As much as I like Barkley, we should never have traded for him

I thought about the Jason Kidd thing a few times but when you really think about it they traded Kidd for Cassell and Finley and a few other things. We had no Finley or of that calibur to trade. Horry would not have worked or Phoenix would have just dealt Horry and Cassell for Kidd. Second according to reports or atleast Kenny Smith the Rockets offered Cassell a long term contract for good money and he refused opting to test the market. We may have lost them there. Then you add to the fact that if you signed Horry and Cassell for what there contracts are now we had zero salary cap room what so ever. Clyde retired not because of Barkley because if you ask the insiders the problem was not as big as the media made it out to be but was both each of their faults not just Barkley. THe reason he really retired though was because the Rockets needed the salary cap space. He would have taken up nearly all of it. Clyde was starting to slow down anyways and everybody would have been complaining about how this team needs a total makeover. Also with your line-up Willis only cam here because of Barkley. With Drexler we have no Pippen(salary cap reasons) to make the Portland package nor would we have Pippen and Cato at the same time. So that would mean Horry is our starting small forward and Bullard being the starter about a quarter of the time due to the injury prone Horry. You also have to take Francis and Massenburg out of the equation because Francis would not play the two. So that would mean we would also have Price, Othella, Dickerson, and Carr but we would not really have all these. We would have Othella and no Kenny Thomas or Antoinne Carr because we would already be overstocked at power forward. With Clyde still on board we would have drafted either Mobely or Dickerson but not both because of depth at the two. I think Anderson would have been here just because he loves Houston. If you think about ther is a chance we would have no Price because Cassell is still here. No obvious need at PG son no Bryce Drew. If we had no Willis we have only the thirteenth pick in the draft so we only get either Dickerson or Drew anyways. It is really amazing how one move can completely change a team. It is pretty unpredictable what the team would have looked like. Ther would have been other moves made but Horry's enormous contract would have held us down in the free agent market.

 

Hindsight is always 20/20. I suppose I could go back over the last 10 years and draft for any team and assemble a championship team with the players still available.
The Barkley trade wasn't a good one, but at the time it made sense.
Enough said.

 

Without Barkley, the Rockets were swept in the 2nd round. With him, they went six games into the WCF. It's true that Barkley, Hakeem, and Rudy failed to coordinate the C and PF positions (clogging the lane) as well as they should have, but Barkley definitely supplied the rebounding presence that the Rockets of '94 and '95 sorely lacked. (In his first game with the Rockets, Barkley grabbed 33 boards.) Clyde retired for the same reason he played so badly in his final games and smiled in defeat -- he had lost his desire.

Complaints about the Barkley trade are always based on nostalgic illusions about the pre-Barkley roster. That roster was going nowhere. We cashed in five guaranteed years of first- and second-round exits for a two-year shot at the championship. We didn't get what we aimed for, but the alternative future we sacrificed was no great prize. That's the sorry truth. Deal with it.

 

As I said in another thread, the better thing to say compared to b****ing about the Barkley trade is-- we should have drafted Micheal Jordon instead of Hakeem back in 84, we should have traded Ralph Sampson for Magic before he turned out to be an all time bust, we should have had Phil Jackson as our coach and installed the triangle... the list goes on and on.

On the other hand, without Barkley courting Pippen and took a pay cut he wouldn't come to Houston, and we wouldn't have Cato. Rogers and Williams. With Drexler playing, we wouldn't be able to pick up Shadon Anderson, I don't think Anderson would be stupid enough to give up more dough in Utah to play behind Drexler's ass.

The inability to free up the lane is basically the coach's fault,think about it, CB and Hakeem can both dominate most of the time, well maybe not this year, that means if they are used wisely(separately or they just step out of the post from time to time), the Rockets would be the sole team in the whole NBA that has the low post, double team demanding presence for 48 minutes straight. That's really a huge advantage. YOU JUST NEED TO DUMP THE BALL IN TO GET OPEN, WHILE OTHER TEMAS HAVE TO RUN THEIR ASSES OFF TO GET OPEN. However, we settled for the limited ball movement and live-or-die at the 3 point line, which is boring and encouraged one-on-one Bball. Is it CB's fault that the Rockets used an offense system that's not suitable any more?

I prefer CB over Drexler for the reason above, Drexler is more of an executor, while Barkley is both an executor and creator. Consequently, I don't think if Hakeem went out and Drexler, a 37 years old sg, could be able to carry the team like CB is doing. Drexler can't get teammates open on every possession like CB.

[This message has been edited by Finalfantasy (edited December 07, 1999).]

 

They obviously could have gotten younger talent at the time but that wasn't the objective. They had to do something because if they wouldn't have traded for Barkley they wouldn't have won it anyway. They wanted to win then, and that was a good move then.

As for the Drexler argument. He was washed up his last year. He lost his desire and his legs. I wouldn't want Clyde on my team now. He was a great player but his day was up. Maybe even the year before he retired.

 

Let go, guys, let go.

We're about to enter the new millennium.

Sailor

 

If you ask me, the Rockets made an excellent choice by picking Dream with the first pick in the draft...

 

Never use a string of moves...

It doesn't work that way. Deals don't relate to each other like that. For instance, if we didn't have Barkley, we probably wouldn't have Francis right now. Maybe we would have had a worse regular season record that year, therefore getting a higher pick, drafting a point guard...etc, etc.

Way too many what if's... Deals don't correlate with each other, because so many things could have happened afterward. Say we had kept Robert Horry...he might have broken his leg, or become a superstar...totally changing the future, with us not getting the 1st round pick that allowed us to pick Micheal Dickerson, which would have allowed us to trade for Francis.

Or maybe if we hadn't gotten Charles Barkley, there wouldn't be anybody to train Othella Harrington, therefore he wouldnt be as good, not letting us trade for Francis.

Strings of moves don't work in arguments because there are too many possibilities and "what if's".

 

I disagree. Even though we have not yet won a title with Charles, he was a good pickup for the team, especially in his first two years here. The only thing I wish in hindsight is that we did not include Sam Cassell in the deal.

------------------
Just Win Baby! More Than Four Times!

 

I have to disagree with you, Rocketman Tex.

I don't think it was a good deal because we included Cassell. We were only offering Horry, Bryant, and Brown otherwise, so Cassell was a huge deal breaker.

I think that we should have kept all of those guys and aggressively pursued Willis (whom we got the same year).

But that is the past . . .

 

What's so good about Sam Cassel? He is good but fragile, after he got traded he just played well for one year. We traded quality for quailty. Do you honestly think Jazz would trade their marquee player in Stockton or Malone back then for Cassel and three role players? No way, that's why the Barkley deal is a good deal for the Rockets.

Besides, if we have Sam Cassel are we gonna trade for Francis? Doubt it, we might miss the real deal for Cassel.

 

I hated the trade at first. I was a big ET fan,but I have to say no dull moments with Chuck.
Im sure alot of ppl will miss him when he is gone.I will.

 

Final Fantasy,

We traded quality for quality? Okay, I'll humor you on that one, but along with that "quality", we traded our entire bench and we traded our future over the next 3 years. CB plays with heart (at least on one end of the floor ;o ), but that doesn't make up for what we had to give up for him.

ET was the fire that everybody thinks the Rocks are missing now. He was a decent defender and was a nightmare to guard on offense. He could shoot, penetrate, break down the defense, and now he's even assisting well. Oh sure, he's had his injury problems over the last couple of years, but NEWSFLASH! so has Barkley!

 

Launch Pad, Sam Caseel played only 8 games in 97 becuase of a ankle sprain, Girls do better in recovering than him.

We traded some of our bench and that's fine, 3 guys can't be put on the court at the same time. That is quantity for quality, the Barkley trade, in the roster perspective, is no different from the Francis trade except that Francis is much younger.

Traded our future in the next three years? Gee I would trade ten Sam Cassel to advance into the WCF.

I actually like Sam Cassel, he is good and I would like to have him back, but so is Dickerson, Othella and a first round pick. With Francis we might have a shot at the title, with CB we had a shot at the title immediately.

Don't know about you, but Rudy's rigidity and stagnance in offense is the main reason the Rockets underachieved the last few years.

 

FinalFantasy,

Don't overlook the loss of now, Rocketkiller, Chucky Brown. Plus, remember, that Horry was considered valuable enough to almost land Sean Elliot (don't bring up the kidney issue, I'm only using this as an example of his trade value). Also, I believe that Horry was eventually traded for Cedric Ceballos (another player I've always thought would look good in pinstripes).

Trading Horry for a decent defensive PF, or aquiring Willis would have more than prepared us to make it past Seattle. Also, don't overlook the fact that even though we went to the WCF after our second championship, we haven't been able to go anywhere in the next copule of years since.

Also, keep in mind how well SamIAm is playing now. He's like a Steve Francis with about 20" less vertical and much better stop-and-pop shot.

 

Actually you are overlooking that Robert Horry is now a bench warmer, Chucky Brown could not play in the NBA until this year, Kevin Willis is shootting at only 40%. Sam Cassel is playing well but won't be a player like Francis, we don't need him to eat up minutes and deter Francis' growth. Don't sound like if we keep Sam, Horry, Bryant and Chucky we won't be a first round exiter.

 

Three years ago, Willis wasn't 37 years old. I also said that Horry should have been traded for somebody else, so what he's doing now is of no consequence. And Chucky Brown played very well for us (but I'll leave it up to CBFanClub to finish that argument ).

And yes, I do believe that we would have broken out of the 1st round with those guys (and whichever PF, we aquired for Horry).

 

You believe we wouldn't be a first round exiter with the bunch of guys you mentioned? how do you explain the 96 first round exit vs. the Sonics?

 

Guys who cares. Lets think about right now and forget about the past.