Correct. The distinction is that I believe that Swift may have been more productive than Jho if he had the opportunity to start regularly. The underlying motivation wasn't to lose games to improve our draft day chances, but to try to improve our chance of winning every game we could. If it had turned out that Swift, Hayes, Lampe, etc. were not as productive as Jho as a starter, then yes, I'd say we go back to JHo. Granted, if I had the inside knowledge that JVG does, I may not agree with myself, but I don't, so I do...
If we don't establish a dependable core group around TMac and Yao very soon, we will be wasting away in fringe early playoff fodder/lower lottery selections for years to come pissing away Yao and TMac's prime years. Sheesh, our state rivals' core role players are already set and just need minor tweaking ever now and then (unless Cuban gets the major trade bug again), we NEED serious overhaul. Don't kid ourselves with the upside of a Chuck Hayes or Keith Bogans on our team, those guys are scrubs just happy to get an NBA paycheck, they are benchwarmers at best on a perennial playoff team.
Basketball is not war, it is a sport. I play basketball. I fight wars. I've done both, and I know the difference, thank you.
A game to a season is like a battle to a war. A season to a club's future is like a battle to a war. Are you telling me you couldn't tell that?
I understand the analogy that you are going for, I just think it is an empty cliche. A war is not won by the total number of victorious battles, it is won by achieving your social, economic, or political goals. For example, the United States "won" the cold war without fighting a single battle against the U.S.S.R. by besting them politically, socially, and economically. A basketball game, however, is won by the most points scored, as I said earlier. That is how basketball games are won, and that is the ONLY way a basketball game is won. I challenge you to prove otherwise. A basketball season is "won", when you have won the championship.
It's pretty obvious to me canoner2002's analogy using battle and war is in military sense. Hence the example of the "Cold War" is quite irrelevant. Further, in your failed attempt to establish the connection from "scoring the most points in a game" to "winning a championship" you did not provide a cogent counterargument as to why the battle-to-war relationship is not a suitable analogy to that of game-to-season. A war/season is won when critical battles/games are won. Plain and simple.
You don't think the cold war was a military war? I'd venture to say that the hundreds of thousands of troops who served, and spent countless hours training, deploying, or on alert during the cold war era might disagree. Regardless, I'll agree with you on this: my analogy is no more relevant than the initial analogy was to the concept of what it takes to win basketball games. I suppose my attempt might have failed, had my intention been to establish such a connection. My intention was to clearly articulate the difference between "winning" at war, "winning" in a basketball game, and "winning" in a basketball season. The point of my entire contribution to this thread, in summary, is this: "winning" is not an end that justifies the means, if the means be "tanking". If that isn't clear enough, I'm afraid I don't have the skill to convey my message to you.
By the way, I've ignored your personal insults so far, but I'll address them now. You call me short-sighted or narrow-minded, that may be so, but I'd like to think that I'm neither. Let me ask you this, if the Rockets did tank, do get the luck of the draft and the first pick, and we go on to win a championship, is the war won, or is that just another battle? There is always another championship, and each season brings a new opportunity to vie for it. Personally, I'd rather win a championship knowing it was done as honestly as possible. Losing in order to advance, IMHO, is to take the easy road. Also a matter of opinion, but I believe that more satisfaction comes from travelling a road of adversity to the championship, rather than a paved street of gold.
Red_Glare, I actually agree with you on most of what you have said and I applaud your approach in the whole debate. I just thought that particular post (#67) of yours was kinda weak as a pointed rebuttal to canoner2002's analogy. Glad you explain yourself with the follow-ups.
I see what you're saying, but how long of a path are we talking about here? If the goal is to just win a championship sometime in our lifetime, then I would probably agree with your logic. However, we are in a very fortunate situation to have two such great players, and the window for these guys is closing faster than we would like. After Yao and Tmac are done, it could be decades before we have two players of their caliber at the same time. With that in mind, everything possible should be done to help us win a ring in the short-term. If it takes benching a couple of old, hopefully soon-to-be ex-Rockets to help that goal in any way, I would do it, regardless of how much it hurts their feelings.
Red, we must have different beliefs. I think the talk of "winning mentality" or "loser mentality" is empty cliche. When you tank on purpose, you don't build the so called loser mentality. You know you are following a strategy. You lose there not because you couldn't win but because you have a greater goal in sight. Spurs tanked that season to get TD, and they showed NO loser mentality whatsoever in the following season. 2 seasons ago, Suns traded away Marbury and gave up the whole season midway through, and I challege you to show me where they have shown "loser mentality" in the past two seasons. And look at Sonics, where has the "winning mentality" gone after last season? You put too much emphasis on the so called "mentality". In reality, talents have far more importance than "mentality", on a basketball court. Regarding the cold war: do you think either side didn't exercise great self-control on many occasions? If every time one side was provoked and couldn't bent the "we must concquer them" mentality, the world would have been blown up many times. Don't you think the "compromises" we made and "weakness" we showed at times pay out at the end?
I didn't mean to insult you. I called you short-sighted and narrow-minded because that is how your post impressed me. Calling someone moron, stupid, or blindly labeling people YOF or JOH would be personal insults. Let us not turn this into something more profound than it is. The ultimate goal for club is to win championships. Once they get one, they try to win it again. But you have to win one before considering repeating it.
Where did I say anything about a "winning mentality" vs a "loser mentality"? You must have me confused with someone else, because those words didn't come out of my (virtual) mouth. If you think they were implied, then you missed my point completely. In regards to talent outweighing mentality, tell it to the 2003-2004 LA Lakers Shaq, Karl Malone, Kobe Bryant and Gary Payton. Four superstar players on a roster of championship-hardened veterans were defeated by the epitome of team and defensive mentality, the Detroit Pistons, and all the talent anyone could ask for didn't buy them a game six. In fact, tell it to any team that has ever lost a game but won the series, because if talent were more important than mentality, the more talented team would always win. As I'm sure you know, the NBA history bin is littered with talented teams that never won a championship. As far as the cold war goes, I don't want to stray too far OT, so how about I summarize my feelings by saying that anyone who thinks basketball is metaphorically analogous to war, likely has little personal experience with either. Opinions may, can, and will differ, but there's mine in a nutshell.
The NBA history bin is FULL with championship teams with GREAT talents. The old celtics, the showtime lakers, MJ's bulls, Shaq-Kobe Lakers. You may find some talented teams that never won a championship, but you can hardly find a championship team that was not talented. And you can certainly find LOTS of untalented teams that went NOWHERE. I am not surprised to see that you avoided anwering my questions in the previous post. Raising one counter example is always easier than addressing the questions directly. I just want people to be open minded, flexible, and have greater goal in mind. You have to adjust your strategy and make compromises from time to time, on and off basketball court. Those who refuse to do so more often than not get themselves into failing situation. What makes you an expert to talk about whether basketball is methphorically analogous to wars? A lot of people have personal experiences with both. It doesn't make them experts on either.
I did address your questions. I stated that I never made any comments that related to them, so I figured they were moot. Anyway, one example is all that is generally needed to refute an overgeneralized statement such as the one you made regarding talent vs. mentality. Here's another counter-example that seems to favor mentality: "Never underestimate the heart of a champion!" Notice the quote isn't "Never underestimate the shooting percentage of a champion!" or perhaps, "Never underestimate the RPG of a champion!" No, it's heart that Rudy T warned the more talented teams not to underestimate. Mentality. Here I agree with you, it is to the extent of the compromise that we differ. Well, I didn't know I had to be an expert to state an opinion, but since you asked: I'm a seven year veteran of the U.S. Air Force, I've flown over 2,500 hours as a crewmember in military aircraft, in that time I've accumulated over 130 combined combat and combat support sorties in various hazardous duty areas. I served for two years in direct support of retired General Tommy Franks, orchestrator of the war plan in Afghanistan and Iraq, and was taking him to Pakistan on the morning of September 11, 2001. I was collecting rocks from cratered airport tarmac in Khandhar, Afghanistan, a couple days before Christmas, 2001. I've played basketball for about 20 years now, watched it for longer. Although I live in Dallas now, I was in Houston, partying with the whole city on Richmond ave. when they won their second championship in a row. I play full court 5-on-5 basketball at 24-Hour Fitness two to three times a week for three, sometimes four hours at a time. I play in two basketball tournaments a year, I've been reading this forum longer than you've been a member of it, and in my spare time, I like to play the current iteration of NBA Live. So I guess you could say I have a little bit of warfighting and basketball experience, but am still not an expert at either, in my own estimation. Pleased to meet you. May I ask what your qualifications are?
Great reading guys, keep it up maybe throw in few more personal insults while your at it. I love a good thread slanging match. if your really struggling for options talk about each others Mothers. That always appeases the peanut gallery.
