I like your member status. It's my second favorite member status name behind someone's that states "random idiot".
How about 1999 Scottie Pippen & 2001 Eddie Griffin? The Rockets management always bring us excitement during the off season.
I don't see how any of the moves in the last 5 seasons compare to adding an All Star, All NBA defender in his prime without giving up any the team's core players. The Carol Dawson era is over my friends.
I'm not convinced we're getting a championship this year, until I see how everyone plays together. But, I find it huge, that T-Mac would say this is the most excited he's been in his whole career, that finally the pieces have been put around him to contend at the top. He knows alot better than I. For every good move CD made, he made a bad one. Morey is a lot more consistent at making good moves so far. You can't mix the two.
Dude, it's just what fans do. People like to get excited and talk their team up. It's not like the Rockets completely sucked since we got McGrady, either. If people are happy about the Artest signing, what's the harm in letting us dream a little? Your premise that the Rockets "roll the dice every summer" doesn't hold up at all, by the way. The Artest move was a low risk- high reward move. They aren't giving up a core player and still have cap space for 2010. If you want to a Texas team that did as you described, look north to those D-bags in Dallas.
People the whole of my post was to make the fans on this board realize we've spent 5 years trying to build a championship machine with used and worn out parts from salvage yards that no longer want them. All this talk about Artest being an All-Star and a 20-5 guy is irrelevant when the guy has history of creating chemistry problems on his team. He is an unproven risk that has never panned out for any of his teams. I am just trying to shed some light on the fact that people on this board are so naive that fail to realize if something is too good to be true, it probably is. Do you honestly think NBA GMs are just lusting to give us their star players in return for peanuts? That's what everyone thought when made these so-called "steals" with Stromile, Bonzi, Battier, James and now Artest. Look I am not picking on the Rockets management for trying upgrade with the resources they had. I applaud their effort year after year for trying to put out a winning product on the court. My only is issues is that back in 2004 when we acquired T-Mac, the Rockets went into the "win now" urgency mode instead of letting things play out and maybe get some young rookies on the team and let them develop alongside Yao and T-Mac. We are now trying to do that with Landry, Brooks, and Scola after wasting several seasons buying other teams' fallen rejects. I am still a firm believer that this is the 3rd season for Rudy Gay in this league and he developing into a pretty good player. At the time of the Battier trade I kept repeating to everyone we need a third scorer not a lockdown defender. Gay would be good enough if he could score 15ppg. Anyways you can't change the past but I think we need to just wait a bit without getting to excited about team that only looks good on paper so far.
man i hope we beat the jazz this year. and i hope its not even close and there team implodes, people leave for other teams and they have to start over. actually i think they are really good but i just dont see that team getting over the top unless williams gets even better.
We won our first championship with a guy who wasn't shy about going into the stands, huh. Like guys with issues haven't won rings before. They might sell em on ebay, at pawnshops, or auctions at some point later due to gambling debts, unpaid child support, and/or layer fees. But the Mad Max, DRodman type of guys have their place in the leauge and sometimes they are great assets on championship teams. With the exception of 2005 the nomile swift year, every year we have added a piece to what should be a championship team. Last year could have been our year if it wasn't for two things: injuries other teams making giant splashes I was pissed when I read about boston trade I was pissed when I read about the lakes trade I was thinking,"That ***** aint even fu*kin fair how they gone let them be on the same fu*kin team. That's some ol bull*****" So this trade to me is like revenge so that's why its such a splash. We probably could have contended without Ron with a healthy TMing. But the trade gives us some extra punch. And a guy that will punch the hell outta you for real for trying to bang up his big man.
Huh? Most of our moves have been low risk high reward, meaning there will be busts. For every Mike James, Derek Anderson, etc. we have Shane Battier, Luis Scola who have panned out. How are these guys worn out parts? Artest is a proven All-Star caliber player with a proven volatile personality. We know exactly what we are getting. He was the best or second best player on a championship contending Indiana team that won 60+ games. He brought back a left for dead Sacromento team and made the playoffs. He's proven to work well under Adelman and created zero chemstry problems. Since the Brawl, Ron Artest is put under a microscope. Every little thing he does now is amplified and blown out of proportion. Has he had legal problems since then? Yes. So has Rafer, Josh Howard, NBA Champion Paul Pierce, and countless other NBA players. However Ron is the only one viewed as a psycopath. Yes. See Gasol, Paul. Scola, Luis. It all depends on the circumstances and whether you are there to take advantage. In this case, just like with Scola, we had the goods they wanted and we took advantage. LA, Dallas offer better players but didn't have the picks, youth combo Sac was looking for. And Derek Anderson, and Steve Francis and so on. They are call "steals" because of how little it cost to get them. Not because they were a homeruns. If they didn't pan out, we don't lose anything. Like who? Which young rookies did we give up because of our "win now" urgency mode? Rudy Gay and who else? I disagree. We didn't all of a sudden decide to go young. Scola is 28 years old. We are still in "win now" urgency mode, as we should be. And bring Rudy Gay up is a moot point now since Artest and Battier are a definite upgrade. The reality of the situation is, back in 2004 we gutted our team to shoot for the moon. In order to elevate from a playoff bubble team into a Contender, we gave up three starter for a superstar. That left the team with zero assets and few parts around our two stars. Since then, every year we have tried to add pieces to the puzzle with the little resource we had left. That means no big splashes, just low risk gambles. Like you have mentioned, some have been busts, as expected. But at the same time we HAVE been upgrading year after year. Maybe you wanted us to win the championship right away, but it doesn't work like that. Management has been adding a major piece every year. In 2004, we started with guys like David Wesley, Jim Jackson, Juwan Howard, Ryan Bowen, Scott Padgett, Mike James, Jon Barry etc. and now turned them into Shane Battier, Luis Scola, Ron Artest, Rafer Alston, Carl Landry etc. AKA legit NBA players. Now if we did all that the very first year, you would have been jumping for joy. But thats impossible. Instead we did it patiently year after year, until finally we have our championship contender. But now you are lamenting because we didn't win the championship after year 1? After toughing it through the whole process, now is the time to just enjoy the ride my friend, its just about to get good.
last splash should be Alston,Hayes,Head,2nd round Pick,Cash to Charlotte For Raymond Felton, and Nazr Mohammad 12 MAN Roster Felton/Brooks/Barry/Francis Tmac/Barry/ Artest/Battier Scola/Laundry/Dorsey Yao/Mohammad/Dorsey
Show me one place where any of those guys were called steals? We paid for Stromile, got an unwanted Bonzi on the cheap, traded (with mucho controversy) for Batter, overpaid for James and gave up cap space and current and future rookies for Artest. Out of all of those I could see an argument for stealing Artest, but not a single one of the other guys. We made moves people. Moves to win. We have remained highly competitive, despite regular, injury setbacks involving high profile players. We're probably just as well off with Battier as we would have been with Gay, except we'd have to pay Gay bigtime in another year. The team we have now is better than we would be with Gay or any of the guys we traded away.
good response man. i am hoping we can maybe do 1 or 2 more minor trades to get rid of luther and other scrubs. to be a championship team..you have to have championship pieces across the board.
Very nicely said but again you missed my point. I told you I am proud of our management but the only thing that bother me is that every year we acquire someone in the offseason and all of a sudden this board goes crazy and championship prophecies are thrown left and right. The reality is Rockets have failed to win a playoffs series in the last 4 years. Success is measured in post season performance not how many upgrades you can get for your scrubs. I am being realistic and warning people that this Artest thing could blow up in our face and I wouldn't be surprised at all. Bottom line is Rockets need to win some playoffs games before you declare them a serious contender. Honestly, it is no justice to other teams in the league right now who have done better than us the last few years and are still getting overlooked by the media and the fans. I feel very uncomfortable with all this attention and moreover the immense pressure put on the Rockets to go win it all solely based the acquisition of one extremely talented nut job who could go crazy any given day. All I am saying is the Rockets shouldn't put all the eggs in one basket and hope everything will work out.
Success is measured in post season performance but in order to acheive post season success we need to upgrade our scrubs. And we have been doing that year after year. I agree that it is naive to think that by adding Artest we should be handed the trophy, there are no guarantees that it will work out. However, there is plenty to be excited about as a Rockets fan. I hope you can agree that Artest is a much better player than any of our recent acquisitions. He is a legitimate Star. The best player we've gotten since Tmac. That is the root of our excitement. If things work out, the potential is there for us to be one of the true contenders. Is that fair to say? Well, was it fair to call the Celtics contenders last year before a single game? And if things don't work out, we are out 2 low first round picks. Thats it. I don't think you can really call that putting all the eggs in one basket. I mean 2 low first round picks are at best quail eggs.
I agree with you that Artest when on his good behavior, is a tremendous player on both sides of the court. However his history with previous teams isn't very good and my opinion of him is not solely based on the brawl at the palace incident. I remember from his days in Chicago, he had hard getting along with the coaches and players. Then we all know what he did in Indy and lately his fallout from Sacramento doesn't speak a whole lot about his character. All in all 3 teams gave him a pretty good chance at living up to his potential and every single time he burned them. So I will be very reserved towards his acceptance as a Rocket. As far as my saying goes about putting all our eggs in one basket. Let me clarify something, I believe the Rockets are counting too much on one guy to make a tremendous impact. We had the same problem with Stromile, Bonzi, James etc... I mean we go out in the summer make a SPLASH, thinking that's it now we are in business lets go win the championship. I am frankly tired of these low risk huge potential type deals. I would have rather liked to see the Rockets go out get some unknown commodities rather than this these flawed characters we think we can cut into diamonds. My biggest concern is the we have no contingency plan, no talent developed that could replace some of the pieces if need be or if T-Mac or Yao go down for an extensive period. Right now its T-Mac and Yao + Win Now strategy with no thought to the future. The reason I bring up Gay over and over is because I think he could have been a good insurance policy against T-Mac injured back problems. The Rockets are stuck reshuffling and retreading used parts in hope of solving their problems. This has been going on for 10 years.
Hey TMac worked for us, Battier also. But I think that injuries stopped this team to be great, Yao twice, T-Mac once.
Good points and responses. I would like to reiterate your last comment: Now is the time to just enjoy the ride my friend, its just about to get good!
you remind me of brooksball's infamous "We are not gonna make the playoffs" statement... your pretty much beng negative... ure not being realistic because u really have no idea whats gonna happen, but you are making it sound like this artest deal is already going to be a failure... be positive man! yeah weve attempted 5 years of so called "tallent." but tallent doesnt win jack.. you gotta find the right pieces and sometimes that takes a while to find the right guys... i am really convinced that ron artest will have a huge impact this year for our ball club... now stop trying to kill people's hopes up man! hope, even though sometimes it is false hope can help this houston rockets team alot by encouraging more fans to go out to toyota center and rock that place up.... you tell them "they've been trying for 5 years and failed..." people will have a losing mentality...
* rockets never wanted gay in the first place, they wanted brandon roy * tmac after seeing the witch doctor hasnt had a hint of back problems.. * so who would guard kobe if we had gay? cuz he sure as hell dont play defense, ryan bowen? *artest, if tmac's back problems do flare up again would be wayyy better an issurance policy than gay... reason being? they both put up the same points pretty much, but artest's defense is a billion times better than gay... gay is nothing but a rich man's cuttino mobley
I'm not exactly sure the point of this thread. Each trade builds on the next. You rarely can judge one acquisition in isolation of the others. The 2004 TMac trade emptied 3 starters that left gaping holes in our lineup for years. We all hoped that TMac/Yao could make up the difference ...but they couldn't. Every move is a stepping stone to building a complete team. Some moves work out by themselves (Battier trade) while others take two or three moves to work out (Bonzi - Jackson - Artest). Signing Bonzi ultimately allowed us to get Artest. So Bonzi was a bust ...but getting Bonzi (an real NBA asset) worked out for us. The only acquisition that was OBVIOUSLY a step backwards for the team was Stromile Swift. For the first time in a LLLOOONNNGGG time, this team has virtually no weaknesses at any position. GM: check Coach: check PG: weakest spot but we got some faith SG: check SF: check PF: check C: check Bench: check 3 legit scoring machines: check When was the last time a Rockets fan could confidently say the above? Besides, most of us around here would agree that injuries have been the predominant reason for our lack of deep playoff runs. Barring injuries last season, I liked our chances. Artest gives us injury insurance. Fundamentally, I'm not sure I understand this thread. As a die-hard Rockets fan, EVERY season is worth getting excited about!!!!!!!!!! GO ROCKETS!
