Just drives me crazy....

Jamison is a good player making superstar money !!!! He would look great with Rockets not for the jack he is making!!! And Fortson contract suxs as well !!!!
Dallas still lacks center !!!!

I would love for the Rockets to trade for Wallace but at what cost!!

I do think the rockets are 2 deep at each position compared to other teams in the west !! Do we scarafice depth for a killer starting 5 !!! Lakers,mavs, t-wolvves have !!!!

I be

 

Jamison? For Francis?

Brick.

 

True Bull**** is demanding that CD make a trade right now just so we can make noise like Dallas did.

CD IS WAITING AND HOLDING OUT FOR A BETTER DEAL THAN WHAT HE HAS BEEN OFFERED SO FAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You want him to make some mediocore "exchange our problems for their problems" trade??????????

Have some patience man.

 

4+ years: NO POST SEASON!!!

Screw more patience!!

This whole "NBA thing" is about one thing, and one thing only: Winning !!!

I understand that chastising the likes of me makes some of you feel all mature and insightful and stuff, but there's absolutely no basis to say that you're theory or approach to trades, drafts, coaching decisions, player psychology, PR, etc is any more valid than mine. (Or any of your posts on this board for that matter)

I am SICK of watching a team that has had outstanding personnel underachieve for three consecutive years!!! And, please, you don't need to trot out the "Stevie migraines", and "45 wins with no post season", and "missed by one game" minutia.

What I and others who agree with me keep tryin to convey is a DESIRE TO WIN which has not been realized on the court since Dream and Chuck almost led the team to the finals before losing out to Utah...

I have not sensed the same passion, strength or intelligence by players, coaches or management since that time. So I feel that I have every right to be annoyed as hell with this franchise!! This feeling will not abate until I see the team show me that it wants to win as much as I want them to win!!!

 

"Screw more patience." That sums it up right there. That is the 21st century mentality.

If the Rockets' front office made no attempt to improve the team, if they never took the bold move to make improvements, if we had an extremely long gap between success and failure, then I would be concerned. But let's do a case study of the NBA teams as a means of comparison.

Championship teams since the Rockets: Bulls, Spurs, Lakers. That's it. 3 teams. So, 26 teams have been out of the championship arena longer than the Rockets. As a matter of fact, some of the most storied franchises in the NBA, particularly the Celtics, have had a way longer drought than us.

Yes, some of those teams have made the playoffs. But none, except for 3, won it all. And if you ask those fans if they were happy coming up short, guess what answer you'll get from the large majority.

Disappointing? Perhaps. Failure? No. At least not on the part of Rockets management since the Les Alexander era.

1. 1995- Management realizes that we need a 2nd go-to superstar to make it back to the Finals. Result: Drexler trade, 2nd championship.

2. 1997- Management realizes that we need something to get by Seattle. Result: Barkley trade, WCF.

3. 1999- Drexler retires. Management assumes we will need a replacement superstar. Result: Pippen, the best pick-up available. Unfortunately, this has unforeseen negative results.

4. 2000- Management realizes the window is closing on Dream and Barkley and that we have to start bringing in new superstar-caliber players to shorten the gap. Result: Francis trade.

5. 2002- We luck out with the #1 pick. Management realizes that the safe pick, Jay Williams, doesn't fit in with our plans and that taking a chance on a relative unknown is the better course of action. Result: Yao Ming.

So, I'm sorry, but you can't tell me this franchise does not attempt to put us in the position to win it all. Look at the Clippers, Hawks, Heat, T-Wolves (pre-2003), Warriors, Wizards, and countless others as examples of much longer periods of futility.

Blame the players, maybe, but the front office has done a great job, and that is based on the FACTS.

 

Listen, R-R-U, just stop ranting and listen to yourself. What will you hear? A freakin 2 year old crying about not being given candy. Here are the basics you are overlooking:
(1) only 29 cities in North America have a franchise; be glad we're one of them. Remember how much it sucked when Houston had no football team? You could always substitute other city's teams for yours, but it always felt sorta empty not being there.
(2) we have had championships in the past, and most probably, will have them again. Sure 4 years of no playoffs sucks. And we're missing out on a lot of champaigne in the postseason. But we are steadily building up to become a force for years to come, not just a short-term wonder.
(3) we have been winning, so there's no use to get all riled up. 45 wins and 43 wins, while not stellar, have been very good records (best to not make playoffs). I am not content with that, either, but we are slowly building. We are an underachieving team, but there has always been something that held us back: injuries, youth, whatever. This year most of the pieces seem to be set to break the playoff drought.

Be patient. I know it will be hard because you've grown up on instant everything where if you don't have it now, it's not good enough or worth waiting for. Take a step back though. You just sound like a whining malcontent to a lot of people on this board.

 

Name-calling, now THAT'S a mature, and insightful way of making an argument!!

Hey, guys: Buy a vowel and please stop trying to pursuade me that you're right. I understand and accept that you disagree with me so please just accept that I disagree with you as well.

What I also understand, is that NBA Basketball is frickin entertainment !!! Entertainment develops an audience based on attraction and promotion!! That audience can only be sustained by fulfillment of that promise: If the Rockets are not ENTERTAINING...(ie, winning regularly), then it's not enjoyable!!

And, as just another American especially as another caucasion-American (you know: spoiled, self-entitled, self-deluded, selfish and hypocritical) I get to choose whether to spend time, money, emotion, energy, etc. investing in the idea that this team will WIN (By the way, that's their only purpose for existing aside from making money...).

Finally, since I've clearly made that choice, which includes spending time checking out this web site as an ancillary form of pseudo-entertainment / information gathering, I also choose to say what I think and make no apologies for that!!

Hasta mas tarde amigos!!

 

we dont need a trade. sure, yeah maybe we could trade 2, 3 or 4 of our ok players for some super dude this year or next year. but remember what happened with barkley? we lost cassel and horry for a dude who gave us a few so-so years. i dont think we wanna have that again. we have our core with francis and yao. e. griffin could be good, could suck. who knows. catos a great backup, mobely is a pretty good 2, and besides that, we just have role players like everybody else. i dont see what else we need. the fact is, the west is a really hard place to win right now, and we are just gonna have to wait it out. our time will come. we will make a run. whether sf, yao, mobely, and eg are good enough to go all the way, nobody knows.

 

give the team a year under JVG. The team will not be good enough to be in the top 5 this year but will make the playoffs b/c of Utah's exit. What we did this offseason is a step in the right direction, we picked up a guy who can play lock down D and a shooter who will make teams pay for doublin Yao. A big trade at this point wouldnt help.....we jus need a legit back up pg....thas the rocks only real weakness.......

 

No More Big Salaries.....Has anyone been watching what SA has done... Develope a little continuity with these players and plz don't take on anymore salaries. You have 2 stars like Stevie and Yao to build around.... You need good role players that know their spots and act like TEAM players....The MAVS have the $$$ but.....They still can't play defense and rebound....The trade doesn't address any of their problems.....

 

You need to be 1 deep at every position before you can be 2 deep. We aren't even 1 deep at 2 of the 5 positions.

Think of it this way, our starting 3 & 4 (whoever that may be) could hardly crack the Kings, Nets or Mavs rosters. A bunch of specialists and relatively interchangable but mediocre players does not constitute "depth".

Just to expand, regarding #4, Francis fell into our laps because of his pouting after being drafted by the Grizzlies. We were more lucky than good on this one. On #5, total luck, we walk into the biggest (PR and playerwise) draft gift since Orlando winning the lottery twice. Even with a few fortunate injuries (making our record worse than a talent warrented) we had no reasonable right to expect such a gift with 4 teams ahead of us int he draft.

#6 With no hope for getting significantly under the salary cap with the current core of players (where cap room might help you get another player), we let our 4th best player and young starter in our most desperate position walk because we won't match a MLE contract b/c we might pay lux tax on it. This mind you after the city gave you a new stadium and your wonderfull good fortune with the SF/Yao events that has kept you around 500 for much fo the last 4 years.

#7 who knows, but so far nothing.

What exactly has SA done? Tanked to get Duncan. You get a Shaq or Duncan (or Hakeem) and all of a sudden a lot of strategies end up getting you the title.

However most team are not fortunate enough to have a Shaq or Duncan. Some of those teams have made good runs at titles (Sac in 02, NJ in 03, Portland in 00) by trying to create as solid as team as possible across all 5 positions (or even going 8-9 deep). Pistons won a few titles this way too. What you also have to remember is Shaq and TD (and Hakeem) have lost far more times than they have won--usually because their role players have not been good enough. In sum you need some stars (best if MVP caliber or close to it though the Pistons proved it is not absolutely necc), and some very good role players, to be in the best position to win a title.

As for the Rockets, we have been as lucky as any organization over the last 20 years with 3 #1 overall picks in great years to have it plus arguably the #1 overal player another year b/c of his Canadian tantrum. We have been darned lucky as a franchise, no doubt, I'd like to see our organization make the most of our good fortune but so far this offseason cheapness looks like a pretty big factor to overcome. We will see.

 

Are you nuts. We can't trade Francis unless it's for Duncan

 

wow.. i really didn't think of it that way. in all honesty, that was a very enlightening. it completely slipped my mind about seattle... anyway, i personally wish (as many others I'm sure) that we had kept cassell. i guess that's why i feel like the rockets ended up falling short on that one.. after cassell left, we spent many seasons without a serviceable point guard until the '99 draft. ugh.. i don't think the rockets would have fallen so hard after hakeem's departure if we had just stuck with sam... but that's just my opinion

 

ah, but our BENCH is two deep at both forward positions. really, we have bench small forward covered.

you are right about our guys in forward positions. we are weak.