I personally am sad that we lost Hakeem, because I still think he has some game left. I believe he will be out to prove that this season. The Raptors are going to be on national T.V. something like 20 times or so, which means (if Dream still has the skills) that he could play really well on national television and get the national spotlight and fame that he didn't always get while he was with the Rockets. Obviously, anyone who is a fan of the NBA knows that Olajuwon is among the greatest centers of all time, but they probably did not get to see him much except when the Rockets won in '94 and '95. By getting to see Olajuwon on television, most fans will probably develop a higher opinion of him, assuming he plays well. I am sure there plenty of fans out there who were not blessed with the opportunity to see the Dream Shake like we were. Well, now they will get that chance. Practically everyone loves Vince Carter as well, and the excitement of seeing one of the game's heroes team up with arguably the most exciting player in the game will attract a ton of attention from fans in my opinion. I will certainly turn on the television or purchase league pass for the opportunity to watch Dream swat a shot while Vince grabs the ball and takes it downcourt for a ridiculous 720 dunk :-D. Anyways, it appears the Rockets' relationship with Dream was over last season, as it is hard to deny that he both was underutilized and did not consistently help improve our team. By moving on to the Raptors, he takes a risk in that he could underachieve and be looked upon with contempt by many. However, the Raptors seem to be excited about him while we criticized him at length last season. Instead of being bitter and throwing harsh words at Hakeem, why not be proud about the opportunity for him to give the Raptors and many fans in the league something to be excited about?
someone mentioned there are no winners in the trade. actually there are a few. the raptors and dan fegan. (sorry if someone mentioned this already)
"Jeff: If you had to pick one forward and one guard to build around, for your brand new expansion team, the Hakeem Olajuwons, who would you take? Hakeem: I'd pick Garnett, for the forward, and for the guard, I pick Steve Francis (chuckling) Jeff: Ok, Steve Francis just got thrown out of the league for being too good, so now who would you take? Hakeem: (laughing) uhh... that's a tough question... a tough question... gimme some names... " damn what a sell out. he didn't say maurice taylor. (jeff of insidehoops by the way.)
ZRB, I really don't know why I feel like I should explain this to you, but I am going to anyway. It's not like it is any of your business and even after explaining this, you'll probably still not get it. I am a fan of the Houston Rockets TEAM, not of one or two players. Yes, I like Steve Francis, Cuttino Mobley, Kenny Thomas, Mo Taylor, etc. But if any of them wound up leaving the Rockets, I would be disappointed but excited too, because I know that we would get some new players that (hopefully) were equally as good. However, I would still be a fan of the Rockets TEAM. Players come and go but the team will always be there. Now, Olajuwon is entitled to do what he wants, and I would have no problem with him wanting to go to Toronto except that he made the comment that the Rockets should do everything possible to keep last year's team together and not bring in anyone else. ZRB, you never mention this fact when you defend your hero. So, how about it? How do you explain that statement made by Hakeem? Treeman hit the nail on the head when he said that Olajuwon played the Rockets plain and simple. Now, maybe you can see where I am coming from, but if this was too complicated for you to follow then I don't care. Are you going to stay a fan of the Rockets? Or are you going to be a Raptors fan? What are you going to do when Olajuwon finally retires? Start liking Kelvin Cato??
Actually Jordan was back in the league in '95 when the Rockets won the Champioinship. Jordan and his Bulls were knocked out of the playoffs by the Magic that year.
Yeah...whatever... crackhead. MJ would have been giving BJ's to Dream in 93 and 94. I am stuck in the middle on this one. One second I wanna deport Dream the next I want him back....
The real sell-outs are those immatures who curse after Hakeem who don't know **** about professional basketball.
I don't think anticipated a lowball offer from the Rockets. When he said that he wanted them to bring the team back, he assumed he would get at least a decent offer (since they aren't going to spend the rest of it on the other FA's). He didn't, and that certainly confirmed his fears about staying with the Rockets. He said he knew he wasn't coming back when he realized that he was NOT going to be involved in the offense and the Rockets confirmed it with their "Thanks for all you've done for us but here is a backup value contract" offer. Especially on the heels of San Antonio letting DA go to retain Robinson. They showed a major commitment to go down with the Admiral's ship (pardon the pun). Would you have taken that offer as a sign of overall commitment if you were Hakeem? I don't see how. I can't understand why you would begrudge Hakeem going where he will get the chance to be a major cog in the offense with a good team in THE OTHER conference. They can compete for a title and why is that bad? We haven't lost anyone waiting for Hakeem, if that is indeed the case (we don't really know). And we got two draft picks out of it. We've seen how extra picks can help a franchise (Houston, Orlando, Clippers). And we get the cap space everyone's been clamoring about. I say get over it. ZRB is right. Hakeem did enough for 20 years for the city of Houston. Shouldn't we show appreciation for that and wish him well on his way out? I say its time for Rockets fans to show some class, and thank Hakeem for the memories....Phi Slamma Jamma.....'86, '94, '95....
Didn't Olajuwon say that the Rockets "were never in it" when it all came down to it? Hayes Street, you and I and everybody else except for ZRB knew that Olajuwon wasn't coming back. After all, he was unhappy with his playing time and he wanted a trade to Miami. Even after he supposedly made up with Rudy, he still wouldn't say after the final game against Minnesota if he was coming back to Houston. So, I figured that he'll either retire or go somewhere else. Then, lo and behold, he makes the comment about keeping the team together. I'm sitting there thinking to myself, "Damn, Dream wants to come back. If he can stay healthy, we'll only not be a shoo-in for the playoffs, but we could possibly do some damage." Then I read rockHEAD's post about seeing him in the grocery store and what he said to rockHEAD. I thought to myself that if he does this, then I'll lose all respect for him. Guess what, Hayes Street, he did do it. The Rockets may have had initially lowballed him, but let's remember that there were other players that needed to be re-signed plus the Rockets did not want to go over the luxury tax like some other teams (mainly Portland). If you noticed, the Rockets kept increasing their offer to him. If they really wanted to lowball him, they would have not increased their offers. However, other than 20 games last year, has Olajuwon played well enough in the last few seasons to deserve 7 to 10 million? I think you know the answer to that one.
This may not be an appropriate forum for this, but it did seem somewhat related to the topic. Anyone want to buy Hakeem's 1994 championship trophy? http://cgi.ebay.com/aw-cgi/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=1174984564
The only thing left for me to say to the Hakeem haters is "Grow up and use your brain!" I don't see any sense in bashing Hakeem any harder than bashing Clinton, Condit or whoever else. Learn your economics 101 or visit any other non-Rockets BBS. You will see that most fans are pretty positive about this trade.
KD: I have no problem with the trade either. I just saw the item on eBay and I thought it was kind of tragic in light of all the loyalty many of the fans have expressed for him on this site. I only wish Hakeem could have gotten even more money. I wish him the best. I wish a great season for Cato as well. Don't get me wrong, I would likely have done the same thing. But the whole point of the string is that Hakeem chose money over spending his last years on the team. I don't disrespect Hakeem for selling out, it was a sound business decision, but he did sell out.
The Spurs didn't let DA go to sign Robinson. They had the money to sign him, but wouldn't commit to as many years as Anderson wanted.
This is blatantly false. The Rockets BEST offer was $13 million for 3 years. That is around four million a year. That is less than most teams exception. That is ridiculous. That is hardly a big move on the Rockets part to show their commitment to Hakeem. And they have plenty of money to pay Hakeem more than $4 million. No one has ever contended that they could not pay him more, or that they were worried about the getting into the luxury tax with a deal for Hakeem. My contention is that Hakeem said "ok, I know I haven't felt like I'm a part of the teams current focus, but we did play pretty good together at the end of the year. We should all come back..." And he decided that even though at times in the season he wanted to be somewhere else, he would let the Rockets show whether they were sincere or not with their offer. Then the Rockets lowballed him. Then he says "they were never in it." Naturally, with other teams interest in Hakeem, he is going to take the lowball as a lack of commitment, as you would if your boss paid your understudy twice what they offered you and then lowballed you in a contract year. It all fits with what Hakeem has said, that he wanted to be somewhere that they valued what he could do now, not in the past. The Rockets and a lot of you think he is through, and he wanted to be somewhere they didn't think he was through. There is nothing wrong with that. And yes, look at the Free Agent center market and he is definitely worth 7 million dollars. That is what we pay Cato after all.
Hayes Street: 3 things--1) CD kept increasing the Rockets offer, but Olajuwon finally waved them off. Like I said, if they were really trying to lowball him, why did they keep increasing their offers and only stopped because Olajuwon told them so? 2) How were the Rockets supposed to re-sign Taylor, Norris, Anderson, and Bullard and not go over the luxury tax if they gave Hakeem what he thought he was worth which was obviously in his mind an exorbitant amount of money. 3) It's not like the guy wasn't being compensated nicely. After all he was making over 15 million to sit on the bench in street clothes as he was getting over having a gnat in his eye or a hangnail. And when he was in there with the exception of 20 games, he was getting his shot blocked by the rim and getting posturized by Vinsanity and others. Yea, I guess he still deserves 10 to 15 million a year. Hell, he didn't even deserve 5 million and you know it with the way he played. He knew that he had the Rockets over a barrel and he used "the disrespecting me" angle as his way of getting what he wanted. You know, Hayes Street, I would have thought that you were smarter than that. I expect that stuff from ZRB or the Freak but not from you. However, you did think that the '83 Rockets were JUST as good or BETTER than this year's Rockets team and that Ralph Sampson was the greatest thing since sliced bread.
Manny, I don't think you are seeing the full picture. 1. The Rocket's low balled him, pure and simple. The very fact that the Raptors were willing to pay him $17 mil over three years sets his market value. For the Rockets (or any of us for that matter) to expect Hakeem to accept $13mil would be assuming he is giving us home town discount. I would have been shocked if he had of. Hakeem finally "waved the Rockets off" because he knew they were not going to offer enough to match TO.. 2. The luxury tax has nothing to do with it, its the salary cap and committments to Taylor and Anderson that were made at the inception of their respective contracts. Because of Hakeem's massive unrenounced salary cap hit (approx $24mil) the Rockets had to renounce or sign him before making any other moves. Not only that, in order to meet the prior commitments to Taylor and Anderson, they had to sign him to an amount that still left them room UNDER the cap - Neither Taylor nor Anderson could be signed using exceptions or Bird rights becuase it would not have been anough to meet their demands. 3. Whatever he earned in the past is irelevant. Just because we paid him more than "fair value last year" doesn;t mean Hakeem should accept less this year. Hakeem (and I) would argue that last years $16mil was payback for all his years of underpaid service prior to that. You may well get "compensated nicely" in what you do, but id anyone going to ask you to accept less money next year because you made out well last year? I don't think so, thats not how business works. As for my personal thoughts on the matter - I'm incredibly disappointed, but I can live with it. I think the Rockets probably did the right thing, as hard as it was. For all those who love the Rockets team, not the player, I agree with you, but it is impossible for me to disassociate Hakeem from the Rockets - by and large he WAS THE ROCKETS for my entire adult life. It will take me a long time to get over it. It would have been great if both parties could have had their "loyalty" manifest itself by both agreeing to a discount on each others offers, but it didn't happen, and the reasons are understandable. Its not a sellout.
"2) How were the Rockets supposed to re-sign Taylor, Norris, Anderson, and Bullard and not go over the luxury tax if they gave Hakeem what he thought he was worth which was obviously in his mind an exorbitant amount of money. " For starters, you save some $$ to pay Hakeem by not overpaying for a defensively inept, liability as a rebounder, 13 ppg player like Maurice Taylor. Taylor's contract was ridiculously bloated. He isn't worth half of what he got.
