[CHRONIC] Rockets fans accept mediocrity — and that's exactly what they get

Since Morey has taken over, the Rockets have been the best run team in professional basketball. His job performance has been nothing less than brilliant.

 

Why do people keep saying the Rockets are the best run team in the NBA?

The Spurs are the best, and have been for quite some time now. I do think the top 3 are S.A, Houston and Oklahoma City, in terms of best run organizations. S.A. management is the class of the league.

 

Problem is that when we had a healthy T-mac and Yao, the Rockets were a perennial 55 win team but didn't have the role players to contend.

That's no man's land. Because your superstars make it impossible to improve through free agency since free agent role players cost a fair chunk and our stars were already pushing us over the cap. Secondly, we were winning too much to draft quality talent quick enough to take advantage of our stars shelf life.

No one could conceive that T-mac and Yao would have fallen to injuries so devastatingly. They both were healthy when they got here and should have had many many years of healthy play. Morey was able to build the quality role players around them - they just couldn't stay healthy.

And you can't blame the organization for that. If Tim Duncun had succumbed to injuries the Spurs might still be without a ring.

The Rockets tried really hard. Les wanted a champion. You can criticize the moves but you can't question the desire. It was there. And what disappoints me about the Soloman article is that he doesn't acknowledge that.

We all want a championship from the organization down to the fans. No one is really satisfied with this season. But c'mon, he wants us to go all up in arms and start stirring trouble when what - what can be done that's not already being explored?

I

 

Yes, we can blame them for that. The Detroit Pistons had Grant Hill, who had major surgery. Pistons let him run around in free agency and then traded him to Orlando for Billups, who became Finals MVP in a few short seasons. T-Mac or Yao should have been split up years ago.

 

Wasn't it about two years ago that Magic Johnson said on national television that the TMac/Yao experiment had failed? The streak ended in March of 08. Yao was out with an injury during most of the streak. Wasn't TMac having back problems soon thereafter or at least by the following training camp?

 

Rockets could not find starting PF, backup PF, starting PG, backup PG, backup center in about 100 years.

desire? tried hard? how? Artest was their best and biggest signing when Yao-TMAC were almost done. Of course, that Artest deal was also cheap. Going for cheap bargain is not trying hard.


Portland got Miller and Camby in one season. They overpaid Camby in the new extension because they feel Camby is helpful. They don't care about the price. That's the desire and trying hard though it could fail.

 

There are some owners that can't stand to lose, and there are some that can't stand to lose money.

Les, IMO, is a little bit of both....

DD

 

billups wasnt part of the grant hill trade ben wallace and chucky atkins were

you could saw wallace was a coup, but he went undrafted and played in italy for 3 years before the wizards signed him only to trade him to orlando.

players who develop that late into rotational players, let alone all-stars, are as rare as the crazy repetitive surgeries Hill had to go through in orlando.

 

Luis Scola?

Carl Landry, Jordan Hill, Chuck Hayes?

Aaron Brooks?

Kyle Lowry?

Yeah, we do miss Mutombo and he wasn't replaced since departing last year.

Oh, we are talking 100 years, then I think Mutombo counts, no? And so do guys like Charles Jones?

Funny, I seem to remember there's this Martin guy (you know, the light-skinned dude, looks like a Pharaoh according to some) making $11 mil a year for the next few. There was also that Ariza guy making $33 mil, people complained about him and his money, I think.

Camby, when he was tradeed, was getting paid how much? How does that compare with Artest's contract or Martins?

What about Miller's contract? How much is Andre Miller signed for?

http://hoopshype.com/salaries/portland.htm


Of course, don't let facts stand in the way of your rant. Jerome Solomon doesnt.

 

Nobody here is saying the Rockets are the best run team in the NBA, they're saying we're one of the best run teams since DM arrived, something which I think was validated when the team went 42-40 on essentially 30% capspace for much of the season.

Spurs have been solid, but most of their success still rely on their drafting of Duncan, Parker and Ginobili years ago. Over the years the Spurs have made several disastrous moves that could have given them depth behind their big 3. Off the top of my head:

1. Trading Scola for $$$ (that one's gotta hurt)
2. Drafting Tiago Splitter (who may not want to go to the NBA)
3. Grooming Ian Mahinmi who still hasn't done anything in the league
4. Trading 2 draft picks and Kurt Thomas to OKC for $$$
5. Trading for J-Rich
6. Sending an email to everyone asking them to bid for the right to select George Hill for $$$(just dumb luck nobody took their offer, otherwise the Spurs would have lost out on Hill)

^None of those moves are franchise killers, but to say they are the "class of the league" is stretching it. The Lakers, OKC and of course us have made way better moves in recent years.

 

1560 had Jerome on this morning and it was amazing that he has a job as a paid sports journalist. He said the 14 win season prior to getting Ralph Sampson was better then this last year because of getting Sampson next year. He kept saying that the Rockets didn't pick anyone up because of Les's personal set budget, and wondered why it was different from Drayton and the Astros getting criticized for not spending money. When John and Lance brought up the salary cap, Jerome said the Rocket's knew Tracy and Yao were going to be out all year and insurance was paying their salaries, so those injuries shouldn't have mattered, if Les had been willing to spend more money. Implying that he did not even realise that there actually is a real salary cap in the NBA and owners can't just spend as much as they want, when ever they want.

He went on to make some other complete contradictions talking about the Texans and how he knew David Carr would be a bust before he even played, but people criticizing Amobe Okoye after 2 years were wrong because it was too early to label him a bust. Unfortunately something came up at work and I didn't get to catch the end of the interview, but he came across as some one who can't really give good explanations for his opinions, and doesn't research the topics he is discussing to a level one would expect for a journalist.

 

As far as spending goes, Les Alexander spent 12 million on FA acquisitions this year (andersen, C-bud, Lull and JT), however don't let facts get in the way of your senseless rant.

Not caring about the price is just bad management because of this thing called the salary cap. If you spend it all on bad players or overpay mediocre players it'll hurt in the end no matter how big your budget is. NY under Isiah had an unlimited budget and spent millions on guys like Jerome James. Wonder how that worked out for them?

 

Yep... Just because insurance covers a contract, the salary still counts against the cap. In fact, the one thing that the team does get, in the case of Yao, is the "injury exception" equalling the MLE, which, funny enough, Stingy Old Les Alexaner did spend on Trevor Ariza. He then spend the actual MLE on David Andersen and signing 2nd round picks Budinger and Taylor to multi-year deals. And by the way, does anyone remember the $6 million Les spent buying the picks?

And this is not to mention taking on multiple years of Kevin Martin's contract, and Jared Jeffries for next season, etc. It seems Les Alexander took plenty of the opportunity to spend cash.

 

Scola, Landry, Brooks, Ariza, Lowry, Hill all came cheap after 2007 but your No1. pick was drafted in 2002 and your TMAC-Yao combo was broken down in 2008. Good timing...

Artest $ 10M 1 year.
The Artest trade was the best trade ever. Kudos to Les for this expensive one year rental. and the results show that you can get something good without going cheap. Unfortunately, it was too late and Artest got distasted as quickly as possible.

Martin $47M $ Ariza $33M ---2009.
Great signing if YAO-TMAC are still in 2005. Now, that's like a guarantee for the mediocrity except Yao becomes unstoppable at age 31. Expensive role players are needed when you have a sure franchise player. They are not needed when you want to get into the draft and find a franchise player. Again, good timing.

As to Portland, they paid $22M for Miller, $25M for Camby. both for 3 years while Roy and Aldridge are still young. Camby is so obviously overpaid that I have to think they are pushing for something big. I can see they are trying hard no matter what the result will be. They could just come here and steal some of our Yao excuses for their Oden counterpart. no, they did not. On the contrary, Portland might still want to upgrade their PF position once they find out Aldridge is not that good. Interesting to see.


what we can do?

Let's split $12M for 4 players, split MLE for 2 backup centers, pursue old players who can accept LLE, ....... be safe.

 

Ahhhh, I seeeee. Your complaint is that since we got Scola, Landry, and Brooks for cheap, it means that we don't like to spend money. So taking the Isiah route of throwing 60 million of Curry would have been better. I understand.

You think Martin's a role player. This isn't worth talking about.

Portland used their expiring contracts, got Marcus Camby. We used our expiring contracts and a good asset, and got a boatload of crap at the deadline that is generally meant to work in the long term, but even then helped in the short term as we no longer had to see Trevor go one on one about 493283 times a game and get 2 buckets out of it. Of course, if you want to get Marcus Camby instead so we can get 6 more wins this season and have less long-term advantages and still still not make the playoffs, be my guest. I'll pass.

 

Simple to cast stones with perfect 20-20 hindsight. Let's hop into our magic time machine...

2003-2004: Rockets bring in JVG. Among best candidates available. Some wanted Larry Brown, but he went elsewhere. Year 2 of Yao. Steve, Cuttino, Kato were the running mates. Luminaries included Torraye braggs and Adrian Griffin. Boki too.

2004-2005: Tmac becomes a Rocket. Still in cap hell due to the likes of Weatherspoon, Howard, Mo Taylor. Hell, we were still paying Matt Maloney. I guess we should have been able to make a blockbuster move this year. Tmac and Yao look promising, first round exit to Dallas.

2005-2006. Still paying Weatherspoon and Howard. Rockets add Stromile Swift for MLE as PF of the future. Geez - how many Clutchfans thought that was going to be a big piece of the puzzle. I did. Yao and Tmac go down to injuries. No playoffs. Should we have dumped Yao and Tmac at this point? No, you're nuts.

2006-2007. Weatherspoon finally off the books. Still paying and playing Howard. Have to deal the Rudy Gay pick to dump Stromile, pick up Battier. Debate that all you want, but Stromile sucked. Tmac and Yao lose Game 7 at home to Utah. Yao was injured this year. Consensus was that we could/should have won this series at home. What, do we blow up the team now? Still no cap flexibility.

2007-2008. Yao goes down, we lose to the Jazz again. Tmac breaking down too. Says it's all on me. Morey drafts Landry and Brooks. Adds Scola.

2008-2009. Tmac jerks around the organization. I'm playing. I'm not. Rockets beat Blazers, take Lakers to 7 games. Morey adds Lowry and Artest. (Wafer too).

----------------------------------
So where does this leave us?

1. If your star players get hurt, your screwed. Universal truth in the NBA.

2. Either Tmac and Yao weren't good enough to get us past Dallas or Utah in 7, or he didn't have enough help. As to the latter, we inherited cap hell from Carroll Dawson. Don't pin that on Morey.

3. If you're going to hop into your magic time machine, here are your real choices.

a. fire CD earlier to undo some of the prior horrible contracts;

b. hire someone other than Van gundy who might have developed young players;

c. not draft Yao Ming or trade for Tmac.

Choices a and b are debatable. Choice c is ridiculous. At the time that the rockets selected Yao and traded for Tmac, that was the obviously correct choice.

The "failure" to add pieces fast enough -- that's the cap hell and having the wrong leadership in place.

But don't bash the current regime for that. All Morey has done is obtain players and assets.

Redao - what was available to us that would have changed our fortunes and put us in a better position than we are today? Dude, we got screwed with Yao and Tmac's health, and that's about all there is to it.

Save your criticizm for later -- if Morey spends the chips he has accumulated unwisely.

For now, you're way off base.

 

The Lakers have also done quite a few r****ded things over the last few years - heck, they're the ones who gave Brian Cook that contract as well as Luke Walton, Sasha, and Radmonivic, and let's not get into trading Caron Butler for Kwame Brown, which worked out well in the end, but was a disaster when they were just another first round exit team.

 

Look again. There are people here who are saying the Rockets are the best run team.

I did admit their ONE of the best run teams, but a far cry from the Spurs, who have managed successfully over an extended period of time.

 

I don't think Les is cheap. I just think he got sick of overpaying bums. He'll spend the money on a stud (and he's said he would go over the cap to do this), but the guy shouldn't be blamed for not wanting to give millions to an underachiever. We've been down that road and it sucked. Hard.

Moochie Norris
Kelvin Cato
Maurice Taylor

No. I don't hold it against Les for not wanting to repeat the same mistakes that literally deactivated the Rockets as contenders for almost a decade.

 

Going over the luxury cap in this economy for a team without their two best players would be stupid. Les is not stupid. Jerome Solomon clearly is.