Taking Risk: It's Time

I agree with OP and the other guy. Morey took some small risks. Like people say. Ariza and Battier. The thing is people think these are big risks. I just dont consider them big risks the moves they are. They are role players dealt for role players. One by one in micro transactions. So alot of people are right in wrong in their assessments. He took risks. Battier for a D league guy. Brooks for a backup. Ariza for a backup. You see the pattern here?

Why not instead could he have just done. Brooks, Battier, and Ariza for a huge risk. One huge risk???? Instead micro risks. Thats where the OP is clearly right.

 

Ok. I am usually just one of those thread jackers like the last guy was claiming on you.:grin: Inserted my own agenda into the topic again. Adelman doesnt strike me as the type that ever meshed well with Moreys strategy. It was like having ice cream and hamburger meat mixed together with those two.

 

All this "risk taking" to me just sounds like giving up. Oh those other mean GM's aren't dealing with us, so we should just take their 0.50 on the dollar offers at face value and get rid of our best players.

How is that going increase your standing with the rest of the league's management? Everyone's just going to treat you like Kahn and you won't be able to make any deals period without getting screwed.

Yes the direction the Rockets had been going in for the past decade failed. This is an indictment on everyone involved in that decision-making process, but to me and many other fans the onus of this blame falls upon T-Mac, Yao, and the executives who decided our fates should be tied to them for the better part of a decade.

This does not give Morey carte blanche, but it also serves as perspective for all the GOOD moves he did make these past four years. People in this thread look to the Scola, Artest, Martin acquisitions as if "that's just what Morey does", but fact of the matter is each of those trades represented a special scenario. Kevin Martin wasn't just acquired because "Morey's good at finding good deals", it took McGrady's massive expiring contract, a budding talent in Landry, and a stupid team in the Knicks who still had significant interest in acquiring him despite all those years of Quit. We're not going to be able to give away Martin, acquire a "superstar", and then all of a sudden find a Martin-replica on the scrap heap somewhere. He is somebody you KEEP if you are trying to win a championship.

 

Yet another guy telling us Morey is dumb and not a risk taker. Isn't that like $18m in trade.

What? Morey didn't try to do a huge package...um...for Melo or Bosh.

Do you not understand how hard it is to move $18m in salary in one trade and qualify as a "High Risk" trade. You wouldn't even call a Melo trade high risk. I would.

OK, at least give me an example of what that $18m high risk trade would be like.

 

Regarding Minnesota Timberwolves General Manager David Kahn recent comment: “Analytics are less important for rebuilding teams”:

Cuban replied “I’m glad they think that.”

Hollinger stated that he thought analytics might be more helpful since there were more potential solutions starting from that level.

In my opinion, this depends on how you look at it. Hollinger seems right to suggest more potential solutions, but there is less statistical accuracy the further you project in the future. Others shared this sentiment, but that doesn’t suggest you should limit your resources.

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/25894/bullets-from-the-basketball-analytics-panel

 

He can't be a thread jacker when it's his own thread.

You're a newbie too, aren't you. CXbby will learn.

 

Cx, good post, but I disagree with your biggest points. There are always times to be risky in sports and life. Risk is the reason some people own companies and some people work at those companies for 40 yrs. Risk is the reason the lakers have 16 titles. Remember norm nixon? What about kobe bryant? How about tony parker? What about clyde for otis? All of those were big time risks for contending teams.

We can discuss all day about the gay for battier trade and I thought it was a good move. I thought shane would accept the 3rd guy role and really help the other 2,but I also said it could be a move that could haunt the rockets if they didn't win it and it has. I think most were surprised we didn't get more for the pick.

All in all, risk is in the eye of the beholder. I know a few millionaires and non got rich by being safe. I'm 40 yrs old and some of the companies that played it safe are not around anymore or are limited. Redbox and netflix took down blockbuster. Home depot and lowes took down sutherlands and mccoys. Barnes and noble hnded over their internet stuff to amazon and was slow to adapt to kindle. Last I read, they were about to go belly up.

3 yrs ago I said the rox should be looking for yao mings replacement, not his compliment.
The team decided dorsey was a good compliment,andersen was a god compliment,and miller as a good compliment. Non were brought in to replace him when he misses 30 games or the entire season. I for like morey is taking a gamble on thabeet,hill,and williams. I hope he takes a shot at tyler with one of the picks.

 

I am for taking a risk with 2012 draft, because it does not appear to be as risky as some of the other one player/two player drafts. There are a number of players projected to be stars and trying to take advantage of that has better odds of working than trade for a star. You don’t throw Martin and Scola away for garbage; you trade them for high picks/prospects who you think from scouting can be as good or better than them in a couple of years. Basically YOUNG guys who will make us lose short term to get a franchise player from the draft. But in a couple of years those guys will hopefully become stud players complementing our star…while Martin’s contract would be expiring and Scola’s knees would be in who knows what condition. So I would definitely support risk like this rather than wait cautiously and patiently to trade for superstar that will never happen.

 

Cx,not to be picky,but kobe was drafted by a contender. The lakers got shaq and added him to a core of nve,elden campbell,and eddie jones. Adding shaq to that core or better yet trading a proven center for a high school kid. They didn't know they were getting shaq.
.

I do agree with you somewhat about the davis deal, but, that was at least a top 10 pick based on records. If the team is rebuilding, getting a 10 or less pick for davis and 2 yrs is worth it. Its about getting high end young talent.

 

Rebuild we must! Lowry, pat, Lee, Dragic, Martin all need to hit the retirement home. =/

With the exception of Luifa, Houston is a young ball club. What kind of rebuilding do you want? Package Luis* for a high pick? Those teams you want to deal with are not going to want that contract.
They, for the most part, want cheap contracts also since they too are "rebuilding."

Do you want to trade away Martin, Luis and Lee in a Grizzlies/lakers trade circa 2008? maybe to make room for a star? Good luck getting Dwight Howard to come to Clutch city with the scraps that are left.

Honestly, I think the team should stay the course with the core guys and make a run at Dwight howard with Lee and the dream recruiting. It's a also a big time risk for you risk takers, as he might not sign. If he doesn't sign, you can suck the following year and still get your "westbrook". At this point, what difference is one more year going to make?

I hate how management handled the fuhrer but the front office can still make a better pick at 14th than most teams picking high in the lottery. So no need to get all amped up about getting younger. We are young! heartache to heartache!


* I don't mind luifa being sent away to a CONTENDER for late second round pick, an expiring and some sunchips.

 

Great thread, I completely agree and I dont really see to much of a downside to trading away our vets for high picks. I love Martin and Scola, but us adding the 14th and 23rd pick doesn't make us a championship contender, and If your dreaming were gonna get some magical free agent or get some monster trade for a superstar, then your better dreaming the 14th pick becomes the next Lebron.

I like our core group of young players, I think there solid already and have great potential to get even better- Lowry, Lee, Bud, Pat, Hill, Dragic (I know Dragic and Hill are debateable) Twill and Thabeet are our question marks but they have even greater potential then the rest, but there just not there yet and maybe they never will be. I think that with this core group of young players we are a just below .500 team, 12-15 wins below, maybe more maybe less. We are better off then the Thunder were when they hit there 4 great draft picks- Harden, Westbrook, Ibaka, and Durant. With that being said I think that we are 1 star and 1 solid to great player away from being able to contend. With Morey and his track record with late picks, just imagine what he could do with high picks.

So I say we trade the older players while they still have good value, get the draft picks and trust morey to do what he does best. If not I think were gonna be stuck in this .500 limbo for next 3 to 5 years, hoping we get that miracle free agent in the off season.

P.S. My computer at work is messing up, so if this is posted multiple times I apologize

 

Agree with the OP, although I don't know that it should be called 'risk' given that the short-term outcome is pretty clear. If we can get good future value (picks and prospects combined with non-guaranteeds and TEs) for Scola and Martin, we should pull the trigger on those trades. Yes, the Rockets will be terrible for a few years.

Here's why: The careers of all players follow arcs - They start out as green and inexperienced, hit a 5-10 year period of maximum productivity, and then decline. Some players have really high max productivities, like Lebron, some reach high productivity early, like Blake Griffin, and some develop ways to stay productive even after their bodies start to fail them, like Ray Allen, but all players follow this general arc.

You want to structure your team in such a way that the players are at high levels of output at the same time. A great example is OKC - about 5 years ago, they had a bulge, a big number of high draft picks from sucking and trading their vets. Now, they have loads of young talents that are all maturing at once. Durant, Westbrook, Harden, Ibaka, Green, etc. They can keep some of this talent and trade some of it to fill needs (Green for Perk) but they gathered premium assets and became serious contenders as those assets matured together.

Contrast that with the Hawks - their assets are at all different points in their career arcs - Horford is maturing, Smith is peaked, Johnson and Hinrich are declining. They've won far more games than the Thunder over the last five years, but because their assets aren't peaking at the same time, they aren't contenders and will have to go through a complete rebuild before they ever will be.

That's why I'd trade Martin and Scola for future value. Right now, all these mature players are doing is artificially raising our win total and hurting our draft chances. Let's man up and take our medicine. We will suck for a few years. It will not be fun. But it will allow us to collect assets who will mature together and give us a realistic chance to win rings.

 

Martin and #14 - What does this get us.
Scola and #23 - What does this get us.

I think we are basically going to forfeit next season.
So Maybe we need to trade for younger players.

This would not be a huge risk because
I think the drop off to Lee and PatPat
will not be has horrible as it would seem.

Rocket River

 

Here's the thing about "risk"

Look around the league, browse through the history of the league, and take notes on teams that broke through because they took risks and fliers on young guys* versus teams that had a out-of-the-can franchise superstar stud fall in their laps.

And before anyone breathes a word about tanking, go back and look at how many lame #1 draft picks there've been# and how it's nearly impossible to assure yourself of the top pick even with shameless tanking (Miami tanking for Rose, Boston tanking for Duncan)


*Best example I could think of was the Pacers bringing in Jermaine O'Neal and Ron Artest and fleshing out their best seasons.
# in the past 16 years: Oden, Bargnani, Bogut, Kwame, K-Mart, Kandi Man, Joe Smith

It's a splash of cold water, but there's simply not much any GM can do to magically create a contender. Morey's done the right thing and tried to pile together assets in the event that a blockbuster deal comes walking by, but unfortunately you need the player to want you (or for Utah to get so pissed, they call you up at midnight).