Question: why did the rockets let lowry and dragic go, but signed jeremy lin?

I think your last paragraph is a bit over romanticized version of actual events. I'm pretty sure the Rockets knew how good Lowry and Dragic were. After all they're the ones who invested in both of them when other teams did not. Both players became borderline all stars while on the Rockets. It's not surprising that they have achieved tons of success ever since.

Anyway. It's simple really. Les wanted in on the Jeremy Lin cash cow because obviously the Rockets still have hordes of casual fans in China due to Yao. It gave them something to cheer for. The Rockets were also in full tank mode at that point. Morey was pulling a Hinkie. It's just somehow Harden became available and Morey snagged him asap, changing the whole game. Or else Lin would have been the Tony Wroten of that Rockets team. Scored buckets with a huge amount of turnovers.

If Morey was clairvoyant, no way would he have let dragic go knowing Harden was gonna be here. It was just circumstance as the team was in <strike>tanking</strike>...er rebuilding mode.

 

While technically this is true, HOWEVER I think Morey and the Rockets were on the verge of tanking! Yes, TANKING! They had just come of another near miss of the playoffs and I think their thoughts were, a team with Lowry, Dragic ,Battier, Scola, etc. was maxed out. They were caught in the middle.

Why else would you let Dargic walk, trade your only other available point guard, release Scola and sign a point guard, who everyone knew was last talented than either Dragic or Lowry?

I think that's the route they were going to take, until the offer for Harden became available. THANK YOU OKC!!!!!

 

lowry injured his ankle and missed some games. that allowed dragic to become the starter. the team (albeit a lottery team) played well with dragic as the starter, and dragic excelled.

upon lowry's return, mchale left dragic as the starter. at the time lowry was the best player on the team, with kmart and scola as the second and third bananas. lowry was insulted since he felt this was supposed to be "his team". he and mchale had a falling out, and lowry was traded to toronto for a draft pick with protections that guaranteed it would only be conveyed if it were a lotto pick (very valuable given it came from the lowly raptors.

there was an enormous amount of roster turnover during the year and a half that dragic was with us. he saw this happen to his teammates:

dalembert (traded)-camby (traded) - thabeet (traded)
scola (amnestied)-patterson - hill (traded)
parsons-morris - budinger (traded)
kmart-lee (traded)
lowry (traded)-dragic

only he, kmart, and parsons remained. justifiably, that summer as a free agent, he asked for a trade kicker in his new contract. the rockets refused and dragic signed with the suns. the rockets claim they didn't refuse but said they wanted to mull it over and that dragic walked without giving them a chance to make a better offer.

either way, DM and les were left with a roster of:

g.smith-dmo
patterson-morris-t.jones
parsons-delfino-anderson
kmart- garcia-lamb
beverley-douglas

so they hit the FA pool for a center (asik) and any sort of notable name (lin). lin's purpose (although the rockets were selling the idea that he was a really good player) was to bring fans and a recognizable name to a pretty crappy roster. which he did. who cares how much you pay him for 3 years? look at that roster! its not like they needed the money for anyone else....

oh wait...

soon after, they traded the pick from lowry with kmart and lamb for james harden. well lin's money still wasn't getting in the way, harden is only one superstar, and lin could still make us the most popular team in asia without ruining our cap, so sure he's still worth the money. the only problem? he doesn't really fit next to harden.

the following summer we were able to sign dwight, so lin's contract still didn't get in our way of building. however, without that huge contract we might have been able to sign milsapp that summer too. once detroit overpaid for josh smith (the rockets wanted to trade asik in a S&T for smith, but the pistons offered more money than the rockets could offer), the rockets turned their attention to milsapp but they couldn't make a S&T work. had they not had lin, they could've signed him outright.

anyway, lin did help us make the playoffs and maintain the rockets brand in asia. both of those were big selling points to dwight (1. we are a winning team, and 2. dwight could expand his brand in asia earning more $$).

of course we all remember how last year played out, and this past summer when we parted ways with asik (in a STEAL of a trade that got us a lotto pick from the pellicans AND ariza!), and lin (in a trade that gave him away with our first round pick in order to make room for bosh who left us at the altar)

so in the end, lin not only helped us in a roundabout way to land dwight, and didn't impede bosh or another third star from signing with us. so all in all that contract wasn't bad at all (although he was overpaid).

meanwhile lowry became an all star in toronto and would've been willing to resign here had he not been 4th on our wishlist this summer behind lebron, melo, and bosh. while we were out chasing them, lowry resigned with toronto.

i wonder now if we trade for dragic, will he walk away again this summer if we dont give him a no trade clause after seeing:

1) how we used and got rid of lin
2) flirted with (met with him at midnight like he was our first choice) and then stood up (asked him to wait while we went after better players) lowry this summer.

 

Pet for Le$.

 

Like stock market, the stock can go either way. Player can go either way in a long run.(Potential) So you can not cry why you let it go since we do not know the future of player.

 

We make it clear that Morey wanted Dragic but was forced to go after Lin. When Lin turned out to be average and Goran amazing, I believe there was a witness overhearing Morey tell Les "I told you."

 

You're kidding right? I thought this was a legitimate thread until you posted this obvious troll bait. Lowry is pretty great but is no James Harden... stop it.

 

Lowry is good. Harden is god.

 

people think we let Dragic go lol no he wanted to go back to Phoenix and Lowry wanted to go somewhere he could start

 

Lowry and Harden are not equal. Harden is far superior

 

So do you think Conley is better than Harden?

 

we also let Shawn Livingston go to.
He played well for Nets after we released him.

 

So we could get a superstar like Harden.

Morey tried trading our players but no team was biting. He figured that first round picks were hotter commodities than actual players because teams could turn them into anyone they like. The pick we got from TOR eventually was included in the package for Harden. Can you believe that? We armed ourselves with assets so that when the unexpected happened, we were ready with an offer.

That same offer by the way was spurned by ORL for Dwight. But it got us Harden.

By same reasoning, Morey didn't want to agree with Dragic's player option for his 4th year. Dragic was going to sign if Morey had agreed. Morey said contracts with player options are virtually untradeable. If player sucks, you can't trade him. If player proves good, he can leave you.

Morey however is the king of spotting those diamond-in-the-rough PGs. He did it with Lowry and Dragic, trading for them during their down-years. Morey recovered very well by plucking an unknown PG from Russia--PatBev--and the rest is history, who took over starting position from Lin.

 

I think it came down to him or Toney Douglas. Not losing sleep over either one

 

Dragic was the mistake, lowry was necessary.

 

Great post.

The only thing needed to be corrected is that Lowry was sick, not injured, when Dragic took over the starting job. Also, Dragic was putting up Linsanity-like numbers during that stretch. So it was clear that when Lowry recovered, one of them had to go because both guys deserved to start.