Um... that kind of intelligence comes from reading. Just sayin'. Or to offer more insight, maybe. Great post, HMD.
thanks everyone for taking the time to read through some (or in rare cases, all) of this. I know these long essays are not everyone's cup of tea. I just started thinking about what kind of a long and winding journey got us from the beginning of the season to the current situation, and thought that, with a little educated guessing to fill in the gaps, it made for kind of a compelling story. not to mention that since we'll be talking an awful lot about lowry for the forseeable future, it was worth mulling over how he fell into our laps in the first place. anyway, thanks again for the commentary and feedback. (and godzilla pictures, obviously).
I don't really agree with what you're saying because I believe one of the major reasons we brought in Artest in the first place was for the very reason of replacing McGrady or Yao in case of another season ending injury.
I'm sorry, but this theory makes absolutely no sense. Fancy writing and seemingly coherent, but the actual logic is faulty. Even with Tracy out for the season Morey still could've used Artest as a 'valuable asset'. Its not like keeping Artest will make us a championship team anyways. I don't see how Tracy declaring himself out for the season has any affect on Morey pulling the trigger on an Artest trade. If anything, it should catalyze a trade since T-mac and Yao's window of opportunity is closing and a team rebuild is just around the corner. Knowing Morey, he probably couldn't find a trade for Artest that was considerably favorable for the Rockets - and therefore he stuck with the status quo. If Morey could trade Artest to better the team, why wouldn't he have done so? Whether T-mac is out for the season or not. And obviously he wouldn't trade Artest if it made the team worse; besides, Morey can keep Artest's expiring for the Rockets own use as well. I will give you a chance to defend your essay by asking you this question: What potential trade(s) involving Artest were lost because of the injury to T-mac?
rons expiring wasnt worth that much. Wally S in CLE had a much more valuable expiring deal and even he wasn't moved. We really lost Bobby Jackson,Donte Greene, and a late first rounder, its not like we mortgaged our future ala ricky williams to get Ron. If he walks, so be it, but I have a feeling we cleared out rafer and his deal to keep ron and Yao as our cornerstones moving forward. I think this coming offseason we are gonna see Tracy and landry moved in 2 different deals to get a sg and a big scorer off the bench with Dorsey stepping in and taking landry's minutes. I think if Wafer develops into our version of jerry Stackhouse we just re-sign him too using the money from rafer.
This wasn't a good year for the value of expirings, as there was a pretty good supply of them (see LaFrentz's and Szcerbiak's as others have stated, they were higher value and did not get dealt). In terms of his contract value, Ron the player is still a worthwhile asset to have, and barring chemistry issues (which is a big caveat), I would like to see someone of his skill level continue playing for us at a reasonable price. But again, chemistry is the big issue here, and as someone somewhere said, these next 28 games are essentially Artest's audition with us for next year, to see if he can be a productive cog in a winning system. He has played better without T-Mac in the line-up, and it appears he will get his chance now to prove he can stick.
Also, you keep implying Morey could've traded Artest for something better. "buy low, sell high". That Morey could've made a trade that the Rockets would've 'won'. Now, regardless of whether T-mac is injured or not, Morey would make that theoretical trade because it improves the team, wouldn't he? Actually, Morey would be MORE inclined to make a trade involving Artest because the improvement of the team gained in the trade will compensate for the "loss" of T-mac. And I say "loss" with quotation marks because T-mac's negative impact on the Rocket's on-court performance this season has been more obvious than the sun in the sky.
I really liked the opening chaos theory read, but the only flaw in the logic would be the info presented above. This year, for some godforsaken reason (especially with the 2009 and 2010 free agents looming), there really wasnt much interest in expirings. Hell, I thought the motherload of Starbury's 20mil would be worth SOMETHING, but apparently not. I've been really curious as to why this was. I expected a FRENZY of trades for teams looking to unload and acquire cap space for the FA classes.
Sorry to burst the bubble, but I disagree. We traded a similar expiring (Bobby Jackson) in the move -- and it also cost us 2 first round draft picks (Donte Greene, this year's). If your argument is we thought Ron would have had value as an expiring, then the same applies to just keeping Bobby Jackson. Your entire post then boils down to assuming Ron as a half season rental/expiring contract is worth more than 2 first round draft picks more than Bobby Jackson as a half season rental/expiring contract. We could debate the merits of that (and I don't think there's a ton of merit), but it's not the no brainer asset management move you made it out to be in the first place.
+1 i find it hard to agree with the OP. we traded for Ron because of what we thought he could bring to the team: hard nosed defense and offense if yao/tmac went down. but during the course of the season, with what's being happening behind the scenes, morey's been trying to trade Ron. even with Tmac missing the dunk and announcing the surgery, it seems the hope was still to trade artest for an offensive big name (thus you have Caron/VC). but since no one was biting for artest, we got stuck with him for the remainder of the season. morey traded rafer away, i guess its more of placating tmac to get him to reconsider the surgery. my gut tells me that the locker room problem has always been between rafer and tmac, and ron exacerbated the problem with his personality. DM has always been high on rafer and it shocked me to see DM trading away rafer when the idea has always been winning now. it seems that in the rockets locker room, a power struggle occured b/w Tmac against Rafer/DM. Tmac cried wolf, Les sided with Tmac, DM blinked, and Rafer got shafted.
on #1 - that's kind of the point though. we will never really know the details, at least not unless Morey chooses to tell us. I will say that there have been a couple of people close to the team who have all but said that Ron still being on the team after the deadline is pretty surprising. i think if you had asked the FO before tracy went nuts who the most likely significant rocket was to be traded, and they answered you honestly, they would have said ron. to those who are saying that expirings were not valuable this year - this is not true. it had more to do with the fact that teams that had to shed payroll (new orleans, new jersey, etc) were backed into such a corner that they were being offered pennies on the dollar for very good quality talent. Because those GMs were backed in the corner (back to the tactical vs. strategic decision making conversation), they were either going to make a very unappealing deal to cut costs, or they were going to hold fast and get stuck with the salaries. I think the teams with expirings were too aggressive, likely as a result of the Pau deal last year, and as a result ended up getting nothing. that's how i see it anyway, based more on a lot of little anecdotal things than any large single piece of evidence that I could reference. and when we talk about Artest's expiring in particular (versus Bobby Jackson as someone suggested), even though it is not huge, I have no doubt Morey could have found a taker. Because at the end of the day, I'm sure there was a competitor, fringe competitor, or 9th seed team out there that thought adding a piece like ron would put them in a better position to win. That was the somewhat unique thing with ron's expiring: he's actually valuable as a player (unlike the raef lafrentzs and bobby jacksons of the world), he is severely undervalued in terms of talent per dollar contract, AND he's expiring. a productive, highly affordable impact player that will help a team shed payroll in the offseason? to me that's the perfect storm for a trade deadline acquisition for a team right on the cusp. yes, i'm convinced that ron's contract was probably at its maximum value yesterday, and if I can figure that out, then I'm sure Morey knew also. so then why did he choose not to cash it in? That's the part that is especially curious, and the fundamental question that led to the earlier note i wrote. on #2 - it was more like everyone vs tracy. rafer was just more vocal about it than most. i dont think anyone in the FO cares what tracy thinks anymore, after the stuff he pulled. besides that, rafer wasn't moved because of any rift. Rafer was moved because Morey has been trying to trade him for forever but couldnt, because Brooks progressed faster than people thought (and would likely have become the starter anyway even if rafer wasnt traded, you can imagine the headache that would have created), and most importantly, because Morey finally got a team (Orlando) that was willing to give up something for him. That Morey was able to parlay Rafer into Lowry is really quite a coup considering Rafer was not in the long-term plans of the team anyway. The trade had very little to do with the locker room stuff.
Good thread. I was just about to post a similar thread, then I remembered that someone posted something about a butterfly flapping its wing, and I decided to not hit the submit button before reviewing that. It turns out you said pretty much the same thing I did. Anyways, this was what I was going to post:
For your original post to make sense, his value as a player would have to clearly be more than 2 first round picks greater than Bobby Jackson. I don't see how that case can be clearly made at all. The reason Ron only having a year left on his deal had more to do with not making a long term commitment to a complete basket case, and it instantly vaulted up our talent. Yes, we could have gotten something for him. Yes, it was probably better than what we could've gotten for Bobby Jackson. No, it was probably not so much better that it was worth sacrificing 2 first round picks to use him as a trade asset later. We traded for Artest because we thought he significantly upgraded the team. I do agree with durvasa that I don't think Rafer is traded if TMac is still playing.
all first round picks are not created equal. lottery picks are worth a LOT more than late firsts, obviously. many would even suggest that late firsts have negative value, since they require guaranteed contracts and the talent level available at pick 25 is usually available at pick 35 as well. but pick 35 does not require a guaranteed contract because its in the second round. that's why in an economically strapped environment, the picks that you want to avoid are picks 20-30. pick 31 (1st pick of the second round) is "considered" more valuable than most of those, simply because of the financial flexibility it offers to the team. i think of the draft like picking players off a bell curve. at the very top (left end) of the curve, there are players that project head and shoulders above the rest, and those go in the first ten picks usually, barring any warts like character issues or previous surgeries. but once you get into picks 20-40 its kind of a crapshoot as teams pick for need and are grabbing players out of the fat part of the bell. these players are all compromises. you see lots of players with limitations in their game, or unproven players, or character issues go in this part of the draft. if a team is going to gamble on a player, then they prefer to do so without having to give that player a guaranteed first round contract and the money associated with it. this is the primary reason why teams that consistently win tend to get old, because they are retaining veterans, and the rookies they are bringing in tend to be late first round, compromise-type players. rather than take the gamble themselves, many teams prefer to trade these away to teams that can afford to gamble, in return for players that are known quantities. that's the way i see it. to me it's all about maximizing productive talent per $. and not all first round picks do that
i'm happy to hear it. i'm also glad that i wasnt the only one thinking about how that dunk may have changed the course of the organization. I think sometimes the most interesting stories are the ones taht are just below the surface.
Nice thread by the OP. However I don't think we are missing out much on the value of Artest. It would be wonderful if Tracy were healthy, in which case trading Artest for a long contract like Vince Carter would have been an awesome gamble. However, even with Tracy's sad state, Artest retains plenty of value. The difference is that it now depends on our actually making smart use of his impending capspace rather than ripping off another team in a trade. In fact, this summer will a good time to have capspace with all teams trying to cut budgets, meaning that Morey will be able to get a good value deal with the money. Signing a star is not necessary -- as we've seen efficient contracts have a lot of value in themselves. A smart GM like Morey would likely be able to parlay them into better players later. The trade deadline frenzy is a lot like playing tournament poker when there are few players remaining. People clearly have different incentives and that variance can be taken advantage of. Handling capspace is a separate skill, but I believe Morey is also well-qualified in this area. It essentially is a matter of correctly valuing commodities and then negotating deals to get them. His vast business experience is a major plus in this, and I would expect him to be superior in this than GMs who are former NBA players.
