you're right......lets deminish our defense.....especially our best defensive starter.....forget the fact that thats what got us into the playoffs........and well ahead of the teams that refuse to play defense(dallas, phoenix, denver) just so we can obtain a journeyman scorer...... I'm not a battier homer, but if your gonna put him up for bait, at least give him the respect he deserves.....battiers lack of offense is not the issue here.......
Ok although I am fine with this trade idea, I think Battier is worth quite a bit more than JoHoward. Battier is one of the few best defenders in the whole league, and he brings a lot of intangibles to his team, and most importantly defense, and leadership. He also has a better contract at 6 million per year compared to Howard's 9 million per year. Not to mention Howard is a pothead and inconsistent in the playoffs
If Spurs can win with Bowen as a starter why can't we win with Battier? Keep Battier. He is only 6 million
Why? Because the Spurs signed Bowen with half an MLE. The Rockets blew a Lottery pick to get the same thing.
Yeah I don't agree with that trade as well. Don't know why they didn't want to keep a lottery pick, Rudy at no.8 would've been a steal!
Good point... you forget we have Morey now though.. He seems pretty competent.. expect jackson and head to be packaged for someone who fits 1 or 2 above.
Yeah I really feel that the best centre in the whole NBA and one of the best SGs in the whole league doesn't get the support they deserve and I agree to extent that their best years are being wasted somewhat. We really need that 3rd player to fill in that void.
That's not fair at all. Look at the team we put together this year. It's honestly incredible. Imagine if we'd found the right line-up (the streak line-up) to start the season. We'd have clicked from the start and we'd easily contend for the top record in the West (we actually were anyways) And with Yao healthy, we would have gone way deeper into the playoffs. Losing somewhere still wouldn't have been a shame, because the Lakers, Hornets, and Spurs are all very good teams. And next year, if injuries don't plague us, will be exactly what I described. This year, after getting a new coach and feeling out our roster, we got off to a terrible first two months. Then, the last two months were without Yao. DESPITE THAT, we were 3 games out of the best record in the West (and one of the best records in franchise history), won 22 games in a row, and with Yao, would have been one of the four Western powerhouses legitimately competing for a championship. What more can you ask for?
I'm for you. After the large deal for Macgrady at the price of our three starters, Rockets can't find a good blue collar pf till this season. Hayes can't be the starter in any other team except in Rockets, but he had been the starting pf for rockets for several years until Scola came, which cost rockets two good seasons. I hate to think of the play off series with Dallas ! To see how crazily Dallas doubled or tripled Yao! I won't say anything about our last play off. Only if we had a pf who can shoot, we would have been the team in the final conference, let alone the first round! So please play Yao less time next season, to find him a bench player, Rockets will be quite better !
How bout the fact that the players you claim are having their best years wasted are also the ones who are getting hurt the most. You blame the Rockets organization for fielding a team that has gotten home court advantage in the playoffs in the crazy west two years in a row, despite Yao and Tmac getting hurt a lot.
The thing is, Yao already plays them for free with all the sponsorship he drags, why can't they just sign some solid backup center, not putdown good ol'Deke but let's face it, he ain't gonna back Yao up night in and night out, the very short Chuck Hayes was doing that till Yao's injury.
Thank you for the opportunity. From one Bob to a bob, you are just not in a realistic orbit. Your whole initial post assumes that great players are just waiting out there on the free-agent market all the time, or that other GMs get all Grizzly and trade you someone like Ray Allen for Luther Head. The boundary conditions of upgrading your roster in the NBA are very restrictive and difficult. For every freaky case like Los Angeles (Pau for garbage + a bunch of former scrubs playing over their heads... for now at least), you will get a Chicago (talent put together with disasterous results) or Dallas + Phoenix (go for the extra super-talent only to watch colossal FAIL). Even with Boston, which benefited from two very weird trades (Seattle and Minnesota), is having a really hard time with the HAWKS in the first round. The Hawks have built themselves more through the draft, but they had a losing record and were less fun to watch than the Rox. So our management has kept a team on the floor that has been a western conference playoff team of high caliber. They stole Scola. As others have documented, they made sensible draft choices to get shooters. This team worked their butts off and were a lot of fun to watch. I would rather be a Rockets fan right now than a fan of 97% of the other teams. Not just because I love the Rox. I just think we're managed better than so so many other teams. Want to be a Phoenix or Dallas fan right now? LOL How about Miami? Any takers? I did not want to go on a rant as much as I wanted to give your thread the golden rating: one star.
last time i checked we were a few games away from first place in the west without yao for almost half the season. i think it's safe to say that the rockets are a contender with yao. the only thing that is needed, is one or two players who can create their own shot.
The rockets organization should change their philosophy of building the team. The team should be built for playoffs. Too many undersized, defensive, hustle players in this team. We need more good shooters and athletic players. Altlanta is a good example.
Josh Howard is a "journeyman scorer"? Huh? Howard is a borderline allstar-caliber player, and he's one of the better defenders at his position. I think I'm giving Shane plenty of respect for suggesting we could get possibly get Howard in return for him.
