I did respond. I listed 17 teams that have at least 1 player equal to TMac or Yao. Then I listed 10 of which had a better combination of players. Which of the 17 teams I listed does not have a player at least equal to Yao? Really? Are you saying that Yao is right now better than: Shaq Duncan Kobe Stoudamire Nowitzki Garnett Jermaine O Neal Ray Allen LeBron James Allen Iverson He's at best on talent level similar to Elton Brand at this stage of his career. Are you serious? In his prime, Pippen was a Top 50 player of all time and one of the top 5 players in the league. If TMac and Yao were as good as Jordan and Pippen, we would be winning 60+ games. No team with Jordan and Pippen in their prime would ever be 11-12. Based on what? When has he ever been an effective PG? What team? Please, name it You continue with these generalities and make excuses. Francis was an All-Star - we recieved a superstar back - no loss Mobley was a good player - not an all star but good player Cato was a good career backup C. We signed Mutombo as our backup C - a temproary fill-in. In essence, our net loss was Cuttino Mobley It wasn't the trade that killed us. It was the fact Moochie Norris was our only legitimate backup and we had 0 depth prior to the trade that killed us. Bad drafts (Griffin/Nachbar/Collier), Bad Free Agent signings (Piatkowski/Ward), Bad contracts (Moochie/Mo Taylor) and the inability to receive any decent role player from the trade other than inheriting Juwon Howard's bad contract and worthless Reece Gaines.
"Are you saying that Yao is right now better than: Shaq Duncan Kobe Stoudamire Nowitzki Garnett Jermaine O Neal Ray Allen LeBron James Allen Iverson" Only Shaq, Duncan, and Kobe can be put on the list with TMac So let's compare Yao to the next best player on each of those teams.
Cohen stated: This is what happens when people respond to an individual post rather than reading through an entire thread. This is also why I listed 10 other teams that had the combination of players.
J, Your court vision improves when you have a bigazz Chinese guy and a scoring champ taking 85% of the defensive focus. Heart, size and rebounding is exactly what we need on this team, especially heart. I am also not sold on Sura's shooting, yet. But as with court vision, it improves when the D doesn't really care where you are. Tmac and Yao will make Sura an all star....ok, that's pushing it a bit.....but I really think Sura's game is made so much easier this year.....we'll see how good he is at taking advantage of the situation.
RIET, man you really don't think that highly of Yao/Tmac. lol. It's cool though, we all have our opinions. I personally think there are maybe 4 teams that wouldn't trade their whole team and their dance team for Tmac and Yao. That's just me though.
Originally posted by RIET I did respond. I listed 17 teams that have at least 1 player equal to TMac or Yao. Then I listed 10 of which had a better combination of players. That wasn't my point. I had already stated that a team is often a little short of role-players immediately after a giant trade. Therefore, assuming that you're smart, you wouldn't compare our current 'combination of players' to someone else's 'combination of players', now would you? Which of the 17 teams I listed does not have a player at least equal to Yao? Really? Are you saying that Yao is right now better than: Shaq Duncan Kobe Stoudamire Nowitzki Garnett Jermaine O Neal Ray Allen LeBron James Allen Iverson He's at best on talent level similar to Elton Brand at this stage of his career. Doesn't matter who's better RIGHT NOW unless you're a child and need immediate gratification. What matters is who is the biggest asset, and there's no denying that Yao is improving rapidly and will be a force in the league for many years to come. Most teams would trade just about anyone in the league except maybe the top 4 or 5 to get Yao. Are you serious? In his prime, Pippen was a Top 50 player of all time and one of the top 5 players in the league. I'm serious. And Pippen was one of the most overrated players ever. Mr. Coattails. He couldn't do anything w/o 23. If TMac and Yao were as good as Jordan and Pippen, we would be winning 60+ games. No team with Jordan and Pippen in their prime would ever be 11-12. IN THEIR PRIME?? So TMac (25) and Yao (24) are in their prime? Or are you just making ridiculous arguments? Why not make a more respectable comparison: 1988-89 Bulls when Pipsqueek was 23 and Jordan 25: Bulls started the season 10-10. THEY WON 47 games that year, not 60+. Based on what? When has he ever been an effective PG? What team? Please, name it You continue with these generalities and make excuses. Francis was an All-Star - we recieved a superstar back - no loss Mobley was a good player - not an all star but good player Cato was a good career backup C. We signed Mutombo as our backup C - a temproary fill-in. In essence, our net loss was Cuttino Mobley It wasn't the trade that killed us. It was the fact Moochie Norris was our only legitimate backup and we had 0 depth prior to the trade that killed us. Bad drafts (Griffin/Nachbar/Collier), Bad Free Agent signings (Piatkowski/Ward), Bad contracts (Moochie/Mo Taylor) and the inability to receive any decent role player from the trade other than inheriting Juwon Howard's bad contract and worthless Reece Gaines. After reading your responses here, I admit that I have little respect for the way you try to support your opinion. You twist things to support a simplistic black/white opinion. You've decided that you don't think CD has done a good job so you'll make ridiculous comparisons, make arguments that require a GM have have complete omniscience and preminiscience. I'm sure that you don't really care, but why would I ever want to listen to your opinion if I have no faith in how you support your opinion? You guys have such a simplistic view of the world. If you aren't perfect at your job, should your boss just fire you, or if it can be determined the cause of any deficiencies and whether they're predictable or controllable or not ... and improved upon ... But you guys always have a simple-minded solution. Cut and run. You think it's easy to find a good GM? Regardless of what you might think, this team now has 2 of the best players in the league and need to only add a couple more decent players over the next 2 years to contend. CD is quite capable of accomplishing that. No need to waste more of my time.
You're absolutely amazing. You acccuse me of twisting things around? One of the 2 players that you claim is one of the Top 10 in the game, we acquired through pure luck. And yet you can give CD praise for something he had no control over. The things he did control, negotiating contracts, making trades, and acquiring free agents - he's done a pedestrian job. You have yet to name a single reason why CD is better than average. He made a good trade to get McGrady, lucked into Yao, and has not added any quality role players to this team for the past 5 seasons. You say nothing about the terrible contracts or the bad drafts. It's as though they never existed in your mind. Having a few good drafts and adding some quality role players does not require ominipresence or perfection. Teams have addded several good players during the same stretch that we've done nothing to complement our core. Do you know why the Spurs are great? Is it because of Tim Duncan or is it because theyve added Tony Parker and Ginobili and had Stephen Jackson and freed salary cap space to sign these players and continue to have salary cap flexibility? You can continue with your ad hominem attacks but yet has provided a single shred of how you think we can add to this team considering our previous piss poor draft results and mediocre free agent pickups.
I think CD is a very lucky GM. Getting Yao was luck, getting TMac took skill. The key will be whether or not CD can fill out the roster with complimentary pieces, and he has not proven to be so good at that task. I think you both have good points. DD
I honestly cannot understand why anyone would continue to defend Dawson but it takes all kinds I suppose. The major problem with Dawson is not the issue of his incompetence but one of time and a lack of direction. With Dawson as the GM, the Rockets have drifted along for years with no set plan for winning a championship. Players have been shuffled in and out of this organization with him making the occasional "blockbuster" trade only to wind up in the end with an average to below average team. What's happening to them this year is that the years of bad trades, dumb free agent moves and lousy drafts have finally come to a head. His record speaks for itself. Dawson has been trying to build a team through trades and free agent acquisitions. He has done so because of his inability to find NBA talent through the draft and that's one of the major problems facing the Rockets this year: no good up and coming homegrown players. Aside from Yao and Nachbar, there are no other players on this roster that Dawson has drafted and Nachbar appears to be well on his way out of the organization due to his inconsistent play and spotty shooting. The easiest way to get good players is to find them yourself and draft them - that way, you accumulate talent. Under Dawson, the Rockets don't accumulate talent, they broker it. If you compare their roster to that of their competition in the West, you will see that this is a major deficiency that manifests itself in the various talent problems they are facing this season. Witness this BBS and all of the trade threads that attempt to address this very deficiency that continues to plague the Rockets year after year. Now, it IS possible to build through trades and free agency but to be successful, you have to hit home runs and spend real money. Because Dawson has hit on so few players while giving out bad contracts, he's been forced to discount shop for players from the NBA bargain bin. Need a point guard? Get a Mark Jackson or a Charlie Ward off the street. Need a power forward? Trade for a Witherspoon and a Juwan Howard to go against the Nowitzskis and the Duncans in the West. Need a small forward? Sign a broken down Adrian Griffin who ends up giving you nothing then sign a Jim Jackson who's really a 2 to play the 3 spot and on and on and on... This sort of thing has been going on for so many years that it has become institutionalized in Houston. To me, Dawson should have been fired over the Eddie Griffin fiasco. If you set aside all the police drama and the medical spin, is there anything in his game THEN and NOW then that remotely justifies the use of 3 first round draft picks to get this guy? Anything at all? That draft symbolized Dawson's complete inability to find and acquire NBA talent. I mean, were there no other good to decent players worth drafting aside from this guy? Now Dawson's defenders will point to his picking Yao, SF3 & Mobley as proof that he knows what he's doing but that argument is specious at best. SF3 forced his trade to Houston with his refusal to play for Vancouver. The Yao pick was a slam dunk nobrainer. Neither pick came as the result of shrewd talent evaluation on the part of CD. Mobley was the kind of good pick that top notch GMs make and he was the exception to rule. Same thing for Kenny Thomas who was let go to make room for Eddie Griffin. All three players are no longer here and Dawson is STILL trying to find a legit power forward that can make them competitive. The truly sad thing here is that all of this wasted time and effort by Dawson has consumed YEARS (those 2 championships seem so very long ago today as I write this). With him at the helm, the Rockets remind me of a pet hamster in his cage running furiously on his wheel - try as they may, they both ultimately wind up going nowhere at all.
