"One of the tests of leadership is the ability to recognize a problem before it becomes an emergency." -Arnold Glasgow Oscar Robertson once said that winning championships starts from the top. He said you need to start with good ownership and management to become a championship team. For those of you that don't know about Oscar Robertson, learn about this man. I feel that many of us tend to overlook, or fail to mention, the main problem with this organization, especially in recent years. In my opinion, that is exactly what the individuals who are most responsible for our current problems want us to do. These individuals don't play basketball and rarely get media attention. They want us fans to blame the players and the coaches so they can avoid being scrutinized and blamed for their mistakes. The problem is not Tracy McGrady. The problem is not Yao Ming. The problem is not Rick Adelman. The problem IS that for most of the decade following the Rockets' back-to-back championships, ownership and management continously made bad decision after bad decision after bad decision. More specifically, they made a number of terrible draft picks and took on a multitude of even worse contracts. Meanwhile, other front offices around the league were making good decisions and developing winning products while our's kept adding to existing problems. Those top-level decisions are critical and when made poorly can lead to years of frustration for players and fans alike. You can't keep sweeping those kinds of mistakes under the rug. You must pay the price, eventually. Again, McGrady is not the problem, at least not the biggest problem or the root of our problems. Given what Francis, Mobley and Cato are doing now, we are fortunate to have McGrady. If we end up trading him, we will get a lot more in return than we would have been able to get for the players we traded for him in the first place. We shouldn't lose sight of that fact. Management actually got that one right. For those that blame McGrady and/or Yao and/or coaches for our inability to get past the first round, you may benefit to step back and consider the bigger historical picture and the course of events that led to the present state of this organization. "What makes a great team is a great bench." -Oscar Robertson Five guys start and several more play during the course of each game. This is a team sport and while fans and the media love to highlight the superstars, all the players matter and contribute significantly to both a team's successes and its failures. Kobe and Shaq did not win three titles. Kobe, Shaq, Rick Fox, Robert Horry, Derek Fisher, Devean George, the coaches, management, the entire organization etc... won three titles. If I had to give one reason as to why the Rockets are struggling today, it has to start with the decade of bad decisions, bad draft picks and bad contracts accumulated within this organization. That is ultimately what led to the current set of inadequate players surrounding Tracy and Yao and the high player turnover that occurs year after year. It's hard to build anything meaningful when the team bascially gets torn apart during each offseason in an effort to clean up previous mistakes. It is not the fault of those average and below average players, either. Management is the one that should get the blame, yet they never step up and say "it's on us". At least McGrady had the confidence and courage to make such a statement. When is Les going to take his share of the responsibility? I suppose it'll be the same day that Bud Selig owns up to his mistakes. That day is the same day that pigs will fly or Rafer Alston will finish a season shooting over 50% from the field. Instead of pointing at individual players or the coach, I think the best thing hardcore Rockets' fans can do is pray that our current owner (or a new owner) and his management starts making good decisions on a consistent basis over the course of several years. That is when you will start seeing a better product, whether or not McGrady, Yao or Adelman are still part of it. "It is time for a new generation of leadership, to cope with new problems and new opportunities. For there is a new world to be won." -JFK
Thank you. Exactly right. I completely disagree. You can't pick a worse time to complain about bench strength than now, when a new GM just radically improved our bench. We have so much firepower that three guys we had high hopes for can flat-out suck, and the coach can still field a strong eight-man rotation. Remember that we tore apart the team in the middle of '04-'05 and quickly built fantastic cohesion. Morey has given Adelman and his staff plenty of talent to work with. Now let's see what the choreographer and his dancers can do.
Morey did a great job over the summer, but now i am starting to question what kind of coach/style morey had when getting those players. James, SF, and Scola were exactly what we needed in JVG era. Now with new playing style, new coach I don't know if our current roster is made for that at all. we can't use same old players to play the new system. RA said that he was surprise to see this long for his team to pickup the game. Maybe we need to starting looking to add new blood into this team. playing AB more PT is a start, but he is still a rookie. Wells is the only player who knows how to play is a problem. go out and do some trades!
If I remember correctly, Morey was not on board when it came to firing JVG. It's not a good thing when your owner overrides the GM. It is even worse when the GM is a rookie and just got started. Maybe Les should take over GM responsibilities and save himself some money. Oh wait, that won't work because then he will have to take responsibility for this mess.
One of the reasons an NBA team will tear it completely down is to stop the pattern of making one bad decision to correct another bad decision. In many ways, the problems facing this franchise began years ago and are still being felt today.
I am not buying the new coach, new style talk. A great coach should fit the style to players to get the most wins, not the other way around. When a new style is getting in the way of winning, it is the style that needs to be changed, not the players, if these players can win under any style at all.
Morey's 1st trade J Ho for Mike James Biatch looks worser and worser. Will Mike James Biatch ask for a trade this season? I doubt any team wants Mike James Biatch.
Trade him. Seriously. What could it hurt? We get a new owner in here and maybe he'll shake some things up. Maybe we could get some wider seats or neck rests or something. Get this hack out of here before he writes too many checks.
What worries me is that Alexander hired a numbers guru (Morey) who knows little to nothing about basketball and basketball players.
The annoying part is that there have been so many trade & draft mistakes and so few success stories. A few mistakes over the years is part of the journey, but it seems the Rockets have had an inordinate amount of things that went wrong. After as many mistakes as the Rockets have had, it suggests that there is/was some failing in the upper management structure which should include Les. In regards to hopes of recapturing the magic of a few years ago with some Mid Season roster juggling, the inability of this organization to Get Lucky on a regular basis over the years suggests that it is likely that the Rockets will fail to Get Lucky and recapture that magic.
KCato's Contract + JHoward's Contract = Pure Gold Someone will have to explain those to me one day....
I still stick with Morey's moves. Are you kidding me? Every single one of you guys would have made all the exact same deals in his situation. Hell this team is absolutely fine on paper. Alexander has done nothing but shown a strong commitment to winning for the past 15yrs. It rivals the aggressiveness of teams like the Yankees, Cowboys, and Lakers. A big transaction is made every few years, Barkley, Drexler, Rice, Griffen, Francis, McGrady, Pippen, Anderson, Posey, etc... They don't all panout. But I am grateful we have the kind of management that is dedicated to winning. Its rare. What you guys want is Spurs quality building/scouting. But they are up there with the Patriots in terms of management. Thats rare. We can't attain that. Deal with it... We have excellent management hopefully you guys realize that someday.
Les wanted the team to play more phoenix like. Les didn't realize that his team is built around a non-phoenix like player. This was not a hard thing to figure out. It was for Les apparently.
Remember how we were all "sold" Adelman by the organization because he adapts to his player's strengths (like he was the anti-JVG)? I guess they aren't using that gimmick anymore seeing how all of the players look worse than ever in their careers under this guy.
I disagree. I think Morey did one hell of a job this summer. Nobody could know that every vet we picked up would look like they should retire once they slipped on a Rockets jersey. Brooks looks good and I still think Scola is going to be a 16/8 guy next season.
That is the worst part. When your owner thinks he knows more about basketball than his coaches and GM he should at least know more than a 5th grader.
And what is JHo doing this season and what would he have done for us playing behind ChucK and Scola? He has an eff of 1.71 vs James' 5.59. We are almost 4 pts of eff ahead and 2 years younger. Still waiting for Aaron Brooks to get some experience and become the first good PG in the Rockets stable since the championship years. Remember Baloney? Too many mistakes that have left us behind our competitors for years. Cuban is willing to buy his way out of a mistake and/or improve. Les never has.