why guys like Kobe and Duncan pile up the rings; people like them come only 1 a generation, which is also why the Clips had to wait 20 odd years for Griffin to come along. Secondly, nobody can accurately predict how players will perform in the NBA. Didn't Weisbrod quit because he got ridiculed for picking Dwight Howard over surefire superstar Emeka Okafor? Finally let me point out the irony of the tankers crew being impatient and whining about the rockets being mediocre not even two years out of the Yao Ming era. If you can't wait two freaking years how do you expect to sit through the 4-6 years of rebuilding? Fake Fan indeed
