Dream, Your words are from Heaven on Earth! Thanks for making this factual argument. Watch as the Brigade shoot emotional holes in our back. They will defend their King Rudy. No Playoffs, hit the door! This Year!
True but we still had to trade for him which every other team was not able to do. It's a lot easier to develop when you have Jason Kidd feeding you wide open jumpers and running the break for some slams. Nice player but the general rule in BBall is you always go for the superstar. 5 starters - Quality over quantity. Griffin still is playing so we won't know til later. Once again, they still had to do the logistical work to make it happen. I don't know if youve ever dealt with a communist regime - it aint easy. Nobody picking anywhere could tell you how they expect people to do. You can't tell me that Phoenix thought Stoudemire would be doing as well as he's doing. Good pick nevertheless. Nachbar will come around. As far as Rice, Rudy understands..why do you think we got James Posey? Besides, Rice gives some leadership and after next year, his contract will be moot. [quote 7. Need we remind you of...Bryce Drew, Turkan, and Dickerson. [/quote] Dickerson was at the centerpiece of the Francis deal. His injuries have prevented an otherwise promising career. Turcksan was traded for a #1 which allowed us to get Griffin. Drew- Bust [quote 8. Or of Scottie Pippen, Cato's Contract, the left overs we took for Pippen....and Matt Maloney's still counting deal. [/quote] Definitely mistakes A mistake. However, you can apply the same logic you used with Cat. Nobody knew how good he would be otherwise he wouldnt have lasted til the 2nd round. Alternatiev to Horry wouldve been Harold Miner whom everyone in the world wanted us to take. Cassell has turned out to be a fine, fine player. [quote Overall, I think that the Rox management...Rudy, Carrol, and LES, have made some terrible decisions, while having some unbelievable luck. But no one should be touting them as Draft day or deal making genius'. [/quote] They have made some bonehead moves. Howver, you make those when youre always trying to win. Trading for Drexler, Pippen, Barkley, doing the deal for Franchise, playing the game to get Yao Ming, etc.... Thats what winners do. They swing for the fences instead of bunting for singles. My .02 cents. [/B][/QUOTE]
Dickerson's stats for Houston YEAR TEAM G GS MPG FG% 3P% FT% OFF DEF RPG APG SPG BPG TO PF PPG 98-99 HOU 50 50 31.2 .465 .433 .639 .50 1.10 1.70 1.9 .54 .22 1.32 1.80 10.9 How is that bad? Also Named to the 1998-99 Schick All-Rookie Second Team after leading all rookies in three-point percentage (.433, 5th in the NBA), ranking 3rd in three-pointer made (71, 20th) and field-goal percentage (.465), 4th in three-pointers attempted (164), 5th in scoring (10.9 ppg) and 6th in assists (1.9 apg)
Dickerson did that while he had too. Same with Othella Harrington. Look at both now. Im not saying that the Rox management has done a terrible job. Just that they are average at best. Every team can go down the list and make points for their decisions as we do with the Rox. Im just not buying the, they have done a great job part of it. No harm meant in my belief.
I'd argue that part of the reason guys like Othella and Michael Dickerson have done well while with the Rockets, then fallen off when with other teams is because of Rudy's Coaching. He gets stuff out of some players that no one else can.
Factual? Open your eyes and mind. Opinion, and flawed illogic opinion, in many of the 'cases'. Overall this management team has been better than most, like Portland, Chicago, Clips, GState, Knicks, Heat and so on and so forth.
Dreamshake, Why do you give the Rockets brass all the credit for the bad moves and call it luck when it goes their way? That seems a little unfair. Choose a side of the fence.
I don't think its worth .001 cents. If Rudy and Les 'lucked' into the first 2 championships and will 'luck' into some more within the next few years, that's enough for me.
I don't agree with everything the Rox do but you have to look at their whole body of work to get the full picture of success. Dwelling on the negative points isn't a fair assesement. Overall, I am pleased. Many of the "bad decisions" were bold moves to get better. The Rockets make proactive moves to hedge their bet for the future. Take the Pippen trade. In retro, it turned out bad but it was a bold move to seriously improve this team. Everybody in the national media expected us to be a contender...and we were. We didn't win a championship but we gave it a good run. That's really all you can ask for. So some describe $120m of bad decisions? I disagree. That $120m is the cost of playing the game. At the time, management had to make the best decision they could under the circumstances. Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't. It's a gamble...pure and simple. And honestly, Les is ahead of the game right now. If you are risk averse, you are bound for a lifetime of medicrocy. Luck, you say? You can't win a jackpot if you don't buy a ticket. Seriously, everything involves luck. Wise business men know how to position themselves so good things are possible[\b]. You dismiss it as luck but I call it positioning yourself in such a way that opens the door so luck can come in and play. It doesn't mean it'll happen but it might. In Yao's case, it happened. Don't dismiss luck so readily. Good business men know how to foster luck.
I see the "fact" boys are at it again. lol. The "fact" is every team makes boneheaded deals, trades, and acquisitions. You guys act as if the Rockets are the only team in the league making these salary commitments. A team's decisions should be considered/ranked with respect to other teams' decisions. The following are some of the top earners in the NBA last season : 3. Alonzo Mourning - over $18 million 4. Juwan Howard - over $18 million 5. Scottie Pippen - over $18 million 7. Jayson Williams - over $15 million 9. Dikembe Mutombo - over $14 million 11. Alan Houston - almost $13 million 13. Shawn Kemp - over $12 million 14. Damon Stoudemire - over $12 million 15. Reggie Miller - over $12 million 16. Antonio McDyess - almost $12 million 17. Bryant Reeves - over $11 million 18. Larry Johnson - over $11 million 19. Vin Baker - over $11 million 19. Anfernee Hardaway - over $11 million That's out of the top 19 or 20 salaries in the league last year... That's about 12 or 13 players out of the top 20-25 that have some really questionable contracts (many in hindsight like some of our geniuses in this thread like to look at it). This happens around the whole league. Why? You go for the immediate wins or team cohesiveness over the future unless you're absolutely in a rebuilding state. No one knew Maurice Taylor would blow out his achilles (oh wait, that's right... some of you geniuses did). You weren't going to find much better than Maurice Taylor out there, so you signed him because he was the best you could get. I could also go back and show you what duds were picked in any draft to prove that the Rockets are no better, no worse necessarily than many other teams. But then that research has been done ad nauseum for the years I've been on this bbs, but we have a new wave of ignorance every year that think the Rockets somehow have the worst drafts or more of them than anyone else. And of course they all point to Rashard. Oh my gosh Rashard. The player the majority of the rest of the league passed up on. Whatever. Now I'll leave the whining to the whiners. Go Rockets!
I could be wrong but.....we may actually need to not trade those terrible contracts. Rice, Cato, and others will come off the books right when we are going to need the money to sign Yao and Griff(hopefully he will deserve it) I think every team makes gambles that fail. We are no different. Find a team without a bad contract on their books for me please( someone is probably about to show me up...but oh well).
xiki, $120M for bench players? That's not factual? Logical? Maloney, Drew and Price as PG for the Rox? Opinion? Rashard Lewis should have been drafted? Your eyes are open, the rose-tinted glasses are clouding your view!
Dr., That $120M are current salaries for Cato, Mo, Norris and Maloney. If you think Dream and me are ignorant for pointing it out, well we see that you are not a Doctor of Economics. Rashard Lewis? Three 1st Rounders and a 6'10 SF is available? He'd fit nice now. Oh, that's right, you prefer Rice. Those Rox picks haven't seen the floor in a couple years. Dickerson has been hurt. Rudy went for the hat trick with EG. Same result. Jefferson is a All-Star. Same Rudy. All of the Players were All-Stars except Big Country. I will bet the Doctor degree that those 4 players will never have a All-Star uniform. We are Rox fans. When logical points are presented, the Straw Man Argument is put forth. I don't care what other teams are doing wrong, just the Rox. If you would come down from your throne, we all could benefit from your wise observations.
OH MY GOD!!! what's with people??? DROP THE RASHARD LEWIS CRAP!! if you're gonna blame the rockets for not drafting him, might as well blame every other team. so what if he was from houston? 97-98 lineup of forwards: barkley bullard elie harrington eddie johnson rodrick rhodes willis and drexler played foward at times now 1. would it have made sense to draft an unknown project like lewis when we were platooned at forward? 2. would it have made sense to draft an unknown project that wasn't going to really help THIS set of players (vets mainly) get to the finals? 3. if you can show me hard evidence that you KNEW lewis was going to be the player he is today, then we have an argument. otherwise, you have no argument at all. 4. and if you remember we signed pippen the same summer lewis was drafted. granted, we overpaid in terms of today's market and the whole experiment was a bust, i am pretty sure that 80%-90% of the rockets fans would have wanted pippen to be our F over lewis BACK THEN 5. drew and turckan were busts i'll give you that. but as i said earlier, if you're gonna chew out the rockets for taking drew and turckan before lewis you might as well chew out: 13 Orl Keon Clark ......... 20 Atl Roshown McLeod ..... 22 LAC Brian Skinner ...... 23 LAL Tyronn Lue ......... 24 Van Felipe Lopez ....... 26 LAL Sam Jacobson ....... 27 Sea Vladimir Stepania .. 28 Chi Corey Benjamin ..... 29 Phi Nazr Mohammed ...... 30 Dal Ansu Sesay ......... i don't like people that say 'oh we shoulda drafted lewis'. that's crap. it wasn't just us that passed up on lewis. and for the rockets management making dumb mistakes, all i can say is...what team hasn't??? yea so what if we're average? i rather take our 'average' management over the one that's running the Knicks, Heat, Clippers, etc right about now.
nineteen, stop harping on the Rashad Lewis thing, 20+ teams passed on him just as we did, he was a very very unproven high schooler (and high school players just weren't as highly touted back then) and we wanted immediate help/ championship role players on this team (i.e. spot up shooters to help when Hakeem or Chuck gets doubled). Dickerson fitted that bill, so did Bryce and Turksan. So stop whining, at that time it didn't seem such a bad draft, hindsight is always 20/20.
