i dont know man. thats a pretty hefty standard. either you are winning championships or not. either you are drafting good or not. theres alot of gms in every sport that dont live up to those standards. because draft picks are a gamble anyway, and there is no guarantee that you will win a championship no matter how much talent you have, i would say that a better way to measure a gm is "does he get us players wearing rockets uniforms that give us a chance to compete"? i would say that although we havent become a title contender, he has done a pretty good job getting us the kinds of players that can make that happen. barkley, pippen, drexler, francis yao and tmac. does it really matter how they got here just as long as they are here?? does carroll dawson dress players in rockets red that gives us hope that we will be in the top teir, and should he be at fault for not being happy with a middle of the pack team and having to start over and try again?? if you look at the teams that win titles every year (besides the lone exception of detroit), the most important thing that seperates them is that they have an mvp calibre player that can carry them there. since 1980, only the pistons have won without having an mvp calibre player. bird, magic, jabbar, m malone, thomas, jordan, hakeem, drexler, shaq, kobe, duncan have won 23 of the last 24 championships. i see plenty of teams now adays with good depth at every position, but i only see teams that have the great players winning titles. if cd cannot get credit for getting us 2 once in a lifetime players no matter how long it takes, i have no argument. and my whole point of this thread was to say that some very subtle moves that will pay off for us is jon barry and david wesley. you may not see the immediate payoff because we still have holes that happen when you make 7 player trades, but they are a start.
Tracy and Yao do make it easier to add role players like you describe through low draft picks and exceptions.... but I completely disagree that Taylor is a core member of the team. I think our rebounding problems are a major flaw with the team, and the price of getting a competant power forward is much more than a simple one-for-one lateral trade with someone. The price will be high, and trading picks or free agency are the only solutions I can imagine. I like the Barry trade. I hate the Wesley trade. Not because I don't like Wesley. It is because we screwed JJ with the trade and in my eyes got worse in the process. Like Will, I hope to eat some crow... in the meantime, I am holding on to my brand new JVG Hate Club membership card.
Daddy, Thanks for a good discussion thread, refreshing versus some of the other negatives threads that seem to be populated with those most interested in increasing their number of posts. I was one of the few that also liked the recent acquisitions right from the start although I did think we paid a bit too much - certainily after the trade was accepted without Jackson. But I'm a little surprised you dissed Barnett whom I like for his energy level and the ability to push the ball down the court and get others involved - not bad for so little experience. Plus, I thought he had a decent shot. Why are you so sure he cannot be a good young backup for us? I think his only real negative is his size!
i dont think anyone thinks taylor is a core member. in fact, i would be suprised if anyone wants taylor to stay. i cant call gambling on a draft pick a mistake, because nobody can predict if a player is going to develope in the nba. and i cant totally fault cd for signing taylor to a big contract, because when the deal was made, his role was a more significant one and his 17-8 was the kind of numbers that can demand that kind of contract in a weak free agency year. but if there is one thing that you can look back on and knock, it is the contract of taylor that makes the biggest difference today. and i would hate for us to try and remedy that by making a move that could cost us for longer. i really dont think we need a great pf to fix the hole. i think alot of teams looking for a star at pf will pass up the bruiser pfs who take pride in defense and rebounding, and we might be able to pick one up in the draft. i also think there are some young pfs who are playing behind better players who are just looking for a chance to get more minutes with another team. those might be available at some point. i think jvg is a good coach, but im not a huge supporter. my coach was forced to step down. but i like the addition of wesley and barry. i liked jj, but we needed to get rid of the old mentality, and unless we wanted to continue to trade crap for crap, we had to give up something of worth. it sux because he was a good guy, but we had to do more than just barry.
JJ or Wesley won't matter too much. Unless magic happens, with money tied up in J. Howard, MoT and Spoon, and nobody wants them, it is crystal clear that there is only one solution left for Rox to improve: Les needs to pay luxury tax. Trade for a PF with a LONG-term contract, or trade for a young cheap PF but forced to take a long-term contract. Any good PF will come with baggage in terms of long-term expensive contract. Hopefully during the process, one of the 3 salaries can be traded away. Les probably has to take 2-3 years luxury tax to accumulate good players. In this league, unless you are really smart with drafts which Rox is not good at, you'd have to pay heavy prices to get good players.
It is possible, but it is similar to a draft pick. Young PFs who are playing behind better players are not established, you don't know how good they are. If they are good, you'd have to pay a heavy price to trade for them. And you know, Rox is not very good at identifying talents. Up till this point, Les has been trying to delay the inevitable: Trade for an OLD good player with a long-term contract and Pay the luxury tax eventually. Rox has been trying to sign/trade small and short contracts to surround T-mac and Yao. Yao's contract is coming soon. All the money are tied up in MoT, J. Howard, Spoon and they are not tradable right now, still Rox has a gaping hole on the PF position. You can't get cheap good young PF in this league unless you have a great draft position and are good at drafts which Rox is not. The only way is to trade for someone else's talent, but that comes with a price.
It's a hefty standard, but at the end of the day it is the ONLY quantifiable standard. There are a lot of good GM's out there that don't win championships. Heck, the Jazz have been one of the best run organizations in sports going on two decades. But at the end of the day, either you win or you don't. Realizing that it is a hefty standard, then, how about, either you give yourself a great chance to win every year or you don't. I agree with you: T-Mac and Yao should be all the main pieces we need. It's just about finding the right parts from here. BUT, since 1997, the Rockets have missed the playoffs more often than not, and when there, have not been very successful. Even if this can be CLEARLY said about any number of other teams (Warriors, WIzards, Clippers, Grizzlies, Bulls, Magic, Hawks, Raptors) and somewhat less clearly about a variety of others (Nuggets, recent Jazz, Bucks, Celtics, Suns until this year, Knicks), those are NOT the teams you want to be compared to. Any kind of argument that rests on a premise that we're doing at least as good as half the other teams or GM's in the league is not a winnining argument to me. Half of the other teams and GM's in the league SUCK.
at the first, i didnt like the trade. i liked jj and it suprised me that we were dealing a guy that wasnt really the problem. but i am huge on mentality because i think it is what seperates teams and players in this league. i think the biggest advantage a team can have is mentality. and the more i thought about it, i started realizing that although jj tried his best to win and did some good things, he was still part of the mix of mentality that just couldnt put it together. then i watched wesley play, and although i cant pinpoint it, i felt more confident about the team watching him do his thing. and it looked like the team was a little more confident with a guy who is used to winning. i think because of the injuries to the hornets, we slipped in and got a guy that is a winner. i thought that jj straight up would have been fair enough, but its not like nachbar was doing anything in his 3rd year. i think its easier to develope on a bad team that you feel like you have just as much of a right to make mistakes and take shots as the next guy, but on a team that has many players that are better scorers than you, i dont think he would have ever found his place. and we dont need that. i think a championship type player believes that he has the right to shoot, and believes that he can make everything without hesitation. i think barrett has the possiblity of developing into a backup pg somewhere. right now he isnt ahead of anyone on the depth chart for a reason. he will just have to wait his turn and try to impress people in practice, because i dont think that he should be given on the job training if we are trying to put the best players we can out that we can.
how are they not good at finding young talent?? their needs have changed in the past 5 years. they found francis and was willing to give up alot to aquire a player they saw as a real talent. they found cat in the late 2nd round. the found a decent player in kenny thomas with the 22nd pick. they found an 18 ppg guy in dickerson who may be even better had injuries not finished his career. they really just traded rj for eddie griffin who was the top hs player the year before, and was a 19-10-4blks guy his freshmen year at seton hall. eddie griffin is doing a hell of a job in minnesota, and might have been our solution at pf. they drafted yao ming instead of listening to every expert out there that said we should draft jay williams and move steve to sg. in drafts, we have found a once in a lifetime player, and aquired other players that have made it possible to get steve francis and then tracy mcgrady. it took jerry west 4 years after he drafted kobe bryant and signed shaq (without giving up anything) to get the lakers to the top. we are on day 63.
Daddy, You have obviously shown in this thread an ability to provide insightful discussion (even if you are really not CD ), but I have a question for you other than the obvious one of "Why did it take you so long to post in this forum?" That question is, in your opinion, could we have gotten more for Jimmy Jackson AND Nachbar than David Wesley. I mean I will give you that Nachbar really hadn't done anything in his time in the NBA to be pined over by some here (*ahem* DaDakota), but still to trade a young guy who supposedly has potential like him and a good, solid veteran like JJ for a 34 year old combo guard in Wesley just baffles me. It is almost like something was going on behind the scenes with either Nachbar and/or JJ clashing with Jeff Van Gumby and that CD felt like he had to move these 2 and that this deal with Wesley would be the only good offer we get. In other words, he was desperate to unload at least one of these guys, maybe both. I know you are not an insider, but I would still like to hear an insightful take on this deal: did CD make a desperate move or not with the JJ-Wesley trade? Thanks.
you know why they never win championships?? because they spend their career drafting good quality players, all stars, and high scorers, and never find the type of players that we have TWO of. why gripe about an unchangable past that whatever folly has occured, somehow landed us 2 of the best players in the game. whatever should be judged should be judged from this season on. not complaining about the path we took to get here. its likely that any other path we took would not have #1 and #11 wearing rockets red. maybe i am ok with this because i have noticed that while sacramento and dallas and even this years suns can have oodles of talent and win tons of regular season games, without those unique players who can carry a team, they are nothing but a good show. what makes our 20 point scorers different than everyone elses 20 point scorers?? because they are two of the most physically unguardable players in the nba. and given time to let the dust settle from getting to this point, we will see that how much more important guys like that are.
I agree. You will find that most of the complaints on this board are based on current performance. The Rockets are currently underperforming. That always leads to discussions about the past for the umpteenth million time (Rashard Lewis, Eddie Griffin, etc.). Like you, I don't care about that as much as I do about an underperforming Rockets team this year.
thanks manny. im not sure about that. it doesnt make complete sense in trading nachbar too, because i would think that jj would be fair straight up. but the loss of a player who coaches didnt think alot of doesnt hurt right now. but it might be that there is more that wesley brings than just stats. maybe he brings those stats, but also some intangibles that we needed. and if there were stats for that, maybe we came ahead?? i dont know if any other right type of player was being offered for jackson and a filler. the one thing that i REALLY like about jeff van gundy. and i do mean the one thing, is that i think he is a mentalist just like me. i think he believes heavily in the mentality of a player over his physical attributes and that mentality is what seperates greats from stars and champions from semi finalists. i believe that in part to finding guys whos talents fit with our style, he also has a big pot in his head that is made up of the mentality of the team, and he knows what that pot needs in it and what it doesnt. i think he heavily believes in the right mental state, and i believe that is one of the biggest reasons that some of these trades are made that seem statistically uneven. i think that is why it doesnt make sense that some players spend time in his dog house. i think he is seperating the mentally weak from the pack, although his hand has been forced to play certain players reguardless. if that means getting rid of players who are rumored to not be fully on board with his philosiphy, then that might not be a bad thing. i think wesley and barry are mentally and talent-wise good fits. on other teams they may get lost behind a coach looking for that more physically gifted star that can score in a variety of ways, but we are looking for something simpler and in the right mentality. it doesnt really matter to me what order we get these type players just as long as we are patient and dont settle.
but like i said, when creating an omlet you have to break some eggs. we had to do some crazy trades and trade young talent, (although they werent rj or lewis they were good young players in their own right), and even make some bad long term committments to players while trying to find that mix. now we are feeling a small fallout of having to make multi-player deals and that trades young talent for players like spoon, juwon, lue and gaines who are apart of getting to this point. so instead of thinking that this is year xx of rebuilding, why not say this is year one of busting our ass to get 2 of the best players in the game, and look at the deals that have been made and will be made from this point. we have brought in mutombo for pike and wilkes. i LOVE mutombo. we found jim jackson for 3 mil a year. sura is still a good player for 3 mil a year, and 1.5 mil is pocket change for ward who will be a decent contributer. we traded tyronn lue for john barry. i love old school players who know their role. we decided that one move was not enough to change a 13-15 team, so we traded a seldom used guy, and jimmy jackson to get a guy who has been a big part of a winning team for years. we also havent gotten desperate and made a stupid deal to desperately unload one of the pfs we want to get rid of. if the rockets dont continue to improve from here, i will be with you all the way about the coach and the management. but all this to this point was the path we took to landing tmac and yao.
The stuffs you talk about are really too detailed, and these are the small pieces. I am sure they will improve, but fans will be disappointed for sure. If you look at the big picture, T-mac and Yao are good foundations, but none of Rox's big guys are really tough, you need to get a defensive PF to win or win consistently in the league. Sooner or later, Rox will have to commit to a long-term contract to get another PF. Yao is not Shaq, he is not a physical speciman so that you can delay pairing him with a banger. I think the coach and the management know this, but Les does not want to pay the Luxury Tax so that Rox is holding and waiting for the right (cheap) deal. You can hope for the best, but eventually the inevitable realization will come: Yao/MoT/Howard can't hold the paint defensively, you have to pay dearly for that.
I am a mentalist too. No wonder you seem to make so much sense to me. That is the reason I seem to "get" JVG and his philosophy/ideology. Once you "get it" - it all just makes sense. No one wants to win more above all other things that CD and JVG and I trully believe he is doing all in all fairness and within his power to make us a winner once again.
Daddy, A very well thought out discussion, and I agree with most of it. The only issue I had with the JJ trade was throwing Nachbar in there as well. However, Chemistry is such an illusive element, and it was obvious that our chemistry was not there, and adding both Wesley and Barry have brought us 2 unselfish, High basketball IQ, and hustling players. I also agree with your take on the mental aspect of the game, this is one area that I also like JVG, we need players that hate to lose and understand how to fit in and will work to make the team better, perhaps JJ, Lue and Boki were not doing that, who knows. But, Barry and Wesley have certainly added a ton to the team, especially in perimeter foot speed, also the ball moves much faster with them in the game, so, I have to give CD and JVG credit for changing what wasn't working and finding pieces that do work. I think they still need an athletic 4 who hustles, but I can see where they are going, the problem is that both Barry and Wesley are getting to the end of their ropes and we need to be grooming young players to replace them in the next couple of years. Again, all credit to a very good thread, with some very inciteful posts. As for Manny, yep, I do like Boki...does it show????
Daddy, you have been working hard on this post, let me take a stab at this one for you. Manny, having se both JJ and Wesley now, if you were the GM of the Hornets, would you trade Wesley for JJ straight up? Or let's try it another way. If you had CD's job, would you trade Wesley back for JJ?
