Dirk you аssface! Now Kobe's going to score 100 on us!

LOL! Did you watch last season? Did you see Dirk SUCKING big time and getting bailed out by his $90 million roster that surrounds him?

No disrespect, but if anything, his team covers for his weaknesses and mistakes. Dallas having a better team than the Rockets makes no difference; I am talking player to player.

He's a crybaby because he b****es about every foul he doesn't get, and looks for the refs to always bail him out because he can't play defense, and that's why now he flops because it's easier than actually making an effort to play D. Then, he goes to the media after his team was humiliated by a SINGLE player and instead takes jabs at that player and others who're clearly superior players.

Sorry, but a better team doesn't make you a better player. Dirk hasn't made the most with the incredibly deep and talented team that surrounds him. He's not a leader and no one mistakens him for one. He's more of a Chris Webber type.

 

Another reason I dislike Dirk. Man, as if he didn't whine enough ON the court.

Why did he have to call out TMAC? Because TMAC handed his ass to him in the playoffs?

 

We shall see how Dallas does without half their starting line-up

 

for the mavs, daniels, howard, and terry have been out for multiple games this season. christie was sent home to be beaten by his wife. stackhouse has been gone for most of the season. the mavs have missed half of their starting lineup for parts of the season, and have been ok.

listen, i like the rockets. i love tmac and i love yao. but the GM has done a terrible job of assembling talent, and putting the pieces in place to allow Yao and McGrady to succeed. i've never seen a GM get so much leeway as Dawson has and not take any responsibility for its team's failure.

contrary to popular belief, dallas' payroll really isn't that bloated. if anything, cuban has tried to shape his payroll based on the spurs and pistons model. in any event, i could rail away on how poor the rockets are, or i could talk about how tmac is probably the best player in the game with 1 minute left, but the fact of the matter is that until the rockets surround their 2 best players with the right pieces, and puts them in a system that will utilize their talents, they will never succeed.

surrounding yao and mcgrady with old broken veterans and young stupid players is not going to help the team. i said it before and i'll say it again, signing slowmile swift is one of the worst mistakes the rockets could have made. to top it off, the rockets trade their best guard in james and bring in an equally stupid player in alston who has an even worse contract. in two swift moves, the rockets have just done their best impersonation of dumb and dumber.

your coach has a big man who has admitted fatigue problems running around setting screens and fighting for low post position, when it is obvious he is more comfortable playing in the mid post and shooting jumpers. instead of playing yao like kareeem, JVG has him playing like ewing, and its no wonder that yao is worn down by the 4th quarter. i just don't understand. with those 2 players, surrounding them with intelligent players, the team should be fighting for a top spot in the western conference, but instead, you just have a bunch of old guys who can't defend on the perimeter or players without bball IQ who can't make a simple entry pass.

i just realized i created massive thread drift, and to the moderators i apologize.

 

I agree the surrounding talent is not good enough to put this team over the top, and I agree that Dawson gets more leeway than any other GM in the league. The Rockets' brass -- if it wasn't already apparent enough over the years -- have never really done well in 'building a team', the answer to all of our struggles in the past have usually been blockbuster trades and hoping that two ot three star players will get you over the top at the end of the day. The Spurs and the Pistons have built very deep and balanced lineups, their scouts and their management people are superb and deserve to be commended for their job over the years. I have always said that the Rockets' scouting sucks and doesn't measure up to the Spurs' or even to Dallas', so nothing new here.

One of the biggest issues here is ownership. Les Alexander loves making 'splash' moves every now and then to quiet the fans and keep them content for a short while. His biggest downfall is also what some believe to be his biggest plus: his loyalty. He's VERY loyal to his staff (coaches, GM, whomever), and tends to stick with people he hires for a long period of time until it becomes glaringly clear that change is a must, and when fans demand that change is a must.

I think CD got very lucky last season with his moves that brought in small-time players that were able to help us out big time, but then again it became loudly clear in the Mavs series that this team's lineup 1-12 doesn't measure up to the likes of Dallas', San Antonio, Pistons, and other elite teams. Our biggest hole was in our backcourt, which was decimated by Terry and Stackhouse and everyone else who played for Dallas. After last season, the consensus was mainly a recognition of the ineptness of our backcourt against other teams (despite the fact that they did a great job of feeding off McGrady and Yao), and at PF. So, we make moves in the off-season to supposedly address/fix those problems; we get Swift who doesn't quiet work out, we get Rafer and DA and they're still a big question at this point as to what exactly their role is going to be on this team due to injuries and other factors.

Basically, our problems from last season have not been addressed, although we thought they were. So back to the drawing board...

The question now is: can CD salvage this situation through either trades this season or moves/trades/signings in the off-season?

IMO, this is Dawson's last chance to prove that he's worthy GM, and if he doesn't clean up his mess before the beginning of next season, I will want to see him gone.

 

Let's break down each of CD's personnel moves following the McGrady trade:

Trades F Adrian Griffin, F Eric Piatkowski, and G Mike Wilks to Chicago for C Dikembe Mutombo.

I don't think there's any question that this was a good trade. We traded three guys who weren't going to play for a terrific backup center.

Signs G Bobby Sura, G Charlie Ward.

Ward didn't work out (though he did win a game for us early in the season), but Sura was a great signing, even if he hasn't been healthy.

Signs F Ryan Bowen.

Meh. JVG likes him and all it cost was money and a roster space.

Trades F Jim Jackson and F Bostjan Nachbar to New Orleans for G David Wesley.

This trade took a lot of criticism at the time, but it really did pay off. At the very least, we didn't get any worse, and probably couldn't have gotten much more for JJ and Boki.

Trades G Tyronn Lue to Atlanta for G Jon Barry.

Great move. Barry provided energy and shooting, and Lue was downright awful when he was here. I don't think we could have gotten much more for him.

Signs G Rod Strickland.

... Let's move on.

Trades Mo Taylor to New York for G Moochie Norris and F Vin Baker.

I didn't like how Jeff handled the Taylor situation, but ultimately this trade probably helped us. We dumped Mo's salary and he wasn't playing anyway. The only other trade on the table was Mo for DA straight up, and we ended up getting Derek for a lot less money anyway.

Trades G Reece Gaines to Milwaukee for G Mike James and F Zendon Hamilton.

Another great trade. Gaines really brought nothing to the table, and I was suprised that anyone would even want him. James had his share of haters when he was playing here, but I liked his game a lot.

Drafts G Luther Head.

We got a major steal in head, when everyone was saying we should get someone like Taft or Simien or Ukic.

Signs PF Stromile Swift.

It was between Swift, SAR, and 'Toine. We took the youngest, cheapest, most athletic player available. I don't think the other two would have helped much more (though I wanted Shareef).

Signs G Derek Anderson

He got injured like most of us expected, but at what we're paying him, it's really not such a bad deal.

Trades G Mike James to Toronto for G Rafer Alston.

It's too early to label this a bad trade just yet. I think it could still pay off.


At face value, it doesn't seem as though any of the moves CD made were really bad ones, except for possibly the James/Alston deal. Again, I think it's too early to tell for sure.

Perhaps we should also take a look at the moves CD DIDN'T make.

We probably could have traded for C-Webb last year, which I would have been in favor of. That said, I'm not sure if Les was willing to take on his bloated contract.

We could have spent the MLE on Damon Stoudamire instead of Stro. Unlike quite a fewposters here, I REALLY wanted Damon. But it looked like this was the best chance to sign a PF, so we went that rout instead.

I don't know. We had a very flawed team following the T-Mac trade, and I think CD did his best to get things right. Maybe he should have done some things differently, but it's not his fault that T-Mac, Yao, and Alston have had the injury problems that they have.

 

Good Transactions (Helped Rockets):
Trades F Adrian Griffin, F Eric Piatkowski, and G Mike Wilks to Chicago for C Dikembe Mutombo.
Signs G Bobby Sura, G Charlie Ward.
Trades G Reece Gaines to Milwaukee for G Mike James and F Zendon Hamilton.
Drafts G Luther Head.

Bad Transactions (Hurt Rox)
Trades F Jim Jackson and F Bostjan Nachbar to New Orleans for G David Wesley.
Signs PF Stromile Swift.
Trades G Mike James to Toronto for G Rafer Alston.

Lateral Transactions (Neither hurt, nor helped the team)
Signs F Ryan Bowen.
Trades G Tyronn Lue to Atlanta for G Jon Barry.
Signs G Rod Strickland.
Trades Mo Taylor to New York for G Moochie Norris and F Vin Baker.
Signs G Derek Anderson

from an admitted mavs fans perspective, i saw the rockets needs as: improving perimeter speed, getting a bruiser to protect yao at the 4 spot, and finding a PG who can make an entry post pass efficiently.

i don't think you can really evaluate moves by themselves without taking the sum of its impact into account. we agree on the good moves and the lateral moves, so i'll look at the bad ones.

i thought the jackson trade was terrible for david wesley at the time, and i still think its terrible now. you trade an aging 2/3 swingman for an aging, undersized 2? not sure how that's any good. jackson at worst is a push with wesley and more often than not is better than him. at this stage of their careers, their both relegated to being spot up shooters.

wes doesn't want to commit large sums of money be he signs a max MLE to slowmile and then trades the only productive healthy backcourt player you have left for a larger, bloated contract of backcourt player coming off of one good year? a player who was routinely criticized by his coach for not passing enough?

so during the summer dawson has now taken on approximately $45M in payroll with the acquisition of swift and alston. if i were the houston GM, my summer would have gone like this.

sign abdur-rahim to the MLE for 3 years.
operates out of the mid post well. can be counted on as a scorer. and was the best available option from toine and slowmile. fits into the rockets team concept well as a complimentary player to mcgrady and yao.
additional committed funds: $16.2M

trade wesley, spoon, and a #2 to new orleans for pj brown and speedy claxton.
pick up the banger you need to compliment yao. new orleans saves money and we all know shinn is a cheapskate. you increase perimeter speed, get a playmaker at the 1, and new orleans would have done the deal at the time b/c chris paul is their future.
additional committed funds: $8.2M

lineup:
claxton/james/head/norris
anderson/sura/barry
mcgrady/bowen/
abdur-rahim/howard/baker
ming/brown/mutumbo

but what do i know, i'm only a mavs fan.

 

When Dallas actually does something in the playoffs, and not your one fluke run when Webber got hurt, come back over and talk crap. As of now Dallas is the biggest chokers/softest postseason team in the NBA. Deal with it because it's not going to change anytime soon.

 

If the Rockets were at 100% we would have Mavs fans coming over here trying to tell us what is wrong with the Rockets. There is nothing wrong with the Rockets that health couldn't solve this year.

 

If you think the Nachbar and Jackson trade hurt the Rockets you don't watch nearly enough rocket basketball.

 

Wesley,Spoon and a number 2 for P.J.Brown and Speedy Claxton wouldn't be acceptable to the Hornets.

 

earth to rocksmillenium, the year 1995 is calling you. trying making the playoffs or getting out of the first round before you start calling the mavs soft.

 

You are right, considering Spoon is no longer on the team.

 

Doesn't matter.... Mavs > Rockets right now, but we was talking about Dirk taking shots at his NBA peers, which happen to be better than him.