It's irrelevant anyways. The point is that they lucked into the #1 overall pick to have a shot at a franchise type player. Someone is going to bring up the Spurs and Duncan here, but I don't give the Spurs credit for Duncan. I give them credit for Ginobili, Parker, Udrich and having virtually no albatross contracts save Nesterovic. I don't think CD is a bad GM, but he doesn't deserve my respect or anyone's ass kissing, especially for this Wells signing. Give me a break. I don't blame him at all for any of this organization's failures over the past decade because essentially, he has been a puppet throughout his tenure. That much is obvious when examining the history of this team's transactions and the sharp and sudden contrast in their nature when changing from Rudy to JVG. Initially trading for Mike James was a good move, drafting Kenny Thomas and Cuttino Mobley were good moves. I give them credit and respect for that. Drafting Yao and now signing Bonzi Wells when out of 2 other remaining suitors, 1 (Charlotte) didn't even make an offer, and the other (Denver) was hesitant to offer a deal for fear of the luxury tax and you guys are telling me to commend CD? Get real. One can be excited about the prospects of this season and ecstatic over the Wells signing while still taking a dose of reality. The two are not mutually exclusive. This board can be so damn fickle sometimes.
You missed the point. I was not comparing CD to West. I was making the pt that luck is involved in EVERY transation, but GMs still deserve credit for their part in it. Bonzi had his choice of teams. The Rockets worked for him to sign here instead of, say, Denver. CD and his team have their faults. But they have done enough right to put together the current team.
Udrich sucks. Parker and Manu were excellent picks, the Spurs were ahead of the curve in Europe a few years ago, but not much more. Rasha--the main by product of their so called brilliant planning for under the cap space, sucked (remember they didn't land Kidd, and they probably should have gone for J Oneal but I don't remember them going after him hard). Rose's contract sucked. Barry has disappointed. Finley was a nobrainer for them like Bonzi was to us, but didn't help them last year. Don't get be wrong, the Spurs have done well, but without the pick for Duncan they wouldn't have been an elite team and would not have been known as a special front office. Further unless one of their two young flyer bigs (Elson, Butler) they signed this offseason become gems in the rough I think they have done nothing to close the athleticism gap growing between them and Dallas nor position themselves to handle Yao Ming or Shaq should they need to (which Nahr, who they made no effort to resign, would have helped with). IMO Phx, Det, Sac, Indy, Mia--those teams have done more with less. They built championship or championship competing teams with shrewd draft picks (never had no brainer #1 type picks, though Det's acquired one they could have had Wade or Mello with, ouch) and shrewd FA or trade acquisitions. These teams and GMs deserve the most credit over the last decade. Not the teams that got to draft Shaq, Duncan, Yao, or Lebron #1 because they tanked or lucked out.
To me, good management is about what you don't get as much as what you get. I think CD has made more rational decisions after JVG replaced Rudy. He may have missed on some players. But he has pretty much stayed away from bad untradeable deals. Juwan is just about the only one and he is the price of getting Tracy.
That reflects more upon JVG's managerial ideology and CD's status as a virtual puppet rather than as reason to credit CD.
This is all a big bowl of crab. For those who doesn't care what CD did and still thinks he stinks. Nothing in the world will change your mind. That's fine, your opinion is yours and it's your right to have it. The man will be gone next year and all I want now is for him to go out with a bang. And sure, we may not be good enough to win it all but at least we look like we have a much better chance than say 24 hours ago. Whether CD gets any credit for this is really irrelavant. "Just Win Baby". And everyone will be happy.
no you missed my point, he made his luck with good role players. no one blames cd for tracy getting hurt. and this gets back to the point of let the season play out before we deem this the team that rockets finally got right.
One can also say good role players fell into the Lakers laps because the presence of Kobe and Shaq. There's alway luck and skills both involved in such things. Always. It took a ton of work to get Yao over to the States. The Rockets also "made their own luck" in acquiring McGrady. Sure Tracy wanted to come to HOU, but HOU wasn't the only desirable team out there. Management has ****ed up plenty-- more often back in Rudy T's final years than now. But their good moves cannot all be attributed to luck.
CD has always been good at making moves. smart and dumb. but who motivates those moves? i dont know, but i think that he does make moves based on what the coach is looking for.
Swift underachieved for 5 years before he came here. Not once did he make any noticeable gain in his stats that would have indicated his desire to get better. The Rockets didn't do a good job on their homework analysis of Swift.
It's not irrelevant. Plenty of folks thought drafting Yao was a mistake. There was also the issue of getting a contract done, which was very complicated. CD and the org as a whole showed some big balls by drafting Yao....
It's irrelevant in that they wouldn't have even had the opportunity to draft Yao had the #1 pick not been gift wrapped to them on a platter. Phoenix got their star players at low draft positions (Marion, Stoudemire at #9) and through shrewd personnel decisions (clearing space through the marbury trade for nash). Indiana got Jermaine O'Neal for an aging Dale Davis and revamped their roster through other deals. Detroit also built through trade and smart use of the MLE in Billups' case. You guys are kidding yourselves if you think drafting Yao is an example of genius on CD's part. If you guys are so hell bent on attributing credit to someone for this Wells signing, then fine, we can do that: His name is Tracy McGrady. He is the reason Stromile Swift and Derek Anderson signed last year (for better or worse), he is the reason Bonzi Wells signed this year, and he is the reason that players will continue to sign with us (until he's 30) every summer so long as we stay below the luxury tax level. This has nothing to do with Carrol Dawson and you're fooling yourselves if you think it does.
For you to say that CD had NOTHING to do with the Wells signing- well, you have a right to your opinion, of course, but that's venturing into idiot territory. Unless you work for the Rockets organization, how in the world do you know any of this, anyway? Maybe CD called him the day before everything went down. Can you tell me he didn't? Do you live in his house or work in the Rockets' front office? That's why whoever coined the phrase "scoreboard" knew what they were talking about. CD was the GM when we drafted Yao Ming, CD was the GM when we traded for McGrady- and, of course, he was also the GM when we obtained Swift and Anderson. I'm not implying the guy's perfect- but I just think the Rockets management, including Les and CD, aren't afraid to make bold moves, some of which work (Clyde, McGrady) and some that don't (Barkley, Pippen- although the Barkley deal accomplished its primary purpose of shaking the Seattle monkey). "CD has done nothing." Yeah, OK, fly, thanks for the wall report.
I don't think drafting Yao is genius. But it's not just luck as you make it to be. Getting Yao took a lot of work and persistent effort. And it was NOT a no-brainer like Duncan or LeBron. Lots of people, including many here on this board, thought we should either trade the pick for a "sure thing" or draft Williams. Getting the #1 pick was pure luck. Using it to get Yao was not.
While I'm not as big of a critic of the Rox org as Cabbage is, I see where he's coming from. It is very skewed to believe that Lady Luck has not played a Huge factor in terms of the Rockets attaining most of the talent they have now. Other teams have done worse with better luck. Some teams have done better with worse luck. It isn't the best criteria (but hell, judging an organization is subjective anyways), but usually winning is what's used to determine the success of a franchise from top to bottom. You can have total mismanaged f ups in your org up and down, but if you win a championship, everyone thinks you're the model for how things should be. This is in sports and life. So, not that I really agree with that criteria, but there's some validity to it, and based on that Rockets have been a so-so franchise every since 1999.
Thanks for the otherwise worthless, unsubstantial response. Yea, my whole point was that "CD has done nothing."
No, your point is that "CD is a puppet." Praytell, from where do you receive your inside information? It's one thing to say you disagree with his decisions, but you're basically inferring that you know how the Rockets organization is run from the inside- I call B.S., that's all. BTW, my response did not need to be substantiated because I'm not presupposing to know who holds more weight in the decision-making hierarchy of the Rockets organization. But that's cool. Everyone's entitled to their opinion. However warped it may be.
that's the conclusion you're going to draw only if you dumb it down to simplistic "well you have no inside info on rockets management so you're wrong" terms. i can use my common sense to derive the nature of the hierarchy. do you honestly think that it was a sudden coincidence that the day rudy left marked the end of the era of doling out ridiculous contracts to marginal players and ushered in the era of penny pinching for menial (ex-knick) veterans? i never claimed that "he has done nothing." i give him credit for trading for mike james and jon barry. my point is that he is a virtual puppet who really has little say when it comes to the direction of the ballclub excluding minor deals such as those. that much is atleast up for debate. however, the notion that he was in any way part of the reason we signed bonzi wells is beyond laughable. Fine, I'll admit it guys - Bonzi Wells, down to only 3 suitors (2 of which didn't even make formal offers) signed with the Houston Rockets because of the brilliant persuasion skills of CD over a lobster dinner.
