Leslie Alexander puts the Houston Rockets up for sale

Put it on eBay with a Best Offer option.

 

Pros: maybe they are uber rich and willing to pay the tax.
Cons: could try and move the team, be to involved with basketball decisions or just be a cheapskate

 

No offense taken, but I've only been in Austin since 1980. I was actually a hippie in Houston back in the '60's and '70's, but we went to Austin a lot. I'm a Houston native who started getting into the Bay, Kemah, and Galveston in the 1950's, when I was young. Kemah used to be a very cool Galveston Bay village. Cheap local eateries with wonderfully fresh seafood. Lots of privately owned boats going in and out of Clear Lake, including some I used to be on, back in the day. We used to get there early in the morning and go out into the bay to fish, often at Redfish Island (no longer there), or go out into the bay sailing. It's a great place to sail. We'd come back in in the evening and pig out at one of the Kemah restaurants on fresh shrimp and redfish or flounder. It was a different era and I miss it. Much of that old vibe was hanging on until Fertitta got a grip on the little town and destroyed whatever was good about it, in my humble opinion.

 

I know a lot of people feel that way. Like I said, the commercialization of it all. That's a battle in any situation when things get commercialized. He clearly ruined it for you, but for a lot of people they love it. I've been down there a couple of times and the place is packed with people. For them they'd probably say it's a lot better.

 

Well I guess by crappy I meant just crappy, not relative to other amusement parks. I don't have a lot of experience outside of Disney.

 

The lease locks any owner in until at least 2033 so don't worry about a move.

 

No offense but you sound like the old guy that thinks "everything was better back in my day"

I went to Kemah over July 4th and it was a great time now I don't know what it was like in the 50s but nothing is like it was in the 50s

 

The people that "think it's a lot better," never knew Kemah for what it was. If I went somewhere that had been radically changed like Kemah has by one man, if I was ignorant about the history of a village or town, I might believe the entire amusement park vibe was just groovy. Ignorance is bliss. It's an old saying, but there's truth in it. What you never experienced, what you never lost, will have a far different impact on you than what was there originally would have.

 

This means the franchise can actually tank to rebuild when needed.

 

My money is on Amazon... first Whole Foods, now the Rockets

 

I'm not worried about a move necessarily since Houston is a huge market and it would be dumb for anyone to move them but still a possibility. 2033 is closer than you think!

 

Les won this argument. We didn't tank and we rebuilt without ever being awful.

I know all of the tanking proponents think you just bounce back when you tank, but plenty of teams are in perpetual tank cycles. Tanking only works if you are lucky enough to hit the ping balls in the right year.

The Rockets didn't tank and managed to rebuild, go to a WCF, fall apart the next year and then rebuild again. They now are on the verge of a core of Paul/Harden/Melo that can contend in the West. They did this while being exciting and relevant the entire time.

 

A 3rd seed team just added Chris Paul using Alexander's rebuilding strategy. I'll go with this, thanks.

 

this seems sudden.

teams don't usually give out contract extensions to players and front office when they're planning to sell.

 

Thanks! I moved from Houston to the Hill Country 11 years ago and was wondering the same thing.

 

I feel like tanking to rebuild is not only cheap it's actually a waste of time.

Let's look at some teams who tank to rebuild. Many of them end up losing there star players

Portland LMA, kings, Demarcus cousins etc etc

I feel like no one should ever try to tank. By the rockets doing what they do not only can we have exciting seasons we actually can compete for a title

 

Especially when harden praises Les for showing his willingness to win

 

Dude, I started going there in the 1950's. I'm not comparing the Kemah of today to the Kemah of the '50's. I'm comparing the Kemah of today to the Kemah that existed before Fertitta got his greedy little hands on the place. Hey, I'm glad you had a good time there. I hope everyone who goes to Kemah has a good time. Perhaps you should take a trip to some coastal villages that have been preserved. There are plenty of them in the Northeast and the West Coast. Far sighted people used zoning and planning to keep them that way. I know that's a strange concept in Houston, but there you go.

 

I think a lot of people over there are very upset today.