People love to complain. As an OG around here, I get a chuckle out of hearing exactly the same complaints across the decades no matter the personnel. Here are a couple of my recent favorites. Please fill in others. #1: The owner is cheap. Folks complain that Fertitta is cheap but I remember EXACTLY the same complaints about Alexander ...but he consistently brought in big name FAs. Fertitta is spending big $ too, albeit more controversial but he's paying the "crappy team" tax but the dude IS spending money. I'm not exactly sure why Fertitta has that rep? Who were the Rockets gonna acquire that they didn't simply due to cost? #2: Coach is stubborn and only plays a limited roster. Literally every coach the Rockets have had since JVG, except maybe Silas, has been accused of this. Looking at the finals game 4, OKC played 8 players with some trivial time. Indianna played 9 players with the rest as DNPs. I'm sure if that was the Rockets, many folks on here would complain of the 8-9 man rotations. lol. The GM is ___________ (fill in the blank) Player X is ____________ (fill in the blank) What are some other tired tropes that you repeatedly hear over the years, regardless of circumstance? People say these things, as if they are factual, to support their position. If you challenge them on it, you get the full wrath, cause you are challenging their whole world view.
Sometimes it gets annoying to read the BBS because of the negativity. you can tie it pretty acutely to a few different posters who really don’t contribute anything other than negativity. This includes twisting random topics to fit their narratives.
TWTTWJP. Trade with the team we just played. Like clockwork, right after some guy on the opposing team has a big night, a bunch of folks show up here begging to trade for him. Prior to the game, these people expressed no particular interest in that player, based on his entire career to date. But once he has his big night against us, boom! That sample of 1 makes him the hottest thing available. I swear this must be how half of Clutchfans members evaluate prospective dating partners.
Good thread but people around here can't handle the truth that they are just repeating a common refrain. My favorite is "____ is not a winning type player". There is always this weird thing where no one is considered a winning player until they actually win it all but all those "winning players" had to come from somewhere before they were winning players. The argument persists across decades to invalidate the players you don't like. There are literally hundreds of thousands of pages of posts arguing that one around here over the years.
...so you are saying we shouldn't trade everyone on the roster for Quentin Grimes after he put up 46 on us?
Coming off almost 40 years since our last Finals appearance and another first round exit, your timing is beautiful. Yes, we have glorious management and they spend all that’s needed to be a champion….bla, bla, bla. Keep drinking and selling the Kool-Aid.
Are you contributing another trope or are you being serious? I can't tell but thanks for that. #3: The Rockets management sucks and the proof is that they didn't win a championship. The Knicks fell for that one too so don't feel bad, and Denver, and the Grizz. Now the Suns have a legit reason, lol.
Some of our best players suck and need to get traded: Francis sucks! Trade him! Tmac sucks! Trade him! Harden sucks! Trade him! Jalen sucks! Trade him!
In 2017, Tilman Fertitta was handed a fully-formed, 65-win Rockets team with an outstanding GM, a veteran coach, and a roster that was by far THE most talented since the '95 championship team. I personally believe that they were a Chris Paul hamstring pull away from the finals, and if they had gotten there, they would have likely sleepwalked to the championship over Cleveland with a checked out LeBron. In response to that devastating playoff disappointment, most teams would come back with a vengeance, loading up on talent and going all-in. Fertitta instead mandated cost cuts, letting Trevor Ariza leave in free agency and attempting to replace him with Carmelo Anthony and Michael Carter Williams, using De'Anthony Melton to dump Ryan Anderson for Brandon Knight/Marquese Chriss, and then making their big, all-in deadline deal to rent Iman Shumpert and conveniently get under the luxury tax, at the cost of a future first round pick, and a second rounder that ended up being #31 overall and used to draft Andrew Nembhard. One year after that, Tilman had buyers remorse on signing a 33-year-old Chris Paul to a 4-year contract after he had gotten nicked up during the regular season, and pushed for the disastrous Westbrook trade. This wasn't cost cutting per-se, but was clearly looking to avoid risk, swapping an older, injury-prone player for someone who was younger and less likely to be an albatross as he aged. A year after that, when they were accumulating assets as part of the Harden trade, they dumped Jarrett Allen for a low first round pick without so much as him suiting up for the squad, because they were fearful of needing to match a $100M+ RFA offer sheet. The new practice facility is obviously great to see as an investment, and the fact that they have committed real dollars to the end of the roster in an attempt to manufacture matching salary trade assets (Landale, Jeff Green) is a plus. But first impressions are hard to shake, and for me, if Fertitta was not willing to pay the luxury tax and invest in that 2018 team that had a 28-year old reigning MVP, what team is he actually going to pay the tax for?
He bought a beautiful facility, but I believe it is sponsored by Memorial Health or something so he didn’t likely pony up the money himself. Plus real estate property usually goes up in value over time. He’ll make more than he put in….like an investment. Let’s see him give it towards players and improving the team that hasn’t done squat since he’s taken over. I was wrong to round up to 40 years, but 31 years ain’t anything to be proud of.
Outstanding GM who’s philosophy is surround 1-2 stars with nothing but cheap 3-D guys who couldn’t dribble drive and kept shooting until we lose a series in the western finals?
If something hasn't been done before, it can't happen. If something is unlikely to happen, it can't happen. So so GM isn't good that hasn't won a championship. It wasn't long ago that Presti was a meme for hoarding picks, but perception has changed pretty quickly. Most teams will not win an NBA championship. Whether it be ping pong luck, getting a team from California to trade a young player to you that blossoms into your star, the 12th pick in the draft becoming a star, there is so much randomness in the game that winning a championship should not be the measure of a GM.
