Alexander: I thought it [getting DH] was more important two months ago than today

Oh. I see. My mistake I misunderstood you. Lol. The writing was on the wall it seems in regards to the Howard deal.

 

Yes, welcome to a yestermonth!

 

Honestly. I am cool with no Howard. Let the young guys play. The rockets have picks and cap space to make moves down the road. Better to rebuild now than to have all of your cap tied up in players that are good enough to get you into the post-season but not good enough to get you past the first or second round.

 

I think it kind of sets us back because now we will probably have to bring the roster down to 15 via cuts instead of trades. That's always value loss right there. Also, the plan wasn't to stand pat with Howard, but likely to make subsequent moves and put good players around him. We needed the salaries of your Richardsons/Duhons to make those subsequent trade packages work. I'm interested to see what we do now with our Brockmans, JaJuans, non-guaranteed contracts, etc.

 

Agreed! Plus our pick & Toronto's next year should be top 10 picks, giving us 2 good shots at the top 3 picks in next year's draft, which is loaded with quality centers. I really like our future in 4 or 5 years.

 

The Toronto pick has top 3 protections for 2 or 3 years.

 

that wouldn't really matter because they won't even be that bad with Lowry, Barg-Nani, Jonas, Demar, Fields

 

What exactly did he say that was false?

 

Agreed. I hope they make the playoffs for a couple years then lose Lowry to free agency and fall apart once the protections wear off.

 

All-Star this Season....Book it.

Spoiler

of the D-League

 

Why do I here that in the dude that sells furniture on 790 voice? I need to slow down on sports radio I guess

 

Holy ****... I agree with him!

 

I don't know why you say that, Les has always tried his best to put a winning team on the floor. He hasn't been afraid of making deals or spending money.

 

It's not nice to trash one of your own players, and if he said he was playing well, we all knew he would be lying.

 

A winning team in summer league.
not afraid of making deal talks.
Spending money to meet the minimal salary limit.

After Les trying his best, look at where Rockets are.....

 

Yeah, one of the reasons why I wasn't high on the Lowry trade was because I thought the Toronto pick had the strong potential to be late lotto. Even if it's the #10 pick, I still think Lowry was a better "asset", especially with his cheap contract. I stopped dwelling on it because it looked like we were gonna trade the pick. But now that we're stuck with it, I'm back to being unimpressed.

 

Top 3 protected in 2013
Top 2 protected in 2014 & 2015
Top 1 protected in 2016 & 2017
Unprotected in 2018

 

Where does that team get it's offense from? A 7 foot PF / C that does not shot even 45%? Kyle Lowry? Jonas (scary thought since he is not an offensive player)?

Where does that team get it's defense from? Jonas (rookie centers usually get no favors from the refs)? Bargnani (thats a laugh)? Kyle is that teams best defender at this time.

Toronto is going to be real bad IMO. Ross has a legititmate chance at being there best offensive option and he is a rookie, thats scary. Bargnani will continue to but up close to 20PPG on 45% shooting (oh dear ).

That team has some nice pieces to grow with but they can not be expected to compete against the Bulls, Nets, Hawks, 76ers, Heat, Knicks, Pacers, Celtics, Wizards or even the Bucks. That's 10 teams that are clearly better than the Toronto. Toss in the Cav's and Pistons who I think are also clearly better than the Raptors and that's 12 teams in the east that I think if you compare rosters are much better than the Raptors.

 

Did you mean, "I dunno what KoolAid Les is spinning these days"?

 

Stuck? Hey, let's hope the Raps suck out of the gate and their pick looks scrumdelicious as we head towards February.