I am not sure, while we are certainly not a contender, sometimes a simple addition in an area of weakness changes everyone's role. While the starting 5 has been effective, that is a bit skewed as most teams do not put as much effort at the beginning of games, and concentrate on the end. And that is where we are losing games, at the end, even though we seem to be RIGHT THERE, the truth is the failure rate is just too high due to the pieces not really fitting. So, it is a legitimate question from the OP, but I am not sure any of us have a legitimate answer. If your overall goal is a championship than we are VERY FAR away, if it is just to win 50 games and be in the mix every year, than we are not that far away. If this team had Tyson Chandler they would be 10+ wins better already, and that is not a huge addition. There are SEVERAL Centers available as free agents this offseason, IMO, there is no need to salvage the season by trading anything of value for one now. Let's sell some veterans for some draft picks or projects and lace them up again next year with some free agent acquisitions at positions of need. Just my .02. DD
Daryl Morey built this team around Yao Ming. It is hardly a surprise that we are struggling without him. I'm not sure what everyone around here expected once he went down.
We're actually worse than bad. If the Rockets were truly awful, we'd be getting a high draft pick, but we're just bad enough to miss the playoffs, yet still not be in a position to draft a game changer. Only in the NBA lottery is being bad actually worse than being awful, and that's what it boils down to, the Rockets are bad but not terrible, so we're screwed.
It was continuing to build around Yao after he became injury prone that was the problem, but I blame that on Les and not DM. Yao does not seem like a DM player, but he does rake in a good chunk of dough under the table and brings new blood into our viewer ratings. I have a feeling if it was really up to DM, Yao would have been kicked to the curb a long time a go and we would be heading in a different direction. I don't blame Yao for this, because it is not like he wants to be injured or that he is causing any commotions. His body broke down and it is what it is. I think that the Rockets insistence to holding on to Yao is what dropped us into this deep hole.
I agree with you. A full rebuild should have begun the day it was announced that Yao would miss a full season.
i am not quite there to blame on DM. i kinda accept the result of the bet DM put. sometimes, you have to bet on something, especially those key parts of the team such as #1 draft and in our case yao's injury. i know it sucks when you lose your bet but that's what gambling is. we lost this time and we move on.
Disagree. Rebuilding is such a long and difficult process that could take anywhere from four to infinity years. If you have a a game-changing player like Yao already on your roster, I think it's less risky to build a team around him and hope he heals than it is to build a contending team from the ground up in a finite amount of time. I fully support the Rockets decision to go that route.
I would consider us one of the worst teams in the entire league. We have enough talent to keep us from getting valuable picks but not enough to even lose in the first round. We are stuck with the likes of the Bobcats, Phoenix, and Portland (too good to improve from the draft, not good enough to win). At least teams like Sac and Wash have a core of young bigs and a future dominate wing player to look forward too. We have aging role players, undersized people that would be good off the bench for contenders, and an entire disregard for defense. While I'm ranting, I hate to say it, but in hind sight we got robbed in the t-mac deal. Lowry got over paid. The Miller signing is laughable. T-will is a nut case. Battier is too old. Brooks is done. Is there anything to look forward to on this team?
Which is why you bite the bullet and start as soon as possible. It was a pipe dream to think Yao could come back from that injury. What's even more infuriating is that the conditions are there for next season to be a repeat of this season and last season.
The way I see it...we had a 20% chance of being a contender this season if we built around a healthy Yao. Rebuilding we have a 0-to-something % chance of being a contender in probably at least four seasons (and that may be optimistic). I'd take my chance with the first option. Does it really matter if it takes four season or five seasons to build a contender. After a while, losing one year for an extremely rare chance to build a contender won't make that big of a difference. You're going to need to exhibit more patience if you truly want to go the full rebuilding route...for your own sanity.
We are not THAT bad because the teams that are supposedly good right now aren't that good. it's more that everyone else is bad. I mean honestly of the teams out there who scares you? Maybe Orlando if they could put it together and add some more pieces. Perhaps Miami ? Not impressed with mavs or spurs.celts are getting old.kobe is breaking down. jazz will fall off without sloan.. the thunder Min and portland might be the only up and comers? Even then I don't know why but I have never been scared of the thunder or durant. Maybe I am deluded? Blake griffin will still need to develop. With a core of lowry scola battier martin and hayes we need some free agent scoring like zach randolph or somehow get a upper to mid tier player gerald wallace. Add a paint protector along the lines of mcgee or deandre jordan and I think we compete. With that in mind why blow it up? Lots of anxiety around here when we were going to have yao in the middle this year. We would have won at least 10-15 more games this year with yao and would be right there.
I feel we really are that bad. Were a team with a bunch of role players,good ones but not great. Change needs to happen ASAP. Or maybe we should lower our expectations.
we are struggling to consistently stay 5 games under .500, with two 5 game losing streaks. that's consistently mediocre on an average level.
of coz, you can say it now but before his new injury, you had no sound clues and no parallel examples to say it was a pipe dream. his injury is unique and only close one is big z. what heppaned to big z definitely encouraged DM to gamble. plus, a very good center is tough to be found. you have to gamble on it. do you know why teams like to draft center ahead other positions if a big man has tons of potentials? you can't deny so more failures of drafting big man than success in nba history. however, it still doesn't detour teams not to draft big man. well, you statement that it is a pipe dream is baseless and just ignores the medical science. let's face it. we just lost our gambling and we should move on instead debating if we should bet or not.
Yeah Agg, I think the fact that Yao was a big made Morey want to gamble. If we were talking about an injury prone star 2 or 3, this isn't a discussion and he's dealt.(see T-MAC)
Do you really expect a competitive team when the door has just been shut on the Yao/Tracy era? Take Kobe and Pau off the Lakers and would you expect them to still be a contender? They won’t even have as many wins as we do. No, we are not “that bad”, and our future is not completely hopeless either. I will give the transition a reasonable amount of time before complaining about how our team sucks and our FO is too incompetent to do anything about it. Meanwhile, I’ll just continue to love and support my team. Imagine if we didn’t even have a team, or our team got taken away like Seattle’s. I’m sure some of you whiny people would be happy rather than suffer through *gasp* mediocrity for a couple years.
