Our next superstar will likely come through free agency. Tanking doesn't really do any good for us at the moment. In fact if we make a good run this year it might signal to the free agents that Houston is a good place to sign.
How do you "tank" with Harden on this team???? How the hell do you think they are bad enough to contend for a #1 draft pick with him on their roster????? Riddle me that???
I think you might have misunderstood my question. My question was with regards to your statement about "Tanking is only for ..." We did not tank and yet, according to you - have a bright future. So I asked, doesn't this blow away the theory of tanking?
This. I can see certain disgruntled big men in Sactown and Minny looking for an up and coming team that can also pay a max contract.
Might as well try to make the playoffs now that we got our star (hopefully). We have enough flexibility with regards to our cap space that I'm comfortable going forward with Harden and Asik as our building blocks with T. Jones and/or DMo possibly developing into all-stars and adding another star in free agency or trade. Now I'm comfortable with the inevitable 14th pick/first round sweep. And I was one of the biggest tankers.
Well tanking is not the only way to get a bright future, but it is one of the methods to achieve that. What I am saying is a team should only think of tanking if they don't see a future in their team. And usually, to tank "ethically" without obviously giving up their game every game, they trade away/give up their key players or just hire a incompetent coach and just lose the entire season "with effort". And that's why I said that the stars have aligned for rockets. In their attempt to tank this season, they got all the right players at the right time. And now instead of tanking to get a potential for a bright future, they now already have that. It will make no sense now to tank.
Why even think of thanking when you know there is a method out there that does not require you to lose games that you shouldn't or not play your best team (veteran or young)? This current team is proof of that. The fact that you had to state "ethically" should speak volumes about this method. You are now playing with words. There is already a word that has been used for what we did this year. It's called "rebuilding". You are trying to use the word tanking to make it mean like rebuilding. Where did you get the idea that we attempted to tank this season? Please provide proof, links, etc and not just what you felt was happening.
A late lottery pick won't get us anywhere. We already have good role-players. We just need to add another star to the mix. I want our young players to make the playoffs and get that experience. Also, I want to make the playoffs and fulfill that pick obligation to Atlanta so we are no longer constrained by it.
I wanted to respond to this also.... The stars did not align. It was a product of very good management decisions. If we did not have the players the other teams want, we would not have had the assets that made it attractable for Oklahoma. In addition, he placed as in a situation that even though we had lots of assets, we had the cap space flexibility to sign major talents. Please give credit where it is due.
Because sometimes for different scenarios, tanking is the best way out. If you own a team that no stars wants to play in, and no teams wants to trade anything competent with you for your mid-tier pieces. The easiest option is win the lottery. It's easy for you as the fan to say don't do it when all you're riding on is pride. The GM is riding billions of dollar on this and the entire fan-base is watching his every move. If tanking gives the GM the best % of winning. Of course he'd do it. You can call it rebuilding, you can call it tanking, these are just words. But the method regardless is what it is. Rebuilding is essentially the same as taking yourself out of the competition this year to build, which is what tanking is suppose to do as well. I don't know why you are being so defensive about this. Look I'm against tanking in any competitive sport myself. I rather watch my mediocre team try hard to win but fail than purposely have a non-team from the ground up. But not all fans are like me. Some wants to win no matter the cause. But just because I'm against it, doesn't mean the franchise shouldn't do it. I will be sadly disappointed, but at the same time I can understand why there is a need for it. As per your question where I got the idea, of course it's subjective. It's my opinion that the Rockets were trying to tank based on how the reorganized their players.
It takes skills to create luck. Which is what the situation is here. Even Morey said he didn't believe that OKC would trade Harden. I agree that it was very good management decisions, but if the GM himself said that he didn't believe he would acquire Lin ore Harden, then what gives us the right to say that luck isn't involved in all of this?
I don't know where your getting that I am being defensive as I haven't had the need to defend anything. It might be just be words to you but it this is the form of communication we both have decided to use to discuss this subject. We use WORDS so yes, they mean something. If you or I is allowed to use a certain word and use it for whatever meaning we want, we will never understand each other. I never heard any analyst or anybody here for that matter which mentioned that what we did was tanking. I guess we will have to disagree about tanking as a good method. But for myself, the proof is in the pudding.
Again you are mixing words. Luck is != opportunity. Do you need to have skills to win the lottery? Do you need skills to land the number pick and eventually land Yao Ming? If Lin or Oklahoma used a dart board to decide which direction they will go, then yes I will agree with you that it was luck. We got those 2 guys because we placed ourselves in the opportunity to do so.
I always was against tanking, and now people see that tanking is not a good idea now. You go to the playoffs, and then great players will want to come play here, because the see a chance to play in the playoffs, and advance.
By making the playoffs our guys get valuable experience and at the same time can also lure all star players because they now know that the Rockets is a capable playoff team.
I've been strongly pro-tank before the trade (and I maintain that we would be in a better position if we had tanked) but at this point, we're better served making the playoffs. First, we need to discharge our pick obligation to ATL. The Stepian rule really hamstrings us in terms of making deals. The other reason is that we need to create some positive buzz around our squad. Houston is not an attractive destination city in the way that NY, MIA, or LA are - it is not a place that premium players will take pay cuts or join a crappy team just to play in. However, it's not an unattractive city, either (a la Utah, Indy, Detroit, Cleveland, etc.) and with the right moves, it can be a place a star would come to voluntarily. Harden was a huge, huge, unbelievably massive step forward - he's a young, premium, popular player in the league. As other posters have mentioned, we also have a lot of young talent on this roster, as well as cap space. If we can make some noise in the playoffs, I fully expect Houston to start appearing on lists of premium players' desired destinations. Nothing adds more value to your roster than adding of a top free agent joining your team (or being 'traded' for nothing, a la Howard, Lebron, Bosh, etc.) You can literally get the most valuable commodities in the league for little or nothing. We've got to do our best to put ourselves in a position to make one of those big scores, and making the playoffs with James Harden is a great start.
I want stars to see us as a playoff caliber team that is just missing a piece...which is them, to become a championship contender
