1. High lottery pick, meaning the Rox stay competative around 40-45 wins but fail to make the playoffs so we get lucky in the lottery and land a top 3 pick. No shame in asking for that, look at what Portland, Chicago did with a lucky draw. We need the same thing here a solid pick. 2. Morey trades Battier to a contender for more picks and young players. 3. T-Mac's contract is allowed to expire without trade plus we shed more salary for the summer Lebron / Wade / Bosh contest. Thats about it.
Lotto pick, this season is a wash sorry, like someone else said it's time for us to pull a Spurs and land a Duncan. Let the young kids play and look towards next year. We need a young, cheap star that you can only get with a high lotto pick.
If they ended up with John Wall and some how inked Bosh and resigned Mac and Scola. I always supported the Rockets, i live in Memphis and would rather watch the Rockets i just moved here about 2 months ago from Houston after 20 something years.
This season can be deemed a success by only one of 4 scenarios occurring: A) Top 5 lottery pick B) Aaron Brooks becomes legit 20+ ppg scorer C) Tracy McGrady returns to All-Star form D) Tracy McGrady is traded for a significant package. Any other (realistic) scenario, and this season was a complete waste of everyone's time.
1. Playoffs 2. Getting close to playoffs. 3. Getting a good draft pick, if we fail to make the playoffs. But from your options, B) Aaron Brooks (or Luis Scola) become 20+ ppg scorer
developing one or two rookies dont count as success, imo developing brooks and landry into legit and consistent players will count as success. also, as mentioned, if tmac returns to his old form and we get something by trading him it will also count as a success. lastly the lottery situation which i really dont wanna think about
NO TANKING, I don't care if we're a 20 win team, go hard till the end. Don't become a New York or Miami, I would be disgusted. If they show up every game I say its a success.
This season's success means keeping everyone motivated and playing hard, not losing their cool. Playoffs would be a good but I don't think its necessary. Draft picks, nah. I don't think they need a high draft pick. Tmac either gone without playing any games or Tmac staying and playing spectacularly. I don't want to see Tmac looking like he'd rather be playing baseball or something. And finally, I have high hopes for Scola and Budinger. As for All Star? Too much competition in their position. Same with Aaron Brooks. Theres just too many good players. Bottom line, keep going and don't stop.
I will consider this season a success if we can find two legitimate goto guys other than Yao. Whether it be Tracy, Scola, Chase, Ariza, or someone we trade for.
Believe me, if any of those guys really step up their games, Chinese fans will make them all star for sure.
I would be happy to watch every game and they go to the playoffs but I really want them to win a championship before I go to heaven and I just believe that should be the goal each and every season, unless they go total rebuild, trade TMac and eventually Yao, then success would mean getting the next Kobe or Duncan in the draft. OK, I will be easy on them- success for me is TMac coming back very strong being more dominant than ever, them finding a unique team chemistry after Christmas and making a strong run to the conference finals, with TMac winnign MVP of the Conf. finals win or lose.
Get an impact player by a draft or the trades as well get young players improved in each day. Do not very care if the team can make playoff or not this year, rather than see an improved rosters before next year. A success is for a long term, not for only one year thing.
Of those options in the OP I'll go with option 4. I think making the playoffs will be a moral victory that does nothing to help the team move toward a Championship unless a trade is made to bring in a young, talented player to pair with Yao next season. This current squad + Yao isn't going to win a Championship. Even adding 31 year old (next year) McGrady won't do it.
The quickest way back to the top is to take the fastest route to the bottom and hope for the best (see, e.g. Spurs-Duncan, Cavs-James, Magic-Howard), or the unlikely event of somebody giving us a franchise quality player for nothing or very low cost. (Celtics-Garnett, Lakers-Kobe, sort of-Gasol)
the only way losing would be good is if its an obvious throw away of games. I think the best thing to do is fight for a playoff position and if we do make it to the playoffs then thats good. I think that doing good and showing that with out yao ming we can do good, will help attract a good free agent, like it attracted ariza. If we do good with out yao, and we get yao back fresh and ready to go next year, with our already playoff bound team plus a big free agent, we are contenders. I would love to have D Wade on our team.
These are the scenarios I'd love to occur. 1. Young rookies blow up, and packaged with T-Mac or others for a legit star in a salary dump by the other team. 2. One of our young players blow up enough to be at least a legit 2nd option(thinking Brooks or Ariza at this point). 3. JOHN WALL!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
