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

Doesn't it make you want to go back and get a journalism degree so that decent writers are covering our team?

Well, okay maybe not... but I'd still love to see someone with some talent cover the Rockets.. and not get hired by them!

 

Something else. Attendance this year was down almost a 1,000 per game, so how does that compute with fans accepting mediocrity?

http://espn.go.com/nba/attendance

 

Richard Justice + Fran Blinebury combined.

 

Kill it with fire.

 

Frankly, I am surprised at the responses on this thread. It is like shooting the messenger for bad news. Well, the cruel truth is that a team that is 42-40 sort of defines mediocrity. The only way to get closer is 41-41. Taking the Lakers to seven last season was exciting, no doubt, but except for that second round adventure, it has been a very, very long dry spell. Plus when "next year" is depending on the health of Yao Ming, the team's future is very uncertain. When you watch the teams in the playoffs it becomes painfully apparent that these teams have much more talent available to them. To break into the playoffs, much less becoming a contender, the Rockets are going to have work some magic before November.

 

all we want to hear are sound excuses which the messenger failed to deliver:
had 2 championship already,
no all star,
all the injuries,
unavoidable limitations,

we did "amazingly well" with all those excuses......

heck, we always did well because excuses are endless.

 

Like a villain in a Kevin Smith movie.

 

I'm not understanding your point here. Tim Duncan was pretty much the consensus number 1 pick that year. I'm sure if Houston had lost all its stars to finish with the #1 pick in the lottery, they would've picked him as well since there was really no doubt he would be the #1 pick.

If you had the #1 pick in 2002, I'm sure you would've picked Yao or Jay Williams. Who else in that draft would you have drafted with the #1 pick? Please don't say Amare. If the Spurs had the #1 pick that year, do you think they would've done any differently?

The pick of Kobe was by Charlotte, who in turn traded him for Vlade Divac because Kobe wanted to play in LA and probably wasn't going to ever play for Charlotte. LA had worked Kobe out prior to this, but it would've never happened had Kobe not forced the issue, from what I recall.

Nowitzki was a good pick by the Mavs who had to leapfrog the Celtics to get him because Pitino thought he was the next Celtic great. I'll give them credit for that one, and am not sure the Rockets would've done the same in that situation.

A lot of these situations present themselves for some teams and not others, so you can never really know if it's by dumb luck or sheer genius these guys are getting the players they get.

 

Fair enough, but "excuses" are razor thin at this point. Portland is a case in point. They may start the ball boy tonight. Those that can, do; those who can''t, make excuses. I admire the Rocket's early season grit, but they folded like a cheap tent during the "easy" part of the schedule. Injuries were a factor no doubt, but, the organization has insisted on putting all their eggs in a injury prone basket. They simply won't give up that miserably "failed" plan. Therefore, they suffer the consequences. To most rational people, TMac was seriously "done" two years ago. Yao has had three consecutive season ending injuries. The handwriting has been on the wall for some time now.

 

And that's why Tmac was shipped out this year for a boatload of assets. Tmac probably should have been traded two years ago but he wouldn't fetch a lot on the open market considering his injury history and his contract wasn't expiring yet. Why don't you propose a better package for him that we could have had we traded him earlier before you start complaining?

Yao is a different matter, I don't think DM can trade him without Les' consent as we all know Yao's impact affects more than his court production. However DM has done a fine job getting players that are good by themselves and as a result the team won't have to rely on Yao as much.

 

Two years ago was the streak. ESPN was discussing whether McGrady could be a MVP. No one thought he would collapse as badly as he did - I remember looking back through the archives, reading a thread around 2 years ago about trading T-Mac for Manu - and everyone was pissed off about such a dumb idea.

 

Are u serious? feigen is so bias towards the organization its ridiculous. U guys are too quick to attack anybody who doesn't ride Morley's nutsac

 

So, if they gave up on that "failed" plan, they would have been better off than they are now? When should they have given up and what superstar could they have acquired if they had given up?

 

If anything, Rockets fans should be disappointed we WON so many games and didn't finish 22-60 giving a shot at a real difference maker in the draft.

I mean, going into this season without Yao, T-mac, nor Artest...this season was a done deal. What the F are we suppose to want Soloman? We accept mediocrity?????

Did we have a choice? What would you want us to do - cry that we didn't make the playoffs? Turn our backs on the young guys?

Frankly, if you look at the Rockets management - they have done everything they can to try to build a contender. They tried with Francis and Mobley. They got Yao. When that didn't work, they traded for T-mac. They hired JVG. When he wasn't getting it done, they hired Adelman. They brought in Morey and he's made a lot of savvy and aggressive moves. Scola, Landry, Brooks, Cbud, Lowry, Battier, Ariza.

They have tried - clearly the Rockets don't accept mediocrity - and maybe, just maybe, Rockets fan APPRECIATE that and don't need to complain.

We're not the Clippers. If Soloman thinks Rockets fans don't care or whatever, he needs to come on this BBS and see how many people spend their free time talking about what we need to do to become a contender. No one cares about anything but that. But clearly the guy is in his own world and just spews his condescending rant because he really has nothing to say.

 

Careful. You just left yourself open to criticism for only wanting a "real difference maker" when some on here knows that you go into a draft ONLY looking for sure fire Hall of Famers since EVERY team in the NBA has at least one of those

 

Wow!

 

Clutchfans is in rare form. I guess we should thank Solomon for uniting us all in our hatred for his articles.

 

Im proud that this team didnt tank all the season, looking for a better draft pick. I loved that they played always with heart, sometimes they played bad, but they didnt want to lose, they played to win the game.

Losing 3 very important players from last year is huge, imaging the spurs without Duncan, ginobili and parker, or the lakers without kobe, gasol, and odom, those teams would not get to 40 wins if those players were injured.

 

I think everyone is jumping on one side or the other when the reality of the situation is a little of both. The Rockets absolutely did the best they could this year given the circumstances, and there aren't many teams in the league that, had they had the same amount of injuries the Rockets had, done better. Morey has proven he is good as finding role players that fit and play above their on-paper stats.

BUT, you can't argue with results. Over the past 10 years, the Rockets have basically done nothing. We can make excuses over and over again about all kinds of things, as virtually every team can, but that is the bottomline. The Rockets COULD have woken up to the problems with the Yao/McGrady foundation earlier. They COULD have surrounded Yao and McGrady with better pieces back when the two were still healthy. They COULD have done a lot of things. Ultimately, we can only judge them on the end result, and the result has not been good. You can always make excuses for every single thing that happens in life, but the people in charge are ultimately responsible for the end result over a 10 year span (yes, I know, Morey hasn't been the GM for 10 years).

Again, I'm not criticizing Morey. I think he is a good GM for the most part. But to say the Rockets are one of the best managed teams in the league or something like that is a bit much. Once they are a consistently semi-elite team (and by that, I mean a team that gets out of the first round 2-3 times within a 5 year span), like the Lakers, Celtics, Mavs, Cavs, Magic, Nuggets, Spurs, etc. are, then we can call them one of the best managed teams in the league. No way a team that has advanced out of the first round ONE time in, what, the last 15 years or so, can be called a great managed team. That just makes no sense. The point isn't to just do the best you can given your circumstances.