Sorry man, you lost me there. They get lucky in one draft and now they know what theyre doing? Let's forget all those years of horrible management and bad draft picks. Lets forget that Donald Sterling is a bigot racist. Lets forget that the Clippers have only made it out the 1st round, twice, since 1984. Maybe the rockets should rarely win games and become one of the worst teams for the next 10 years and finally strike gold with a cant miss draft pick.
Do you really think they didn't even think about tanking? Just because they haven't come out with a press conference saying "WE THOUGHT ABOUT TANKING!" doesn't mean they didn't at least think about it. It's hard to believe a person clever enough to acquire enough money to purchase a basketball team and a mind from MIT didn't think at least think about one of the only known ways of rebuilding.
They've "thought" about it, but they won't even consider going that route. Actually, it's Les's own words. I think it's unfortunate considering how little success the team has actually seen over the course of the last 3 years. As fans, we judge the teams progress by the Win and Loss column. However fair or unfair that is to the organization is debatable. However, considering the fact we've been supposedly been "hording assets", you would think we'd have something to show for it by now or maybe our improving assets would be reflected in the Win/ Loss column? No? The fact of the matter is we haven't been to the playoffs in the last 3 years and we have nothing to show for it. It's great to hear that the team is pursuing all these stars (Carmelo, Amare, Bosh, Howard, Gasol, etc), but I honestly do wonder if maybe our assets simply aren't good enough. Maybe the front office places too much of a premium on our own assets? Either our own assets aren't good enough or other teams are doing more and have more talent than we do. Honestly, this isn't Rocket science. If we had the assets for a star, we'd have a star on our hands. Really, it's that simple. All this chasing a superstar business is admirable by the front office, but it almost makes the organization seem desperate especially considering how many times we've actually struck out. As with a lot of fans, I just want to see some progress or even some direction. I think tanking should be an option that Les is willing to consider considering how little progress we've actually made over the course of the last 3 seasons. Sometimes you have to take a step back to move two steps forward. Realistically, I think that tanking is our best shot at obtaining a star-caliber player.
I never said I don't think tanking is the answer, because I definitely do as well. But to say we have nothing to show for our asset hoarding isn't exactly correct either. We had Pau Gasol on our roster until Stern shat on us. Not only that, but we also traded our 2 assets that depreciated the most this season, Scola and Kevin Martin. That is progress to me. If Orlando does decide to trade DH, they would definitely look pretty closely at an offer that involved some combination of Gasol, Parsons, Dragic, Patterson and or lowry.
I must be missing something because both Scola and Martin are still in Rockets uniforms. The Rockets made that deal with the Lakers at the beginning of the season, yet as the trade deadline came and went, we were still sitting there with both Scola and Martin. You have to remember that the Lakers were getting Chris Paul in that original trade. That was a heck of a deal for them. If we had the pieces to get Gasol, we would have Gasol...not that I think he is the answer either.
This post highlights what I feel has become the standard whine of the Rockets fan to dismiss SA's record of success and pretend that all is well on the Rocketship: San Antonio isn't good - they were just lucky to get Duncan (just like the Rockets were LUCKY to get Sampson, Hakeem and Yao). All the rest (50+ win seasons, 3 NBA titles) is just luck on their part and not the result of having a well run franchise. It has nothing to do with talent evaluation, coaching and running a smart organization. Nope, nothing at all. So while the Rockets were using three No. 1 picks to get Eddie Griffin, SA goes international and finds a Tony Parker. The Rockets go international and find the likes of Malik Badianne, Bostjan Nachbar & V Spann while SA goes and finds a Ginobli, Scola and a Splitter. Yeah, that's definitely luck all right. Since 1999 the Rockets DNQ for the playoffs 8 times which means they were in the NBA lotto 8 times. Out of those 8 times, only Kenny Thomas Yao Ming, Steve Novak, Patrick Patterson, Chandler Parsons and Marcus Morris played on the team. Thomas was traded because he was playing the PF position better than Eddie Griffin for whom they flushed away three 1st round picks (one of whom was Richard Jefferson). Rudy Gay was swapped for Shane Battier. Yao Ming we all know what happened to him and Patterson, Parsons and Morris have yet to make an impact although it remains to be seen if Daryl Morey will keep them around or swap them for more "assets". Want more? How about the great trade of 2006 when the Rockets traded their starting PG, SG & PF for Tracy McGrady, Tyron Lue, Juwann Howard and Reese Gaines. Now it was quite obvious to everyone at the time that (a) Tyron Lue was not the answer at PG (b) Juwann Howard was not the answer at PF and (c) who the hell was Reese Gaines but because the Spurs were so damned lucky, the Rockets front office had no real plan (or clue) on how to build a team around Yao and MeMac which BTW, is something good organizations use from time to time: PLANNING. Their luck further held when as Yao & MeMac began to break down physically, the Rockets continued to follow their original blueprint of building a team around their two "star" players which resulted in more wasted years of spinning their nice red wheels. Which brings us to the present where all of the bad luck suffered by the Rockets has resulted in their 3rd straight trip to NBA lottoland. Now, I am being sarcastic here to make a point: It's well past time for the Rockets' organization, owner, fans and media to quit offering up justifications, rationalizations, excuses and explanations for the lack of results. Good organizations develop a plan and strategy for succeeding and then go out an execute them. For the Rockets, this means that they pull their heads out of their collective behinds and go out and find players who can play a style of basketball that will allow them to compete with the teams in their division and conference because whatever they are doing now ain't working. Once they start doing that I believe that you will find their "luck" will start to look as good as that of the Spurs.
We had the pieces and we had Gasol. It was a done deal then overturned. This season would have looked a lot different if Stern didn't over turn a done deal.
Excuses, explanations, rationalizations, hypothetical scenarios they all amount to the same thing. This is a results driven business and the bottom line is results. Since 2000, the Rockets have gone through 3 head coaches, two GMs and a number of roster changes. And yet, the results are still lacking. Morey came in and continued to follow the same flawed blueprint of his predecessor while managing to achieve the same results (funny how that works out). Unfortunately for Morey and his legion of fanboys, you ARE what your record says you are. No need to go all the way downtown - all you need to do is to go here: http://www.nbauniverse.com/teams/records_houston_rockets.htm Pay close attention to their record since 1999 where they show 8 DNQs for the playoffs, 4 first round playoff exits and 1 second round exit. That, my friend is mediocrity up close and personal and if it were a flag, it wuld be flying from the flag pole in front of the TC. It's worth believing because even a cursory examination of their drafting, player moves, coaching changes, etc. reveals a team and an organization that simply does not know what it takes to succeed. This organization from the owner on down lacks the discipline and knowledge on how to build a contending team and its been that way since Hakeem left. Rudy T only knew how to coach ISO ball which the zone more or less killed. CD was looking for the next Hakeem which wasn't Yao. JVG wanted to play a restrictive low scoring defensive style of basketball which came as a surprise to everyone in the Rockets organization because they didn't look at any video of his coaching at NY. Adelman was another variation of Don Nelson whose mantra was "offense, offense, offense, defense". Morey is playing moneyball which worked great for the Oakland Athletics in baseball - too bad for him this is NBA basketball where the continuous shuffling of players encourages instability. McHale just wants to hang out at the games, crack a few jokes and live the NBA head coaching dream. It's just been one continuous incoherent stream of zig-zag moves by an organization drifting off into irrelevancy and I believe this is why you see them gambling on players, coaches and trades because they continually have to make up for their mistakes due to the lack of a true blueprint for success. The entire organization is in desperate need of a change in culture from the top down. Only then will we see a substantive change in results.
You are absolutely correct that management botched things roughly between the Dream Era ending and acquiring Morey. Morey actually has the smarts and simply needs a bit of luck to pull off what he has been trying to do. To the bolded, in real life, good businesses' and organizations' best laid plans can lead to failure. You need the correct combination of luck and organizational skills to achieve what the Spurs have, especially considering that they are such a small market team. Seriously? What do you think they have been doing if not trying to scout and acquire players who can lead us to where we need to be going?
Hillboy, great post! But I would like to add a few things. Sure, there are consensus "great" organizations and "poor" ones. Certainly. But irregardless of this, many things cannot be seen in advance. Injuries and player development being two of them. Lets say Duncan went down in his 4th year with a career ending injury. This can happen to ANYBODY. Would SA be regarded as highly? Would they won as many championships? Probably not. There is a degree of luck involved here. Its easy to look in retrospect and say how picking so and so was so smart compared to some other guy. Ill agree sometimes the writing is on the wall. Yao? Im not going into that here. While the coaches, owners, scouts and a myriad of intangibles define a good organization, the best of them, in retrospect, are guilty of making bad trades and making bad picks. What separates the good and bad are the amount and quantity of each. In my mind, over the years, the Rockets have been a good organization. Not a great one though. Certainly we have done better than some. Out done by a few. I will agree with you though that we have had a many a poor choice on draft day. Steve Harris anybody? (add those you mentioned as well). On the trade front we have done better. At least in comparison to draft choices, imo. Not great. But better. But lets also consider how long it took to put decent parts around Hakeem. A decade? No, I wont say SA was lucky. But their success could have been derailed by a number of things over the years that did happen to some well run organizations that didnt happen to them. What SA deserves the most credit for is making very good decisions over a prolonged period of time giving them the OPPORTUNITY for enough of them to bear fruit in a timely manner as to have a core to build around that could endure. The Rockets, in contrast, have made some good decisions, but had too many mediocre and bad ones in-between. But overall, Ill take the brain-trust we have now over most of those residing on other teams.
You make some really good points here. To be fair though, a lot of the older moves were made by Carrol Dawson as it appeared making the "flashy" moves were in vogue, which did set the Rockets back a few years. You make an excellent point about the Spurs I want to accentuate further. The Spurs knew that at some point Robinson was going to retire and the core of their original dynasty was going to come an end. Even while Robinson was in uniform and the the team was in contention year in and year out, they were also mindful about building for the future. When Robinson finally retired in 2003, you didn't see the Spurs fall off the map. Matter of fact, the Spurs continued their winning ways and remained a contending team adding a title in 05' and then another in 07'. Teams don't just luck into titles. This is a result of smart drafting, smart trading, and smart free agent acquisitions. It's been almost a decade since Robinson retired to end their "twin towers" and yet we are STILL talking about the Spurs as possible title contenders in 2012. No matter how you cut that pie, that is an incredibly difficult feat accomplished by the Spurs. As Rockets fans, while you might despise the Spurs, you should know when to give credit when credit is due. The Spurs are the "model of consistency", if I've ever seen one.
Nonsense. Why is it in the NBA the same teams win the championship more often than in NFL or MLB? Because superstars matter more. The amount of skills needed by management and luck is tremendous to build a contender. The Rocket's know what it takes to win, it's nonsense to think otherwise or that other organization's don't know either. Getting there is exceedingly difficult and requires assembling the right mix of players around your superstar(s).
Well that's the thing. Wouldn't find your superstars first and then attempt to build around them. Instead, we have a ragtag group of soldiers that nobody really knows what to do with nor what we are actually building around. One moment we are chasing Carmelo Anthony, the next moment we have our sights on Gasol, and now we've switched our attention to Dwight Howard. It makes the team seem desperate, especially with all these non-trades and our record certainly doesn't seem to suggest that our team has improved or is heading in any sort of direction for that matter.
Making essentially the same post over and over does not make a point. Like I pointed out earlier they had Tim Duncan to put Ginobli and Parker with. By the way Scola is on the rockets. If they are such an well run team as you claim them to be why did they give up on Scola? The rockets have Scola , Lowry who are just as good as Ginobli and Parker. Problem is they don't have a Tim Duncan to put them with. You are just one of these guys that believe tanking solves all the problems. Look up what the spurs record is without Tim Duncan, and try not to copy and paste from the wikipedia article on the spurs.
Sigh... You acquire the best player(s) available in the Rocket's situation. The team is desperate, desparate for a superstar like a marjority of NBA teams. And why with this directionless nonsense. Our direction is upwards. Our assets and flexability are better this year than last (we are in a position to cash in our vets + lowry + trade picks). You are confusing the correlation between our lack of results with a lack of direction.
We're upset, but imagine being the Heats organization. You HAVE it, and still wont win it. Now thats tough. Atleast if we dont take it, we know why. LOL
I'm merely suggesting the Rockets don't really have a blueprint per se, other than finding some--any superstar player that may be available. I used desperate, in the sense that it looks bad striking out over and over again as it seems as though other teams obviously don't share the same sentiments about our "assets" as we do. If we truly have the collection of "assets" as the team has been preaching for what is now going on 3 seasons, something would have happened by now. Essentially, I'm suggesting that our "assets" really aren't that great to begin with. I agree with the flexibility point you brought up. That, we do have a bit more of this year. As a fan, I do judge the team's direction based on what I deem as results. Results in the Win/Loss column and our "success" when it comes to obtaining FA's, players through trades, and selections through the draft. There has been nothing done in the last 3 years that I would say, has vastly improved this team and it's reflected by our Win/Loss Totals. However fair or unfair that might be, that's how fans will judge a team's success. All I'm asking for is the team to either meet or beat expectations. So far, they have been a disappointment in that regard. It was only a matter of time before the accumulation of "assets" talk was going to start sounding like a broken record, especially with the team performing below expectations on the court. Last 3 Seasons -0 notable trades. -0 notable FA acquisitions -0 playoff appearances I'm not saying the team hasn't seen success in past decades, but THIS is the current state of the team. It is what it is.rg
Haha true. It's definitely tough being in that position, but I think every team has to go through the same lumps and bruises. I feel bad for the Bulls, especially after posting the best record in the league this season and having D. Rose go down the first game of the playoffs. It's definitely disappointing for the organization and it's fans, but you can't argue that they don't have a plan going into future. Those two teams will still be back in the conversation same time next year and the years following that.
