That's fair enough. I think the frustration is more to do with the general team direction, where incremental "stop gaps" help keep the team floating, but just have limited upside. I don't see this team as having a championship ceiling, and I think this move limits flexiblity towards achieving that. That's where the Brad Miller thing came in. In hindsight, we could've taken a flier on a guy like DeAndre Jordan in the draft to play the backup role, and we'd be in a different spot today. [A quick note to say I thought we made the right decision to pick up Miller at the time, because I thought going all in with Yao was the right call. Shows what I know!] Likewise, we could've kept the salary space open. Force ourselves to play Thabeet and Hill and see what we have, or see if a guy like Adrien is Hayes v2.0. While Dalembert's contract is not too inflexible, capsace is better. Look at what the Thunder did - they picked up Eric Maynor because they could absorb Matt Harpring's contract. When they were still the Sonics, they got 2 first round picks because they absorbed Kurt Thomas' contract (and then later got a 3rd by trading him).
As far as I know, nobody's suggesting that the draft is a guarantee. What we are suggesting is that this is the route most likely to get us a championship. We aren't a destination city, and we don't have the kind of assets rebuilding teams are looking for when they sell off their disgruntled stars (up-and-coming Eric Gordons and premium draft picks) We may be able to snag fading talents from decaying teams, but Pau Gasol's twilight years aren't going to get us a ring. The draft, especially considering our front office's eye for talent, is a great way of adding premium assets to your squad, to develop or use in trades. Once again, I don't think anyone is saying otherwise. The Spurs tanked for Duncan, but Jefferson was more than willing to join them. Boston sucked for years before the Big 3, but any top player would be willing to join. OKC tanked to build its squad. You think that would keep stars from playing beside Durant and Westbrook? The Clippers have been a punchline for years and Sterling still owns the team, but now they're Chris Paul's destination. Same with New Jersey and Dwight Howard. Bulls and Boozer. The list goes on and on. A team's reputation for 'loser-ness' is a lot less sticky than you're assuming. On the flip side, Orlando, Atlanta, and Utah were all winners in the past, but it doesn't seem to be helping them a bit in free agency. It's really pretty simple: Get some foundational talent and stars will play for you. Nothing else is nearly as important. The past is past.
I don't think he had a choice. There's just no way to build a team that's paying Yao $15M+ that is also going to be a championship contender without him. Perhaps they could've limited his minutes more, but I think at this point, Yao was just going to break down no matter what. His feet were never meant to carry 7'6'' 300+ lbs. You could argue that once it was established that Yao was injury prone, that was when Morey/Les should've blown it up, but it's all hindsight now.
I think he should have taken a flyer on some Center in the 2nd round, like Jordan and Whiteside etc. When he first started he used to talk about how height was overated, and he valued college production more than height, now he seems to have flipped and values both. Which is great, and I get the Dalambert signing but I think Morey is in a tough spot if Les is unwilling to miss the playoffs, rebuilding on the fly is near impossible. DD
His mistake? Or Les's orders? Like Les's directive that Morey get the team into the playoffs and not tank? You said yourself - Dalembert isn't that big of a game changer....which means he's not the difference between our making the playoffs as a low seed or snagging the #5 pick. The only PT Dalembert effects will be Hill and Thabeet. Neither one of which would be developing into a strong starting center no matter how many minutes they get. Hill's a face the basket 4/5 that can provide minutes off the bench but has no set moves in the post. Thabeet is a fantastic college zone player that will never become much more than a 3rd center off the bench in this league. Loren Woods, Cherokee Parks, and even Zhizhi Wang showed more ability by this point. As for the rest, their development will come much better with a balanced roster than being forced to play out of position. I don't want to see Patterson manning the 5 any more than I like to see Scola there or when we tried to put Battier at the 4. Dalembert has zero effect on the development of our backcourt. Zero. For this team to tank and get a lottery draft pick, Martin has to be traded off the roster. Possibly Lowry as well.
Spurs and tanking: The state of the Spurs when they started "tanking" was the result of many years of playoffs and poor personnel decision making. They did not "decide" to tank before the season started and start making or not making personnel decisions so they could get Tim Duncan. They lost a few games at the end of a season in which they already sucked. Boston and the Big 2: Two players decided to go to Boston who already had a star. Nothing to do with tanking. I don't understand the rest of your references because they are irrelevant. We are not like any of those teams. Unless you are trying to argue against my point that stars are not coming to a team that is tanking. In which case you are way off because the cases you list are teams that already have stars established. Which means that your hope is that we tank, get lucky and get a great pick, there happens to be a "super star" in the draft, we are awesome and pick him, the player is the bomb and over the next 3-4 years becomes a star, hopefully we still suck enough to maybe get a couple more great picks, we get him resigned to a long term contract, everybody loves and want to be with him, free agents come riding into town on the wings of silver Escalades, we win 6 straight championships in a row, parades, joy and awesomeness. Ok, now that I've thought it through I think your right. Let's tank baby.
It's interesting, because if you look at what Morey was planning on doing with the Gasol trade, the Rockets would have EXACTLY fit your model, with their primary two players being former top 10 picks themselves in Pau and Nene. BTW, Hamilton was originally a Washington Wizards pick acquired in a trade. Even now, if the only historical need is to get a top 10 OWN drafted player, I'd argue that the Rockets don't really NEED to actively tank; a couple injuries this year or a long losing streak (like perhaps, the first 10 games of the year) and they can get there on their own; hell, they had a top 10 pick during the Yao and McGrady era; I think it's massively presumptuous that everyone now thinks that the team is completely immune to bad luck and is destined for the playoffs just because of Samuel Dalembert, who is way out of shape, doesn't know the playbook or played real basketball since April, and doesn't exactly have the highest BB IQ to begin with.
You should go over to a Kings message board sometime and see how they're reacting to losing Dalembert and being forced to rely on Whiteside this year... I remember reading that they think he's so bad he'll actually hurt Boogie Cousins' development if they play them together.
Yup, players are only getting 66/82 of their stated salaries this year, though their cap hits stay the same. Doesn't really mean much for the fans, however.
I see we are trying to go the Detroit Pistons path. extremely deep team to win it all. The thing with that is all of our young players need to start hitting that development curve for that to work. Patterson and Hill have to pan out so we can have one of the deepest teams for it to work. Morris being good at Small forward might be key for this to be pulled off.
Really pleased with the contract we got from Dalembert, 2 years at 13.7 millions seems pretty fair in this market, and the buyout option the rockets have for the second year makes him a really good trade asset given that you can unload 6.7 millions for 1.5 millions. Dalembert first year 7 millions Second year 6.7 millions, only partially guaranteed 1.5 millions, becomes fully guaranteed after dec 1 i think.
I am not crazy about Dalembert, but we got a great deal, low risk commitment, so a pretty solid deal with. I remember hearing some people saying to pay jordan at 10 plus million or kwame at 7 million is a good deal. Kwame can barely stay on the court, all he does is sometimes play tough d, is not smart as a rebounder and is almost a negative on offense while on the court. We got Dalembert for a close price with a team option and this one makes more sense
The other thing about doing this kind of rebuilding is that it requires the team to win a bunch of games in order to pump up the perception of the Rockets young players, so they can cash in a few of them for a true #1 when one becomes available? How many times have we seen a young role player get pumped up by being on a winning team; and conversely, how many times must a player on a losing team have his value artificially suppressed? Tanking gets you ONE asset, a top pick, while destroying the value of the rest of your roster. Making a good showing the playoffs can boost the perceived value of the rest of your roster immensely while sacrificing a chance for a high draft pick. Because the Rockets have done such an excellent job at continually adding young talent, I feel that they have way more to gain by trying to show that their players are winners, rather than get rid of all their accumulated gains to start over.
I was against Dalembert because I thought he was going to get a contract even worse that Brad Miller, but that's not too bad. It makes him more of a trade asset more than anything.
Good post, rep'd. As long as Lowry, Scola, and Martin are here, this team will not lose enough to get a high draft pick.
Why make a fuss about signing Dalembert? We now have two (essentially) expiring contracts, one a center who might not suck maybe and one who's average but at least can block and rebound. Morey can use one or both of these guys and, say, one of Bud or Twill or MMorris (hope not) or KMartin and, say, the NY pick to help get us a star player. Have we been down that road before? Yep. Thanks, commissioner. But it can still happen. If nothing else, we still have ample cap room for next summer to absorb players in a trade.
The Celtics were built on acquiring the twilight years of KG and Ray Allen. The Suns rode the 30s of Steve Nash to a 60 win season. The Heat got the twilight years of Shaq, how did that work out for them? Not to mention that guy Dirk; hell, he was 32 years old (aka fading fast), and the team was clearly stuck in purgatory; no picks, capped out, extremely old roster... Zach Randolph and Rasheed Wallace pouted their way out of town and became huge forces for their future teams. Yes, the only "stars" that are usually available have something wrong with them. Whether it's injury, age or playoff failure, no team makes a player available without a good reason. But betting on an older star from a rebuilding team can be just as viable as drafting a 20 year old prospect. To me, the argument is like showing down an AK vs a pair of 10s; both premium hands, both can win pots. AK is a high potential hand, but often doesn't amount to anything; you'll be waiting around a while until it connects. A pair of 10s is a very good hand that can win much of the time, but it's unlikely to improve except for a longshot, and you're never going to feel completely comfortable with it if a dangerous overcard hits the flop. It's not sexy building around other team's rejects, but you do have to readily admit it is a viable strategy.
