There has been tons of threads lately calling for JVG's head. But to me, the problem seems to be deeper than that. Specifically, the problem is that we don't have a strong GM. With our 3 big sports in general, it's shown that coaches tends to make bad personel decisions when they have double duty. There are some exceptions, to be sure. Pop has done well with the Spurs. And Don Nelson turned around the Mavs, although he does delegate a lot of coaching to his assistants. But the Rockets, unfortunately, does not have such a coach. Neither Rudy nor JVG's choice of players have panned out well for us. Sure, we might have a good record when it comes to stars. It's hard to go wrong with players like Barkley, Pippen, Francis, and T-Mac(3/4 at success rate). And that's why we are not a horrible franchise. But it's usually finding the hidden players that separate a great front office from a good one. And the Rockets have a horrible record so far with hidden finds. How many diamonds in the ruff have the Rockets found in the recent past? Probably just JJ and Mobley. That's 2 players in 6 years with the ceiling of being average starters at their position. Imagine the Rockets with just one good find. Suppose we have gotten Boozer, or AK47, or Redd, or Marquis Daniels, or got Cassell to come back. One of many hidden gems littered all over the NBA and the draft. This team would immediately be a contender. Yet it's always the other teams that makes these finds. Not us. In my mind, if the Rockets don't show progress this year, it's CD who should go. Then we should go after a legitemite strong GM, and give him the choice of keeping JVG. And I"m not talking about a big-name-GM-wannabe like Isiah Thomas or Chris Mullin. But someone with solid track record as a GM, and give him big bucks. Granted, there might not be one availabe. But I believe this is the route we should go to build around Yao/T-Mac.
Nobody is perfect and to expect Carroll Dawson to be is unfair. This franchise proved they were commited to winning and getting to the next level this offseason by trading for one of the best players in the league to pair up with Yao to create the new "Dynamic Duo" in the league. Getting McGrady alone, is enough to earn my respect. We obviously weren't the only team looking to trade for him, just look at all the teams he outdueled to land him. We're talking the likes of Larry Bird, Mark Cuban to name a couple and competing with the sometimes even more enticing offers from our opponents. This guy got the job done and landed us a guy, that perhaps could be the best player in the league if he wanted to be. In regard to your "finding a diamond in the rough" point, yes that would be nice but try to stay positive. I know it is early, but we may have just found one in Andre Barrett. My point is, things have generally been up and down. The up's have been good and down's have been frustrating. However, until the down's start outweighing the good, i'm willing to be patient and trust this guy.
That's my MAIN gripe about CD. For the most part we have had botched draft picks in Griffin/T. Morris/Nachbar. We haven't had any luck with any "undrafted" players like a Marquis Daniels. We havent found any quality NBDL talent like a Bobby Simmons or Mikki Moore. And we certainly havent had any luck finding the good foreign players such as Tony Parkers, Manu Ginobilis, Jiri Welches etc. Nachbar might turn out to be good but he never gets any time. Quite frankly our scouting is terrible. Things like that really hurt this team in terms of BUILDING ASSETS. We dont have any youth and minimal ASSETS to make future trades. We don't re-sign James Posey. We choose Charlie Ward over Damon Jones. Stuff like that kills us.
Let's face it. With regard to draft picks and FA signings, majority of the fans on this clutch BBS can do at least as good as CD. You just won't screw it up more than CD did.
I think Andrew Barret is a good find. So is Padget. As for pulling off the trade for T-Mac, it's more due to T-Mac want to leave Orlando and specifically wanted to come to Houston for Yao, more than CD's ability to pull it off. We could do a lot better in terms of personnel.
