There are a couple of things that come along with yao and it was exposed during the regular season vs la. When la wanted or needed shots, they put yao in pick and roll and got every shot they wanted. La is also one of the teams that don't double yao consistently. You're assumptions are based on the rockets playing way over their heads vs la playing uninspired ball alot. Now you can take pride or simple joy in the 7 game stretch, but whenever la wanted to have it going, they beat the crap out of houston and that was with and without yao.
We were terrible on the road baring Game 1. That's why we couldn't win. Having a healthy Yao,would have helped but I don't think we would have won Game 7 even with him.
I not so much negative as pessimistic about their chances of making a real breakthrough in the upcoming season with Yao + whomever. I have watched them make so many mistakes over the past 15 years that I have no faith in this organization and its owner to get things right. Sorry but I just don't blindly worship at the temple of Morey as do so many folks here. He lost my trust when he made the Artest deal. It all boils down to what you want this team to be and what you'll accept from the Rockets. If you want to watch a group of scrappy guys play hard, fight and claw game after game, then this is the team for you. But if you want to see a team team with a LEGITIMATE shot at the title, one of the elite teams in the league, then you'll have to look elsewhere. Not trying to be nasty or mean here just realistic.
Guys i'm telling you, all we are missing is a legit back-up center. We get that we are right back in the mix. Injuries have been the only thing holding us back from a championship over the past three seasons. This past season we lost our defensive touch. Hopefully that will be worked on also.
i dont think that's fair. Morey was given the hardest challenge a GM can be given, namely, rebuild an entire team for both the present and the future, within the confines of a salary cap, without tanking, while keeping the team relevant to maintain ticket sales, through the draft (without high picks), while having ~50% of your monetary resources spoken for by non-contributing players that you inherited from the previous regime. in other words: win a lot, now, with half the money, with no star players. you say that you don't worship at the altar of morey, well, find another GM who has done similar. before you say Portland, OKC, Chicago, or any of the other commonly thought of as "bright future" teams, keep in mind that the cores of every single one of those teams include multiple top 10 picks. the rockets have one. Yao. and he doesn't even play. the rockets fight and scrap and claw because they play at a deficit. they are smaller and have less elite talent overall than almost every other NBA team of similar performance. this is just a temporary position though. once they are able to acquire one or two centerpieces to go with their current above average (but not elite) roster, then they will be well positioned for a long and fruitful playoff run.
I think at this point Bosh and Stoudemire are probably not coming to HOuston, which was about as likely as them going to Siberia to play for MLE. Right now, I see trading up in the draft (or down for more picks), and/or it being (also) some trade completely out of the blue, but making alot of sense in a Morey type of way. The Rockets are not really needing alot of pieces, except Yao and his backup/replacement who can play center and power forward (especially on defense) with maybe another (shooting/point) guard who can pass pretty well. This team already deep as it is, the only position that we do not have a great backup or alot of depth for is center. PF - Scola, Hill, Hayes, and Jeffries. SF - Ariza, Battier, and Budinger (combo guard/forward) SG - Martin and Budinger PG - Brooks and Lowry That is already 10 roster spots right there. We've got Yao coming back with a rookie (possibly two, maybe, if we trade down), and one MLE FA. Bosh would actually fit this team pretty well, if Yao is healthy, while Amare might be kind of questionable, since he did not really enjoy playing that much next to Shaq who kind got in his way. It would be the same thing with Yao, who works almost as much in the paint. The biggest point of all, they just are not feeling all that much. They've got glitter in there eyes, which means their sites are probably set on NY, LA, and Miami.
NO argument from me on this. Morey's number one problem is that from day one he was cleaning up the toxic waste left behind by an incompetent and brainless organization that had been allowed to do so for years by an brainless owner. No I don't blindly put my trust in Morey, not after that Artest deal. I absolutely was against that deal - so much in fact that I dropped NBA League pass and did not watch a single Rockets game during the entire time Artest was on the team. My personal dislike of that a-hole is that great and my feelings will never change. Morey crossed a line here and THAT's why I no longer trust him to make the right moves. Going forward, I will no longer be making any excuses or rationalizations for him. From now on, it's all about results: he produces the desired results and I am with him. Morey took over a team that had squandered NBA lotto picks (save for 1) - a team with salary cap problems and an atrocious drafting history. So he started from below ground zero IMO. When you pick in the mid-late 20's, you end up having to choose smaller players whose skills aren't in the elite category. They tried to make do with Mutumbo as a backup 5 for too long and they never really addressed the lack of size at the 4 spot even after they got Scola. That much is given. What is not is that this is indeed a temporary situation. I see the team still operating off the failed Yao-Tmac premise only now they are looking for somebody (or bodies) to replace Tmac (and maybe Yao as well). It's been 5 years now and they still appear to have no other plan for moving forward. I guess this all leads back to the question of whether you have confidence in Morey's ability to acquire the type of players you refer to as "centerpieces". You apparently do while I simply do not.
No offense, but if thats true then you are a bad Rocket fan. Furthermore, how do you expect anyone to put any credence in your opinions if you don't even watch the games.
Plan A, draft day Plan B, free agency Plan C, trade deadline Three opportunities to improve the team. .
Wait wait wait wait. You don't like Morey...........because he traded for a guy that you don't like as a person, and not because of any actual basketball value. I mean, seriously? Morey's job isn't to find a bunch of Boy Scouts, it's to assemble a winning team. He seems to have a preference for good-character guys because they won't do stupid **** that screws up the team (see Griffin, Eddie), but since we managed to keep Artest from doing anything too crazy, it helped our team as a whole. One can criticize the trade because we didn't win and we did give up two rotation players in the end (which I would find to be a stupid argument especially we don't have a lack of rotation wing players, but it's an argument nonetheless), but to say the trade sucked because Artest was a "bad guy"? That's just dumb. And I will say I do find Artest a bit nuts, I have little doubt he is not an *******.
Hill, do you know how long i lobbied to get Ron Artest on this team? 5 years and finally when they get him, they go as far as they had gone in years and let him get away. We almost had him twice before that during JVG's era. Also, we slightly got the better deal with Ariza, who by the way was not supposed to be the go-to-guy. He knew it and we knew it. So lets say Yao was able to play last season. We basically have the same deadly team that we had last season with a slight edge.
Listen up: I was a Rockets fan from very start. I went to their games in Hofheinz Pavilion. I went to their games at the Summit when, to put a crowd in the stands, the Rockets ran promotions where if you brought in Rainbow Bread wrappers, you got in for free. I lived through the Rudy White debacle, watched John Lucas single-handedly bring this franchise down, saw Rudy T nearly killed by Kermit Washington, watched Mitchell Wiggins and Lewis Lloyd give a repeat of the John Lucas fiasco. I have seen this franchise do some wonderful things and I have seen it do some of the most dumbass things in basketball. This last 15 years has simply worn me down - watching this team fall from the championship level under the so-called leadership of Carroll Dawson. Truth be told, I had begun to believe that the Rockets had become another Golden State or Milwaukee or Washington - teams that had become irrelevant after having tasted glory decades ago. I had hope that Morey would be different but then that Artest trade was the last straw for me. Unlike others around here with conveniently short memories, I never forgot his little act in Detroit nor did I overlook his insincere and self-serving actions in the aftermath and there was no way in HELL I would cheer for him or support any team of which he was a part. I simply don't watch basketball to see psychos and a-holes which is why I did not pay Directv one dime to watch Artest on the Rockets. And thanks to Morey's imitation of Dawson, here the Rockets stand one year later with nothing to show for this little episode. And that's what angers me most of all because I just spent the last 15 years watching the same. No offense but I don't give a care what you or anyone else around here consider to be a "good Rockets' fan" especially if the criteria for doing so means that you have to blindly choke down the mediocrity of the past 15 years. I realize this signs somewhat harsh but my capacity for drinking the red koolaid and buying into their PR is not as great as it was 30 years ago.
That is correct. I absolutely despise Artest and everything he represents and that trade was more than I could accept. Ahhh, the "Dallas Cowboys" defense: We don't care about players character or actions just as long as we are winning. Problem is, the teams that compromise themselves in this way don't win so what's the point? The Cowboys haven't and neither have the Rockets. And call me quaint but I have a real problem with getting players that you have to "manage to keep from doing anything too crazy". I was under the impression that the team's focus should be on winning and not running an amateur psych ward.
I'd love to see Al Jefferson on the Rockets. I think he brings a little more intensity than Bosh and is stronger. If its true that Yao is only to get 20-25 minutes a game, I think Jefferson may be the better fit anyway. I love his rebounding.
We didn't win with a crazy guy filling a significant supporting role? I seem to remember someone, last name begins with "M" and ends with "axwell."
Oh you know it is. I'm in Dallas so when I dropped League Pass I simply fell out of the habit of watching NBA basketball because I always watched the Houston Rockets first and then the Mavericks or Spurs. Over the course of the year, I simply started working more and more and I simply lost track of the season. By the time the playoffs rolled around, I was completely disconnected from basketball - a state of affairs that continues to this day. I did catch some of the last season on Fox Sports Houston but not enough to match the level I did before.
