Lets play OFFENSE only, and see what happenes. Players can get stats, fans get some good basketball, and JVG gets the last bit of hair fallen.
i think we should play hard just with the all young players starting, also yao should have decreased minutes now that the season is a wash
Its really not time for moral victories. Sure they shouldn't just give up, but at the same time, its more beneficial to the team if they dont win every single game they play and pass up choices for some help they need immediately. Im not saying they should tank, but i understand.
Although this also omits the Hornets and Jazz also ahead of us. We have to play considerably better than 3 teams, not just 1. I suppose since right now we have a better chance to make the playoffs and win the title than George Mason has in college, and they have a chance, it is OK to push. Once we have no mathmatical chance we don't tank. However we do not let anyone under a long term contract nor over 30 play at all, except for Swift and Head (showcase them for trades or let him work on their game). We say Keith, Stro, Chuck, Luther, Maciej and Richtie, go sic em. That is not taking, you want them to try their best to win, but it is the smart way to use the rest of the season. Right now we are in the 11/12 spot. If we play really well we could be 14/15ish. While on the other hand with some focused effort we could drop to the 7 spot. That is a BIG difference in the draft.
I chose to play for pride. This is not a deep and good draft to begin with. There is no Duncan, TMac, Kobe, Yao, Lebron in it. It might produce a couple of occasional all stars and that's it.
It's a loser mentality to root for a high draft pick. Lets win every game and we will then will worry about the draft when the lottery comes around.
This team has major holes and no cap space to work with to fill those holes. The lottery is the only help the Rockets will get unless they get two or more players for T-mac in a trade situation. They sould tank the rest of the season.
I have no problem with this team playing to win, and even less of a problem when it ends up in a loss. When the present is hopeless, you plan for the future--we need a good pick. It does frustrate me that these guys are starting to play and shoot well at the wrong time. Also the world championships are this year, correct? JVG needs to rest Yao because you know the Chinese team is going to run him ragged. We need Yao fresh for our 06/07 campaign. Limit his minutes JVG, rest him for the World Championships so that hopefully he won't be too tired for next season.
No, don't limit Yao minutes. It will only do damage to his stat, rest him completely for the remaining games. I still want Yao to keep his respectable stat of 20/10. This is the only bright spot for the Rockets this season.
its very close between pick 6 to pick 12, obviously you wanna be able to pick as close to first as possible to get the players with the most talent, but this draft is weak and it is more of a lottery this year on talent, but i'd rather us lose to get that higher pick and higher chance of landing top 3
I pick 2nd. Fight strong doesn't necessarily mean we'll lose alot in lottery game. And it'll keep our dignity and hunger to win. Just forget those stupid lottery balls~
This pride thing is overrated. Once we started winning meaningful games we have pride. If losing breeds loser mentality, then we'd better waive T-Mac because he was a slacker on the Orlando team. T-Mac slacked because wins on that team without direction, capspace and Grant Hill are not very meaningful, and he stopped caring. Look how things turned around. Pride is something that needs to be fed with hope. Do you think the American soldiers in the D-day have no pride or not professional because they needed to follow the the orders and carry out tactics? You know, sometimes deliberately lose a battle to draw the enemy in, or sometimes are forced to retreat and regroup? The Rockets should employ the same strategy, to retreat now while making it look like they are fighting in order to save up ammunition for the future. There is a big difference between losing because they don't care, and losing because they care. Tanking is the latter, because they care about winning it big in the future, instead of winning without fruits now.
---------------------------------------------------------------------- i'm totally with you at this point, statistically we are not dead yet. meanwhile, if JVG could be playing Stro & Chuck more minutes and finally get them melted into the system, we would be better off next season. tanking right now might not help us to get what we are really hoping for.
Doesn't tanking send a terrible message to the fans? Not the ones that understand the salary cap, know who Vassilis Spanoulis is, and post on a message board at midnight, but the ones who buy tickets to the home games, or casually glance over the scores in the paper. I gather that attendance at the Toyota Center is lousy already; how are people going to feel when they shell out a large chunk of dough only to find out that Yao Ming will be limited to 20 minutes, regardless of foul trouble, and Maciej Lampe will be getting the rest, just so we have a better chance to draft Brandon Roy or Joakim Noah? (by the way, I have to say that Lampe is the most fluid stiff I've ever seen; it makes him look fairly decent in garbage time because he moves around well, even though he's pretty terrible) Perhaps I've misinterpreted the word tanking here; I take it to mean not playing the players who give us the best chance of winning: whatever happened to building chemistry? The starters we are playing now are all likely to be around next year, and they definitely need as many reps with each other as possible. It would be a different story if we had a Gerald Green-esque ultra-raw player; then, like a September call-up in baseball, you give him a cup of coffee and let him show what he's got. Instead, we have Luther Head, who just played a game high 42 minutes on Wednesday, and Chuck Hayes, who's... ok, so Chuck Hayes should play a lot more. Most of us know who we want back on this team and who we don't for next year; are those opinions really going to change over the next 11 games? Sadly, I do believe all of our quantities are known already at this point, and every one that management has a bit of doubt about is in the rotation already (Lampe shouldn't be back, especially after the crap with the '81 halftime ceremony). Let the starters get the repetitions they desperately missed out on earlier in the year (hell, just getting everyone used to throwing good entry passes and running the pick and roll effectively would be good enough for me), maybe steal a win here and there, compete hard for the rest, and let the fans who make it possible for us to use the Mid-Level Exception have a bit of hope for next year. At the very least, if we pull off a little run at the end, we'll have something to talk about this summer other than 21-10 with T-Mac and Yao, that is, assuming I'm still here after the free registration ends.
yeah pride, that was the spurs strategy after robinson went down with his back injury ... oh no it wasn't. pride isn't going to help the rockets catch up to the mavs and spurs and stop being the 3rd best team in our state. pride isn't going to fill toyota center's seats. and on and on. landing one of the top 7 talents in this draft would go along way to helping the rockets get to where we all want them to go again.
If you think a guarantee of a #6 or #8 pick by losing every remaining game, which I doubt, is worth damaging Yao's long-being-waited confidence and leadership to rox, I can't argue. Yet, yesterday's win spoke that Yao and the rox will not tank the season.
