How is Tilman Fertitta ownership different than Les Alexander ownership?

You are absolutely correct. People dislike TF for non-basketball reasons. Im not fond of Alexanders business practices and TBH, im not fond of most billionaires business practices. But thats here nor there. The fact remains Alexander, like all owners, acquired the team to make money. And like any good businessmen, they hire the best advisors as possible (in this case, the teams front office). Alexander understood to shut up and listen to his advisors. In some warped ego trip, TF believes since he can raise billions in debt to buy a sports team, likes basketball and from the Houston area, he is somehow qualified to run a championship team. I dont understand how the guy made it this far, TBH.

This is what you should understand; I did not know who Tilman was before he bought the Rockets. Growing up in the Clear Lake area, like many of us, knew Landrys. Anything related to Landrys was understood to be highly overrated and over priced for the experience offered. He turned every acquisition into a medicore experience. It was frustrating to watch Landrys buy up quality restaurants and turn them into another shitty chain restaurant.

This is why some of us are not the least bit surprised and been warning everyone exactly what is to come of this team. And this was before COVID decimated him. He did not gut this team to rebuild. I stated months ago TF was going to gut this team in favor of draft picks (rookie contracts) and expiring contracts.

The worst part is that he is not doing it because he is cheap. He is doing it because he can not afford this team. Again, understand Morey, one of the best GM's in the league, was let go with no strings attached (TF isnt that stupid) because he needed to free up that contract. You have to be hurting really bad to let one of your best assets go because you can not afford it.

 

With due respect but your recollection of the dismantling of a championship team is superficial.

Spoiler

And clearly shows that you are biased, whatever your bias towards Cuban is, he is a cool guy and the tech industry is a modern industry.

And your remark on the Playstations shows that you tend to belittle for some reasons I cannot fathom.

I never made fun when Morey took Ipads to FA meetings and gifted them to the free agents, those are normal products, however cheap they may seem to millionaires, it was meant to be a token of appreciation.

I hope your significant other does not take gifts that are not luxurious but made from the heart for granted.

Timeline
2011 - Championship
2012- They kept the 3 Captains - Dirk, Terry and Kidd
The next year was a lockout year and the CBA was re-negotiated, shooters like Peja, Shawn Stevenson, other players like Tyson, Shawn Marion were all on their last year.

Listen to the 'The Old Man and the Three' podcast with JJ Barea, he narrated in details that Cuban could not bring the band together, whatever difficulties they had back then.

I expected some unbiased stuff. This isn't painting the picture black and white.......it shouldn't be, there is no good or bad.

There are 2 planes on that. Successful or unsuccessful plane. Good human being or a scoundrel of human being plane.

I also implied that Harden is the only person he actually would give a lot of money to because that was his cash cow, doesn't mean he treats the others the same way.

I referred to how he undermined Morey and how he treated MDA.

You were referring to them as 'not Tilman's people' therefore implying he could just treat them badly.

Guess what, Stone was Morey's assistant and also not a Tilman's guy on the surface.

I agree to disagree that the NBA isn't just a normal business, it's a business where empathy, a healthy culture and integrity have had more success than the cold and naked unscrupulousness of the real business world.

You could see how the NBA care about their players, grant them BLM logos and stuff.......how they empower in a healthy way......

Money corrupts, you can't escape that though.

 

Les Alexander cared more about China than Houston.
The evidence is more abundant than harden being spotted at stripclubs

 

Cuban is a better owner than Les and Tilman

Les sold the team therefore disqualifying him and showing he only cared about money since he sold the team immediately after signing Chris Paul.
The best team we had in decades and he sold it like a scalped PlayStation 5.

Cubans players don’t leave. Dirk NEVER left Dallas. Same state. There’s no accusation of cheapness

 

“He wrote a book (and I don’t like the title)!”
“He put his family on a mural that no one sees!”
“He’s on TV/has his own Tuesday show!”
“He disagrees with me politically!”
“But he bought a yacht five years ago!”

LOL Dumb **** as expected.

Both are cheap.
Rockets will not pay the luxury tax. Not Leslie, not Tilman. Accept it. And yes, Tilman should also stop lying about it. “Whatever it takes.” “Green light to bust the budget.” “Luxury tax never came up.”

“HOUSTON HAS PAID THE LUXURY TAX ONLY TWICE.”


LeSliE wOulD nEvEr PuT hImSeLf On A mUraL. ToO cLaSsY fOr tHaT.



Is Tilman an ******* and people don’t want to work for him? Probably fair.

With Leslie:
For sure would still have Chinese jerseys, TC decked out in Chinese ads.

Would Daryl still be here? Probably? (...but that HK tweet)

Would Mike still be here? Probably not, no coach lasted longer than 4 years under Leslie. (Besides Rudy T and McHale, who was fired 11 games into his 5th year)

And it’s nice to pretend Leslie would have paid to keep a 65-win team together but he SOLD THE TEAM just as that bill was coming due.

And now that they’re rebuilding/tanking/post-Harden, Morey fans: “Daryl never had high picks! Leslie never let him tank!” Now those same fans upset the Rockets are rebuilding/may get a lotto pick. “Tilman destroyed the team!” — “Yeah but Harden didn’t retire a Rocket and it’s 5 years earlier than I expected! Thanks Tilman!”

 

...

 

Nobody showing up in the lower section of the Rockets games happened long before covid and Tilman

 

If everyone parrots stupid **** over and over again, maybe, just maybe it becomes a true story

 

I would not glorified Les Alexander just because Tilman Fertitta is a douchebag.

Les was meddling in coach firing and hiring, and none of the head coaches left in good terms. He also tied Morey's hands by not allowing him to rebuild, causing us to wallow in mediocrity for nearly a decade. For all the LTS jokes, Les did not want to pay the LT either. The difference is, he would pay if we truly had the chance to contend. Tilman, on the other hand, not only refused to pay LT at Harden's peak, he even gave up draft assets just to avoid the LT. That was a travesty.

As many other have pointed out, Les stayed in the background while Tilman is a loud mouth.

In short, Les was an okay owner. The best he did was hiring an analytics guy before any other owner knew what it was. Other than that, I can't think of anything he did that stood out as greatly benefiting the team.

Tilman is a terrible owner who doesn't know what he is doing but thinks he is smarter than everyone else. Owning the Rockets is just a vehicle for him to feed his ego.

 

LOL Ben doesnt have the sources Nook does.

And Ben's reasoning on the coaching search is completely ignoring the "Olive Branch" that was Stepen Silas. Amin said that on the Jump. Of course Ben could hear the opposite. He's also ignoring that we had a report that James asked out as soon as Silas was hired.

Fertitta absolutely wanted Van Gundy.

 

I don’t think he would have pushed the front office as forcefully on the Westbrook deal. We may have still ended up with him, but not at the cost we paid.

Harden, with 3 years left on his deal at that point, would not have publicly demanded a trade. Perhaps in private, but he would’ve been foolish at that point to force it through.

I don’t think the cost saving moves would have been much different.

 

I feel that throughout Les' tenure as owner, he actively empowered the front office to improve the team by whatever means - whether it was CD or Morey as GM, both seemed to be able to put together a plan for improvement and execute against it, regardless of what financial implications were incurred.

Fertitta, on the other hand, came in with a reputation of penny pinching and micro managing, which has manifested itself in the operation of the Rockets. The repeated trades where luxury tax savings were reaped were not anything we experienced during Les' tenure. Tilman has hamstrung the front office to a business directive, rather than advancing the team's success.

 

With all due respect, I say you're wrong. You're calling out bias for me but I can easily say you're biased against Tilman saying he treats his players like 'slaves' shows some bias because that's just not true. I wish I was tilman's 'slave' being paid what Harden was paid and being given run of the organization Harden had and then getting to pick what team I want to go to.

With that said, let's address the points then.

The playstation point is just humor man, calm down. But I can't tell you how many people put Cuban above other owners because he bought his players something they can afford.

This other point about Cuban...he absolutely broke up a championship team. He said so himself as well as Dirk. They both described it as hard decisions but they were decisions they made because Cuban wanted to chase after Dwight.

Also Stone is his guy no matter who he worked under before because Stone is a guy he hired and so if Stone does bad, it looks bad on him. That's his guy now and despite all the "He's going to hire his son" stuff people said about him...none of that was true.

Any ways, the posts by @J.R. in this thread are brilliant. I'll just refer to those because it highlights how people are unfairly judging Tilman. Yeah he's a jerk blah blah blah but he's a billionaire owner, most of these dudes are egotistical jerks because they can afford to be.

 

Basically agree with JR.

Most of the reasons people hate Tilman are reasons that you can rightfully dislike him as a person for, but don't have much to do with the Rockets.

I don't see any evidence that he's any cheaper than Les nor any cheaper than the majority of owners in the NBA. FFS, the Boston Celtics are pretty open about not wanting to pay the tax at all. Most teams don't want to pay the tax. The only ones who have flaunted it are teams with insanely high revenues.

That isn't to say he's a good owner. But the irrational hatred is silly to me.

 

And I'll say no owner is paying the luxury tax for a rebuilding team. That **** is expensive and only worth it if you're the warriors with 4 all-stars because you know you'll make it all back through playoff revenue and merchandise revenue etc etc.

Warriors tax bill is 147 million...yall really expected that he'd take back Jarret Allen or something to pay tax?

 

Let me add this.

My circle of people who are on the periphery of the team has grown in the last 12 months. I've talked to people who know people in that building very well. And I haven't had a single person tell me that Tilman is a hands on owner. I've heard the exact opposite.

Edit: Just want to be really clear with this post that this is not saying I know any inside info about any transactions.

 

Well looking back now, all he had to do was not cheap out for one or two years. in 2018 of 2019. I don't think owners are obligated to pay tax every year. But I do think when it takes you 2 decades to finally build a championship team with a 34 year old pg, that's the one chance you go all out no matter what.

but hey, it's not my money, it's still disappointing.

 

The "cheap out" was not trying to keep Ariza to hold onto his salary slot.

But they did have a trade agreed to that would have put the in the tax for Green and Temple.

 

Certainly don’t expect it now but I think the main gripe was the previous 3 years.

“You broke up a 65-win team!”
“You didn’t pay Ariza $15 million!”

Some of that’s fair.
Like if not with a perennial top 3 MVP candidate, then when?
And you’re scared of the repeater tax when you haven’t paid the luxury tax ONCE?

And maybe some of it’s unfair. He paid, he extended Eric Gordon. Now we’re b****ing about that contract. “Why did you extend Eric Gordon?! Terrible contract!” I already know, he lets Gordon walk, “Cheap b*stard!”