KQT....I was truly interested in the topic from a GM/Sport perspective. I too believe that Morey made a mistake. He gave away assets without having a solid commitment from Bosh. Lin has value, the picks have value...the money is secondary since there is no issue with cap space. Basically the Lakers gave the Rockets the difference between a decent player salary and 15 million for a starter and 2 draft picks. You can comment all you want how the GARM is better for it....that tells me that anyone who makes that comment isn't as much a fan as they claim to be (not saying you personally). The Rockets got taken on the deal and Morey should be held accountable for it. What got me commenting was the equally oppressive remarks from the LOH's and the "Rockets" fans who are just as much to blame for the chaos here as LOF's.
Just put me on ignore and be done with it. Because another non-topic related post from you and that's what I'll do.
Until the point comes where the trade exception expires without us using it I will withhold judgement. If say we pull off a deal where Dragic fits into that exception then it was a home run of a move. Just too early to tell. The picks aren't very attractive pieces. 1st rounders in the mid to late 20s(which is where it would likely end up being had we kept it)can honestly be viewed by teams as something they don't really want due to the fact it's a guaranteed salary on a player who has a slim chance of turning into anything. OKC convinced their late 1st rounder to not sign with the team. The Rockets didn't want to sign Capela to the team this season. At this point very early 2nd rounders are much more valuable than late firsts. Bottom line the deal had to be made for even a chance at bringing in Bosh. Didn't happen, but it's still possible for it to avoid being viewed as a bad move. I'm sure most people who despised the move won't agree, but I think what we asked of Lin can mostly be replaced with who we have and like I already mentioned that exception could very well be used to bring in a high quality player.
No question...if a Dragic can be brought in. That would certainly redeem Morey although at this point, short of the NOLA pick, what other asset can be used for trade bait? The Rockets lost arguably their 3-5th best players and came away with nothing but 1 draft pick. To your point future 1's are meaningless because of the likely draft spot.
The rockets lost: 1 greedy and big mouthed roleplayer who was bad on defense and replaced him with a better shooter and solid defender for half the price plus more touches for tjones 1 unhappy overpaid bench player and replaced him with 1 or 2 bench players who are more than happy providing similar rebounding and defense and cap space 1 turn over prone mentally weak overpaid bench player whom nobody wanted and was a negative asset and replaced him with a 8m type, cap space, a solid 3pt shooter (Daniels), low turnover pg (ish), and minutes for either Canaan or Johnson
Disagree.....Rockets lost 2 key role players (our only key role players) from a team that won 54 games and thus far have replaced them with zilch. Lin was not Casspi, he actually helped our bench quite a bit last year and was basically our only bench offense when Asik had his so called injury. You are on crack cocaine if you think Ish Smith is of almost equal value to a player like Lin and can make up for his departure. Also, a first round pick is valuable as one injury to Harden or Howard and we have Dorsey or Daniels starting and we now drop from the twenties down to the low teens. You can get so much more with 2 draft picks and an expiring player at the deadline. Terrible, terrible trade that will and already has cost us dearly!!!
Even though I also question why someone who follows a player from team to team still hangs around, I'll address your posts in this thread regardless. You seem like a pretty intelligent dude. Your posts are normally well written and from time to time I've seen you make good points. You acknowledge that some of the Lin crazies are indeed irrational and admit you are a Lin fan before your are a team fan. I can respect that honesty. But here's where you lose me. It's very clear you share a few things with the Lin crazies. Like the belief that he was being held back, played wrong, or forced to play with a ball hog in Harden and those reasons were the sole reason his play wasn't at Linsanity levels. Some of those points could be legitimate arguments and some have flat out been proven wrong. Instead of picking your battles and trying to debate an argument that really COULD be won, you chose to take the stance of the LoF and throw up those straw men and smoke screens to deflect what some posters try to seriously discuss. I bring this up for a good reason. You're never going to be happy rooting for a single player if you can't rationally evaluate him. You will always be blaming a coach, teammate, fan base, whatever for said player's shortcomings. That's where extreme homerism comes in. For people that have lived and died with a team for years it's almost impossible to be totally unbiased. I've fallen into this trap myself. But it's a trap indeed. You'll always been making excuses for your team/player/whatever until you can, at least temporarily, suspend your rooting interest to evaluate with your mind, not your heart. I consider myself to be a reasonable adult. I hate to be wrong as much as the next guy, but blindly defending something without taking a step back and really, REALLY evaluating the root cause of the debate is always going to end badly. I've done it with almost every team or player I idolized in my youth. For me, I was a MJoF. But after years of watching sports I realized that I was just being a fan that wanted to believe that my team/player/hero was above reproach. I'm not calling you wrong, just making an opinion that accepting things as they are, instead of what you perceive they should or could be, could lead to a less frustrating experience with sports.
Who really cares? The guy is gone. Those acting like his production will be impossible to replace are giving his time here too much credit.
I think he was a decent young player who provided a good spark off the bench. I hate to see the lost draft picks. I hope they are late picks, but the thing is you never know. If harden and or Howard get injured next year, god forbid, the pelicans pick may be worse than the traded rockets pick. You just really never know. I hate losing those picks. You also can hit a flier late in a round because drafting is a crapshoot. Kawhi wasn't that high a pick, 15 or so, and he is a finals MVP.
Jet...you have a point about an obviously biased opinion on my part as well as other Lin fans. BTW - I never considered myself a LOF. I rooted for the Rockets and wanted them to succeed. I think this experience with the Lakers will likely settle a lot of things for Lin, his fans....and even the detractors. He'll get the PG opportunity (or so they claim) that many of us thought he didn't get in Houston. It's all on him now. As far as the Rockets, the questions about Harden and how he co-exists with a higher-caliber guard won't be answered until a Rondo, Dragic, etc come to the team.
One of the best things about Harden is his ability to adapt to his team mates, he can feed off the reduced defensive attention of an even more elite wing partner in a way players like Dwyane Wade never could, or he can up his playmaking volume to suit an elite big. Harden is probably the 2nd most adaptable offensive player in the nba after the human swiss army knife, Lebron. Basically every other elite offensive player can only play one way, Harden can play at an elite level in about 3 different ways, and Lebron can play something like 6 (because he can move from perimeter to front court)
Everyone always focuses on the pump fakes but noone eevr nptices the frigging crossover dribble before that
