Wow. Quite depressing couple of hours. I go out for a couple of drinks/hanging out with friends. A hour later, one friend (MD) has to leave to assign some guy to a involuntary treatment since he has been threatening to shoot his neighbours (The police doesn't seem to bother, but that's another story, LOL). Anyway, I get a ride home early and read the newest on Yao.. Well, back to the topic, I'm actually eager to see what Morey is going to do now. I'm assuming this is it for Yao (at least Yao&Rockets). I'm long been of the opinion that Les has handcuffed Morey from doing what is probably ultimately the best and has "forced" him to try to build the team with Yao in mind. Rebuilding the team completely(as in trading veterans for picks, letting certain contracts expire etc. ) hasn't been possible for Morey due to this restraint. Many have been touting Sam Presti as the best GM in the league and who knows, he might even be worth all the praise. However, it has to be said that Presti was put to pretty much ideal situation with the Thunder. Seattle had a recent history of completely botched drafts and bad management and Presti could go to work without much pressure and with the green light to trade his franchise player, Ray Allen, to start the rebuilding of the team. Lucking into Durant after Portland chose Oden and then having multiple picks and not a lot of baggage from his predecessors gave Presti the freedom to start assembling the team as he saw fit and the results have slowly but surely followed. Now, back to Morey. If the most recent injury marks the end of the Yao-era Rockets, I feel that for the first time in his stint here, Morey has the necessary freedom to start truly building for the future. The players and contracts he inherited are all gone after the season and the pressure to win instantly and get to the playoffs shoud be gone for now. Of course, I might be wrong and Les orders Morey to keep chasing that one missing star, but I hope we are past that stage. Now the focus should completely move from making short-midterm deals to a longer horizon. What that means in practise, remains to be seen, but I would fathom that It would mean more aggressively going for deals for picks and instead of compiling assets to hopefully acquire that missing piece, we could start flipping the assets for more picks. If Morey thinks he can beat the average GM in the draft and later picks are available for money, a good place to start would be there: buying picks-grooming them-flipping them for hopefully better picks. If the luck is on our side, somewhere along the way we shoukd "hit gold" and find the next franchise player. Hopefully we'll actually get a Durant this time and not a Francis.
somebody find a trade with the kings in which we can get: Cousins, Landry, Casspi just make it happen i don't care how and btw, joey dorsey had a double double last night
We dont need to blow it up. Yao frees up money for more free agents. All it does is set us back and we can just wait to jump on that trade that comes around to keep upgrading our team until we reach back to dominant status.
Imo they need a new young core to let them grow together. Brooks/Martin/Scola is your core and can't depend on Yao no longer. You have to find new core pieces. Cousins which is evident in a blow-it up scenario is something Morey has already considered. Love is another piece that Morey has considered. Imo you have to find a new core and let them grow. If you can get Cousins and Love for Brooks/Martin/Scola then do it. If not look deeper like Mayo/Thabeet/Anthony Randolph. Some where along those lines you'll find a new core to build around. You have to replace value with potential for the medium/longer term untill a trade roles around and you have potential players now with value. Ibaka? Do it guys got potential and can contribute. Right now Scola/Brooks/Martin is the core which you can't build around and expect to compete for the long term.
Keep everybody but prepare for life without Miller and Battier. Try to get a decent big and hope for the best with our current core. Let them gel and see what happens.
Any shot blocking center we get short of the #1 pick in the draft will not have post-up skills close to that of Scola. So we would need to keep Scola to balance out the lack of offense from our new Mutombo. I would like for us to make a run at someone like Chandler or Okafor.
I would look to move Martin for Roy Hibbert. Those are pieces both teams can use. Martin/Granger would be a good wing combo. Hibbert is a core piece up and coming to build around. Roy is young 7'2 long and lengthy and a very good passer.
Yeh this is who we should go after hard. Roy Hibbert is a great get for a team but they might move Danny Granger before they decide to move a young center of that quality. Big guys are hard to find.
The Rockets as they are built now will not contend but neither will them finish at the very bottom of the league. That is a recipe for an extended period of mediocrity -- ask the Astros of the past few years. I'd rather blow this team up and cumulate picks/young players to start rebuilding. Unless you are located in Florida, the only way to get a superstar/impact player in this league is via draft. And a 10-14th pick in the draft won't get it done. I'd rather the Rockets be very bad for a couple of years than be mediocre for a decade.
Very disappointing news about Yao. I really feel for the guy. But we must move forward..and must find a franchise player, by whatever means, whatever path we can find...that's what GM's get paid big bucks to do...
100% right DD. We will really get to see what type of GM he is when the pressure is upon him so quick.
Either blow it up or trade away some of our main guys. We are dangerously close to become the next Golden State Warriors.
Ok I am coming around. Maybe we do need to tank by getting rid of all our older players. Trade the better players for draft picks and young guys. Get the highest draft you can and then start rebuilding. The win now with Yao era is officially over anyways.
We have enough players , expiring contracts, and picks to restock two teams. Morey will definitely have this team in great shape either at the trade deadline or this summer or probably both. No one can offer what we have to offer. And other players have to now look seriously at Houston as a destination knowing that Yao's fate has been sealed. And if we don't make majors trades then we have about as good a mix of young, near star to star level, and veteran talent to be very competetive and fun to watch until the team gels. Not much drop off in the meantime if you ask me. I am STOKED!
