Look, I'm not a hardcore fan like most of you guys, but I am a fan nonetheless... In my relatively short life, I've learned that if you want to succeed, you must achieve. We got Yao, yippee... followed by not much at all... we got TMac and now we get to see CD and the Rockets rubberneck on the highway of free agency. Look, like I said, I might not be as knowledgeable as many of you but my observation is simply that the organization is not trying hard enough right now... flame me if you like but there was plenty of talent out there and we, although understandibly, put all our eggs into the TMac basket... Now what? Now all I can gather is that we are trying, and I used that word with great trepidation, to land some sort of talent elsewhere when it was sitting in front of us. Sure YaoMac is going to be awesome to watch, I don't think we have the right pieces to do what we all wish the Rockets would do. Somehow, I'm just wondering if this is just going to be one of the seasons right after a big trade (excluding Clyde). Mediocrity is a sonofabitch, even if we are slightly above it.
what freaking talent was sitting in front of us that we could have had but let it go? please tell me. hmm, yeah i guess we should have overpaid derek fisher or maybe held a gun to brent barry's head and forced him to choose us over san antonio. i really really don't understand the b****ing right now after we just pulled off a f**king monster deal and got one of the 5 best players in the league. so far the rockets options have to been to overpay for crap or wait it out and try to get a solid player. i'm as anxious as anyone to see another move but i will gladly wait and make sure it's the right player at the right price. so far this has been an A +++ offseason in my book and i'm even a HUGE steve francis fan.
This kind of thinking blows me away. Are you upset we didn't give Derek Fisher 37 million over 6 years or Rafer Alston 29 million over 6 years? Seriously, I'm curious as to what you think the Rockets should have already done. Sure, we may be barely over .500 again this season, but then comes the next season and McGrady will be 26 years old and Yao 24 years old, then the next when McGrady is 27 years old and Yao is 25. Assuming we keep those guys together, we've got the next ten years to put the right players around them to make a run at the Championship. I'd love for that to start this year too, but not at the cost of screwing our chances in the future. Do you really want some mediocre guard like Derek Fisher locked until he is 37? With the market being what it's been, I'm glad the Rockets haven't signed anyone. I hope they find a good value out there but if they don't then I've no problems with them just signing some scrubs to fill out the roster and waiting for a better oppurtunity. Patience is a virtue!
Look...all we did after drafting Yao was move into a new arena with new logos/colors/uniforms, hire Jeff Van Gundy as coach, sign Jim Jackson and bring aboard role players such as Piatkowski and Padgett. In '96-'97 after trading for Charles Barkley we went 57-25. I sure hope it's gonna be one of those seasons after a big trade. We were 45-37 this year! That's much better than mediocrity taking into account the competitiveness of the Western conference.
Wow. I didn't remember winning 57 games that year. That kicks butt. I guess I mainly remember negative stuff. Being pessimistic sucks!!
geez...all we did is get 2 of the best young players at their positions in the span of 3 years. i understand your frustration but the FA signings this offseason have been insane. im happy with our acquistions last season AG, pike, and JJ. you can't nail everyone of those guys but they were good gambles and we got one to pay off pretty nicely with JJ. coincidently, AG and pike were pretty much injury plagued all last year. if we cant get someone reasonably priced this offseason then i see no reason to force it.
I agree it's always better not to shackle yourself with bad contracts. Do the GM's on other teams know something the fans don't? When is the CBA up? Maybe the owners will lock and until there's no guaranteed money like the NFL. Then these long contract no longer mean anything. Otherwise, some of these teams, i.e. Golden State, have spent themselves to the bottom for years....
i want instant results...we're not in a rebuilding process...ur right about not signing terrible contracts to scrubs but we need to have a decent squad...at the rate we are going right now we might not make the playoffs this yr...SA, Minny, Sac, Den are all better than us rite now IMO...Dal, LAL, UTA , Mem , Pho is one big tossup for playoff spot
relax... this is already a good team and Phx will not be the great next season - (once Q's offer gets matched by the Clips) - they will be the same team as last year (with Nash instead of Marbury)
Getting flamed is a sonofabitch... Look, I didn't post because I'm a glass if half empty kind of guy, I think that Les has shown a great interest in seeing this team succed. The problem is simply not that we do slightly better than mediocre the year after a monster splash, the problem is we make a big trade but so does everyone else. Look, we sign TMac, San Antonio gets Barry and picks up some other really good players. Same goes for some other western conference teams. Correct me if I'm wrong, but if we get better and so do the other teams, it doesn't really make me want to get on the "we are going all the way next season" bandwagon. So I'm a newbie poster, I might not have all the knowledge you guys have but I think a part of "who was available?" is being naive. Who thought Clyde or Barkley were available? I think this is a case, perhaps, of the organization thinking "hey, we have Tmac AND Yao, the one-two punch, screw all the other roster spots, we will fill them up with role players." I don't have to tell you this isn't going to win us a championship. No need to flame, I'm just trying to vent. I'm sure many other people feel the same way.
Please do not tell me you just compared T-Mac to Brent freaking Barry. I know Barry would have filled gaps, but that is absurd. I know what you are trying to say, but come on. The off-season is only a month old and with 3 months still to go before the season starts, i am optimistic that the Rockets will get something done in the form of obtaining a starting PG anf backup C. I am just glad that they did NOT lock up what i would consider mediocre role players for $30mil+ for 6 years at the start, but would rather sweat it out for a couple more days or weeks and wait it out until everyone cools off. Whats the rush anyway? A dynasty is not born in a day, it takes a while, and i am willing to wait and watch it grow rather than rush it now with players not worth anything to this teams long term.
Another Big Trade followed by illusions of more big trades that would turn the Rockets into the Western Conference All Star Team. Not every player on the team needs to be a star. We will do fine with our core, and they are young, unlike Barkley and Pippen, so we have time to build around them.
If every team was one trade away from winning a championship, then there'd be a lot more champions. We're a franchise that has been there twice, and that's a pretty exclusive club. We've made our big trade. Our major pieces are in place. We just need to surround them with the right talent, and that rarely happens overnight. I mean, T-Mac-Yao-Howard is a very dangerous 1-2-3 punch. I'd venture to say more dangerous than Duncan-Parker-Manu, and with more potential than KG-Cassell-Spree. We've got a great veteran starter in JJ, and a great sixth man with MoT. We've got depth at backup PG , SG, SF, and PF. We need a decent backup center and a point that can start for 25 minutes a game We're two pieces away, and those two pieces don't have to even be that good. Just playing for our team will make them better.
The most dellusional thread of the offseason. Tell me, what is the date? July 18th you say. Tell me, what has been the going price for average talent? 6 years 38 mill you say. What date last year did we sign jim jackson? September 30th you say. Thats 2 and a half freaking months away from todays date! The rockets are not going to bull rush into a market and grossly overpay marginal talent. i suggest you go back to nba 2k4 and show CD whos the man. The rockets will wait a bit for the frenzy to die down, and when the smoke is clear, they will sign willing and able vets to come in and fill out the roster. they did it last year, they will do it this year/
You wanna guarantee mediocrity? How about signing a bunch of average players to big salaries? Thats what the Rockets could have done. Fisher, Alston, Turkalu all got r****ded contacts. Those teams are gonna deal with those signings for 4-6 more years. We just got rid of one contract that we always b****ed about (Cato)...why is everyone here so damn eager to get another. I sort of look at it like the Sopranos. Before his cousin screwed everything up, Tony's plan was to sit back and let the rival New York crews battle it out and hurt themselves. In the end, doing nothing was a better strategy than getting involved. These free agents (or most of them) are nothing to get excited about. Let the other teams overpay and get cash-strapped...then we can help out their cap problems with a trade....or pick up a value player. T-Mac is better than most of those guys combined. Frankie says RELAX.
Speaking of Barry, if the rumors are true and our offer was the same as SA's, then Barry may have just made a very savvy business decision that may have been a blessing to us as well. Think about it. You're 32 year old Brent Barry. You're the marquee guard in a runaway MLE market. You could make a huge payday, or you can pick your contender. It's obvious that money wasn't the main factor with Barry. He wanted to win. But he chose SA, a team where he'll most likely come off the bench in a three guard rotation with Manu and Parker. Here, he'd be the starting PG. What does it say about Barry that he wants to come off the bench? Does he really think SA has a significantly better shot than us? Or does he not want the pressure of starting because he knows he's on the downslope of his career? Maybe we missed out and Barry will overachieve in SA and play well into his 40s. But then again, maybe not.
I don't think that T-Mac left one losing team in a rebuilding situation to come to another losing team in a rebuilding situation. Remember, he quit on the Majic when he became convinced that they would never get better and the same thing could happen here as well. Also the key to your argument is that this organization has the time and ability to put the right players around Yao & McGrady and frankly, that's not been something that this organization has managed to do in the past. As long as you have Dawson and the "committee" running things, the odds don't look very good of this ever changing and I remain highly skeptical. To me, the McGrady signing falls into the same category as the Drexler, Pippen & Barkley signings - they get a big star but fail to do enough to capitalize on it. Time will tell if this organization has finally learned from its mistakes. However, as far as FAs go, there really isn't much out there in terms of quality pickups that can address the holes created by the McGrady trade so I expect them to have a somewhat rocky season as McGrady and JVG get to feel each other out.
