Like many have said, I think Chad Ford is referring to teams' track records over the past decade or so. The Rudy T administration was founded moreso on loyalty to players than on fiscal responsibility. Ever since Rudy T left and JVG took over, the Rockets front office (Carroll Dawson, Dennis Lindsay and later Daryl Morey) was able to turn the "cap management ship" around. Since 2003, the Rockets have made very few bad management decisions. The moves they've made have been low-risk, high-reward for the most part. If you look at the "misses" they've made, you can see that they were not catastrophic to the Rockets' long-term plans: --2004: Rockets sign Charlie Ward to 3-year deal (two years guaranteed) - Ward got injured early and didn't really play much, but he was signed for only a little above the veteran minimum and actually helped the team as an assistant coach. --2004: Rockets sign Bob Sura to a 4-year deal - Coming off a phenomenal half-season with Atlanta, the Rockets got Sura for a very reasonable salary (~$4M per). Sura only played 2/3 of one season for the Rockets, but it was a great 2/3 of a season. Also, insurance (I believe) has picked up much of his salary recently; and his contract is still a valuable trade asset. --2005: Rockets sign Stromile Swift to a 5-year deal - Signing a young, athletic PF to a full MLE deal was by no means an imprudent move. Guys like Swift were getting much more money based on potential alone. While it didn't work out (we probably could have gotten more from Memphis in the Battier trade had it not been for Swift's "bust" status), it was definitely a risk worth taking at the time. --2005: Rockets trade Mike James for Rafer Alston - At the time, Bob Sura had suffered a major injury (that he'd never come back from) and the Rockets needed a true PG to play with T-Mac and Yao. Little did they know that their two stars would miss significant time that year and a scoring PG like James would have helped THAT team more. The next year, Alston was stuck as the only PG who his coach trusted and was played into the ground. Now, playing in tandem with James should allow Alston to play more within himself without having to play 45 minutes per game. --2006: Rockets trade Swift + the 8th pick for Shane Battier - See above. Many wished the Rockets would have gotten more in the trade, but the trade netted them a solid, top-flight defensive player and allowed them to rid themselves of a bad contract in the process. Not a bad backup plan on draft day after losing out on drafting/trading for Brandon Roy. And, yes, I'd rather have Battier than Swift and Thabo Sefalosha (Rudy Gay-o-philes, get your facts straight). --2006: Rockets trade Scott Padgett and its TE for Jake Tsakalidis - Many were disappointed that the Rockets did not get more for their large trade exception generated in the Moochie Norris-Maciej Lampe deal the year before. But with the clock about to expire and with Yao still out with a broken leg, the Rockets were able to add a decent backup center (a TRUE center) in exchange for the last guy on the bench. Jake actually played some decent minutes to fill the gap before Yao came back. Plus, Jake is a free agent now and comes off the books. All in all, the Rockets' management has done a very good job the past four years. With Daryl Morey's ability to understand the nuances of the salary cap, I think we'll look back in five years and say that the Rockets have one of the top five or six management teams in the league. His moves might not always be popular (see Brooks, Aaron), but Morey will make prudent decisions in the best interests of the team long-term.
You dont think Tmac is worth the max anymore, Who would you rather have on your team honestly. Tmac or Lewis. Lewis is just as injury prone and tmac is a sold 25 pt. 6 assist 4 rebound guy. He is still a star maybe he cant take over games as well as he used to but id rather pay him than lewis.
Ford seems like old news- it will never do to useDetroit and SA as the performance models -there was a lot of luck involved in both. Rockets are doing fine now. Ford needs to update....
Not sure you can say we are mismanaging the cap now, when we had the flexibility to take on Butler's contract and sign Scola, primarily due to San Antonio's luxury tax woes.
you are right on with your post! but you are even more right about eddie griffin. him not "working out" absolutley destroyed us. he is THE POWER FORWARD that we needed to get us through a tough stretch. he may be crazy but he was VERY talented. it is sad to think about how bad we needed him. even if we had kept rj, i'm not sure it would've been enough. on to cap issues... IMO the key is not overpaying your mediocre players. we have two max contracts. while this is true, any team in the league would kill to have either of them (yao and tmac). filling in the wholes around two max contracts will work IF WE DRAFT RIGHT (which is where we have failed miserably). having inexpensive talent for a few years is the key. then if you have a good group you can continue to resign those players (and basically overpay) and hopefully win a title or two. picking up FA after FA is pricey-er than just drafting right from the get go. i hope morey's money-ball helps the rockets here.
If you look like a moron, and make moronic statements then you probably are a moron....therefor Chad Ford is a Moron!!!!!!!!
I think if you set the time machine back 3-4 years the critique is accurate and a big part of the reason we stunk so much for so long. Rudy and CD were loyal to a fault and overpaid / overcomitted to long list of folks (Matt Maloney, Kelvin Cato, Maurice Taylor, Moochie Norris, to name a few).
dont worry morey is here to save the day. No more heavy howard contract and vspans, next to be taken care of are sura and alston's 4mil. Nice to have a MIT grad doing your accounting.
It's true. For several years our cap management was almost as bad as Chad Ford's "journalism." Speaking of which, will somebody please post the part of his new column where he says McGrady doesn't deserve the max? I need to add it to his windsurfing portfolio: “On paper, the McGrady-for-Francis swap has the potential to be a disaster for the Magic. … Francis has as much baggage as McGrady, and possibly more.” -- Chad Ford, June 22, 2004 “This is what happens when you let a hockey guy run an NBA team.” -- Chad Ford, June 23, 2004 “A number of NBA GMs snickered [at] Weisbrod, whose only real experience to date had been running a minor-league hockey franchise … When word leaked [about the Francis-for-McGrady] deal … just about everyone in the league shook their head and said, off the record, of course, ‘I told you so.’ Now it might be Weisbrod who is having the last laugh.” -- Chad Ford, Oct. 20, 2004 "Put together Weisbrod's scouting report on McGrady with Francis' take on Van Gundy, and it's not a stretch to wonder how well the two are going to get along this season." -- Chad Ford, Oct. 25, 2004 “John Weisbrod would consider trading ANYONE on the Magic if he didn't believe they were pulling their weight. He's been unhappy with Francis' effort, leadership and defense.” -- Chad Ford, Feb. 16, 2005 “TMac looks Jordan-esque for the Rockets. … [The Magic] never should've traded T-Mac … Why didn't the Magic fix the culture of losing in Orlando instead of scapegoating one superstar?” -- Chad Ford, April 27, 2005
Given that Mcgrady is never going to give you a full season due to injuries from about 2005 onward, you can definitely argue that he's not worth it anymore.
i think we're starting to look better. mcgrady is a max player. he has another season like 05-06 and i'll question it, but his ability is absolutely still max-level.
Here ya go Will. For everyone's bafflement/bashing: -T-mac deserved his max contract when he signed it. I don't think anyone is going to argue against that. -While T-mac has had his injury probs lately, so have Kobe, Dwade, Nash, and AMARE. And Melo was busy punching and running. -If T-mac's contract ended TODAY, I think he would get some MAX contract offers just cuz Rashard Lewis has set the bar kind of high (inaccurately) So, I don't know if T-mac would DESERVE a max contract offer dollar for dollar compared to LBJ, Wade or other guys, but I think he would get some max offers because of the overpaying clueless Management around the league (see walton, luke; lewis,rashard; most of FA class of summer 2007)
I wouldn't pay tmac or yao max dollars. They are always hurt. You would be crazy to give them a 20 million dollar contract. Kobe, Lebron, Wade, Dirk and Duncan all deserve max dollars. But out of all of them, I'd probably only want Duncan on my team as a max dollar player, possibly lebron.
Correct- we basically overpaid on every white guy who played point or could shoot the 3 but do nothing else.
o really? only 3 other players can do what tmac does (kobe,bron,wade) only 2-3 other players do what yao does offensively (duncan, kg, dirk) but does dirk deserve it? u can argue howard does more on both ends than dirk. i mean, its harder to shut down howard than dirk b/c u put midgets on dirk and he stays outside. wade will look like he's gonan be injury prone w/ the way he plays. and he says amare/carmelo/howard deserves the max more? cmon chad ford does not know anything. remember he said the tmac-francis trade was at best a wash for both teams when it happened. i'm sure tmac's next season will shut his pie-hole and call tmac "jordan-esque once again"
for 50 plus games a year that he is available. That's not max level - that 50-60/80 of max level. And don't get me started on the playoffs.
