The Rockets right now are under the luxury tax. Their star player, making in excess of 20 million dollars per year, is not playing at all. They have no high lottery draft picks on the team, on their rookie contract. And yet, this squad is still good enough to be the equivalent of a 50-win team. How many teams can you say that about?
That's the other team I thought of. But the Spurs have only one player making even close to 20 million, and that's Tim Duncan. Do they still remain a 50-win type team without him?
the guy reminds me of Rudy T. when we won the back2back championships we had a bunch of rookies and/or role players who came cheap. it was only after we traded those pieces away for big names that we started our downward trajectory. (minus the first olajuwon/barkley/drexler team) we couldve won it all if drexler gave a damn about winning that year. f@(k him and his smile after we lost to Utah on a Stockton 3.
I like that he doesn't take on bad contracts. Thats is the most crippling thing to a team, especially for mediocre talent. He is finding the pieces that fit based on skills and effectivness not just boxscore numbers.
we have to give some blame to barkley. as fat as he was, it was clear he didn't put much effort into keeping in game shape.
No, I was comparing the depth of the Rockets to the Spurs, based on the criteria I identified in the first post. The Rockets haven't spent like crazy to acquire expensive talent (under the LT limit), and they haven't benefited from drafting a high lottery pick. And yet, they have proven to be a pretty good team even without a player using up 20 million of their salary. To me, that points to very shrewd decision making in acquiring talent on the cheap. Some will point to the Rudy Gay trade as a blemish. Perhaps it is -- I really don't know if we are better or worse off right now with Battier instead of Gay. But for what the team is right now, I'm impressed with (a) how good they are collectively, and (b) how cost effective they are.
In terms of contract size and roles they SHOULD play on their teams.... yes. Let's not hijack this into another hate Tracy thread.
Poor. Moneyball doesn't take into account how many games a player has missed due to injuries. He keeps trading for or signing guys that can't play a full season.
he was probably smiling thinking . . ..oO D*MN I got Bearhugged and Barkley's f*t *sses didn't rotate to the open man . . . .Oo. Rocket River . . . you may go on with your regularly schedule programs
I'm not going to bang on the guy, but Kupchak,Buford,Otis smith, pritchard are pretty good also. I mean, what is 50 wins if you don't get to a finals? 50 wins in the nba is really a little above average and that's the worse thing to be. There isn't a such thing as a bad contract if you know what to do with it.
He is the best thing that Rockets organization had in last 3 years. Imagine the - so-called best GM- Mitch Kupchak in Morey's situation ( every year high hopes, same injuries) and imagine the Rockets organization under Mitch Kupchak's power. I really really believe Morey is gonna make that team a true contender in this 2 years, then he's gonna be a legendary GM for Houston, write that down.
The one player I think of on the Rockets that we are getting a bargain on is Scola. If he was a free agent right now, I'm thinking he would get at least the full MLE.
