Worst things that could possibly happen to us this season...have happened

OP is right. Everything that could gave gone wrong has gone wrong. Plus we lost aBattier for someone who wont get anytime and gave more time to Bud instead of Lee.

Oh well heres to next season.

 

Another smart ass post just for the sake of posting. SMH FYI, this thread actually sums up what we have been dealing with the past decade.

If you have nothing good to post just don't bother.

 

you know goran dragic came from pheonix and lee came in that 4 way deal, right?

 

No one is denying this team has faced adversity and issues, but many of us do not share in the woe-is-me/sky-is-falling attitude exhibited by the OP and by you.

 

Mediocrity is the absolute worst place you wanna be in the NBA...good enough to either just miss the playoffs or to make it and get bounced out in the first round and not bad enough to get a high lottery pick...mediocrity, unfortunately, is exactly where the Houston Rockets are right now.

 

FAIL FAIL FAIL... how do you live with so much FAIL?

You do realize we also got draft picks right?

 

i dont get this, man.

why is making a statement that's largely supported by facts considered a "sky is falling" attitude?

again, look past the emotion and look at the content of the topic. would you argue that this season hasn't been a failure by any number of measures? would you argue that any of the points in this thread are false?

nobody is saying that we should sell the team to Anaheim because of these failures, or that the team can't recover, or that next year is guaranteed to be a failure as well. the only point here is about what has happened this year, and that it's pretty close to a worst case scenario.

 

The "worst thing that could possibly happen" is not an example of "sky is falling attitude"?

What's so horrible about it? The Rockets likely end up missing the playoffs while winning 44-45 games, having the 14th pick and a mid-20-ish pick. Oh the horrors. I'd rather the team totally sell off their roster for nothing and hire David Kahn to start over.

 

I think theyre looking at this team and thinking we have no direction... which in some way is true. We will get a mid round pick that will not give us any star power in the future, we dont really have any young prospects that can amount to anything other than solid starters, and our best players are either in their prime, or soon to pass it. The Timberwolves have some bright spots on their team, they have alot of solid young guys and three young guys in Love, Flynn, and Johnson to build around. The downside of all for us is that we are stuck in mediocrity, and unless we can bust out a trade for a game changing big or upgrades at the wing, i see us staying there for a while. Fortunately for us we have one of the league's best gms and i believe he'll shape the roster up this summer.

 

i think you're being overdramatic about it.

again, if a reasonable person sat down before the season and outlined the circumstances of this season, it would be much closer to a worst case scenario than even a decent one.

i think that's pretty much inarguable.

 

I did post something. I agreed with him.

 

Lee is WAY better than Ariza. That is fact one. Dragic and a 1st round pick are better than the mentally fragile midget that is AB. Battier for Thabeet and a bad pick looks bad, but I don't think it was that bad a trade. I agree that when we resign Yao in the off season I will kick a hobo. The T Will trade is mind blowing. I can't fathom what happened.

 

When you compare the value we thought our assets had this time last year to what they are now actualizing to be, it seems like most are turning to lead.

Though Ariza wasn't good for the first half of last season, he seemed to be much better once we got Kevin Martin and looked like a solid if unspectacular starting SF next to Martin for this season. Instead, he's traded for a solid if unspectacular backup SG.

This time last year, Brooks was looking like a stud scorer and a good starting point guard about to win MIP. Now, he's been flipped for an okay backup PG and a bad pick in a bad draft.

This time last year, Battier looked like a slowing but solid backup small forward that provided us good defense, leadership and stability. Now, he's been flipped for a guy who isn't even good enough to warm our benches (and costs us $5m for the privilege) and a mediocre pick we won't see for at least another year.

This time last year, Budinger and Hill looked like promising young players who could take the next step this season to become significant players. Instead, they've struggled all season and look to have too many holes in their games to join the starting 5 (not that we have a choice).

This time last year, Yao was out but we were looking forward to one last chance at having a great center who doesn't break when the wind blows, thanks to a surgery to change the mechanics of his foot. Instead, it looks like his last chance failed and we've lost our franchise player for nothing. In fact, the greater danger isn't that he won't return but that we might sign him again.

This time last year, we celebrated taking advantage of NY who could give us 2 great picks this year and next by continuing to suck. Instead, they become a playoff team and will give us nothing this season and probably a bad pick next season.

This time last year, we were looking forward to an offseason in which Morey promised to be aggressive in trading his assets for a new franchise player. Chris Bosh or something. Instead, despite efforts in the offseason and the trade deadline and cracks at Bosh, Anthony, Williams, etc, we get nothing (and salary-taking devices like Jeffries' contract, Yao's contract, and a medical exception all go for naught).

Now, I know there are a couple of things that turned to gold too. Lowry's a bad-ass. Patterson looks legit. Hayes keeps getting better. But, most of it has turned to lead. On the balance, this season was a complete waste. We're not competing in the playoffs and the total value of our assets has decreased. We have mediocre to bad picks in a weak draft coming up, and little to no cap-space in an offseason free agent market that doesn't have any game-changers for us to acquire anyway. Our only hope is in the alleged genius of our GM who hasn't been able to do more than staunch the bleeding so far.

 

The bottom line, to me, is that the team that we have now is a better team than the one we had last season.

We have a better starting PG now-- Lowry is a far more complete player than AB ever was even back when AB was scoring 20 ppg.

We went from having 0 real SG and having to watch "Traveler" Ariza trying to create off the dribble to having 2 more than competent SGs. Martin has also had likely the finest year in his career.

At SF, we trade Battier (whose contract was expiring and who is 32) but Budinger has taken over competently. At the very least, Rick Adelman is high on him and I'll trust Adelman's opinion.

At the 4/5, we added Patterson to the rotation and both Hayes and Scola played better this season than last.

The team is finally running Adelman's offense correctly and has produced the most efficient offense during 3 decades worth of Rockets teams. The defense slipped a bit overall (from 17th overall last year to about 21st overall this year) but has looked significantly better (11th ranked) post-All Star Break.

Yes, there are things that didn't workout, but I enjoy watching this team and think they can do better next year.

 

I'm not a pessimistic as everyone else, and it was the right move for Morey to go ahead and be conservative this season with the looming lock out and the unceratinty of the new CBA. He made some gambles that didn't play out but he didn't make any knee jerk moves that left us in a worse position.

I also don't understsnd the argument that being a worse team helps us in the long run. Has Memphis imporved because they picked up a stud in the draft? Is Evan Turner the reason that the 76er are starting to make some noise? Even Chicago, (who has had a longer road than us back to relavance) didn't really comke up from the bottom they came from the middle of the pack. These perrenial cellar dwellers are not by any stretch in a better postition than us. Wizards are still terrible, Golden State, Minny, Toronto, Cleveland will all be equally bad next season. We are a few defensive players away from being a good playoff team again.

 

I'm not sure my math comes out the same as yours. Comparing end-of-seasons:

PG: Lowry/Dragic vs. Brooks/Lowry -- '10 wins
SG: Martin/Lee vs. Martin/Taylor -- '11 wins
SF: Ariza/Battier vs. Budinger/T-Will (lol) -- '10 wins
PF: Scola/Hill vs. Scola/Patterson/Hill -- '11 wins
C: Hayes/Andersen vs. Hayes/Miller/Thabeet -- wash

 

Thanks for making that clear. I missed that in the 21,467 other posts that said the exact same thing.

 

Oh come on. Miller is at least better than Andersen. And even if it's a ridiculously slim chance that Thabeet develops into a competent defensive center, there is still a chance. Whereas the '10 team had a 6'5 center and a 30 year old marshmellow soft aussie. '11 wins.

p.s. Lee usually backs up Budinger too - T Will doesn't see the court. And you know this.

 

I was comparing by asset value, which is why I didn't give Miller the edge on Andersen (age) or list Lee twice. The alternative to listing T-Will was Mike Harris, but some folks think T-Will could still be flipped for something of value.

I'll grant you the '11 advantage by a hair on center for Thabeet's potential though. Still, Ariza/Battier beats Bud/T-Will by a mile and a half.

 

2010 team gave up 0.4 points per 100 possession more than it scored.
2011 team scored 2.0 points per 100 possession more than it gave up (and better than that during the last month or so)

This year's team has simply performed better than last year's team, no matter who the "names" are and what we think of each "name."

And by the way, this year's PG combo is better than last year's. Why? Because there's more Lowry minutes in this year's combo and the Lowry we get this year is better than the Lowry or last year and better than AB in either year.

This year's center is also better than last year's center. This is mostly because we have more Chuck Hayes minutes this season (27 vs. 21 minutes) and Chuck Hayes is a better now than a year ago. Also, right now the backup C minutes are going to Patterson, who is pretty good and Jordan Hill (more competent than last year's HIll), so the rotation is stronger as a whole.