I'm a little concerned with what I'm seeing right now... In terms of our ability to make trades and improve the team, things are looking a little bleak. I think that Rudy, through all his wheeling and dealing over the last 4 seasons, may have finally run the well dry. Do any of you agree? Here's my take as usual, REALISTIC instead of OPTIMISTIC ; ) . The problem the Rockets have is that everybody besides Barkley has been playing so crappily that they would have to trade half their team (which right now looks like an entire team of scrubs) to get anyone who could make a difference. On top of that, the person they were trading for would probably have to have a drug/attitude problem -- that's the only way the other team would want to make the deal for a bunch of scrubs. I think the Rockets have traded and dealt their way into a deep hole. The roster they have was built around two veterans -- once you lose those two guys, you have nothing but scrubs. I don't care what anyone says about Shandon or Francis, neither of them have proven anything on the NBA level yet. Any player can have a huge game on any given night (like Sherman Douglas and Jamie Feick the other night). So, they are scrubs until proven otherwise. My point is that the Rockets USED to have rosters made up of NBA players... i.e. '97-'98 roster Hakeem Charles Barkley Clyde Drexler Kevin Willis Mario Elie Sam Mack (god knows why HE isn't playing for us right now, instead of the "Blizzard") or the '93 - '94 roster Otis Thorpe Mario Elie Vernon Maxwell Kenny Smith Sam Cassell Robert Horry Hakeem Olajuwon Those guys were bonafide NBA players. Now this is our proven NBA roster: Hakeem Olajuwon (on injured list) Charles Barkley (career over) How are we going to trade our way out of this mess? Simple: We're not. You can't trade scrubs for NBA players (well I guess some would argue that point, but I digress). Couple that with the fact that Rudy and C.D. have so ingeniously tied up all that cap money with Kelvin Cato (who is getting less and less minutes every day for some unknown reason), and our spending on the free agent market is limited. (If I'm Les Alexander, I'm thinking... "Hmmm, first they said we should bring in Brent Price and pay him 19 million. Then, Rudy never gave him any serious minutes when he WAS healthy. Then they said I should pay Matt Maloney 17 million and right after that Rudy benched him. NOW, they've talked me into giving this Cato kid 42 million and he's playing 15 minutes a night... When am I going to stop wasting my money???") This is going to be a slow rebuilding process. Either Hakeem will retire early so we can sign a free agent worth a damn next year (like Tim Duncan) or we will have to rely on draft picks and journeymen until the summer of 2001. Another thing... What the hell is Rudy doing with Francis?? I think maybe he's kicking himself right about now for making that trade. If he's not going to give the guy minutes, or if he's not as "coachable" as Rudy would like (ala Sam Cassell) what the hell did he go out and deal Othella Harrington (who's averaging 17 pts and almost 10 boards a game right now -- just about what Barkley was averaging). What people forget is that Steve Patterson built the team that won the two championships (aside from the Clyde Drexler deal, which worked out pretty well). He did it with a PLAN in place and stuck to his plan and build the team piece by piece. I just don't see that with Rudy. I think he needs to stop being GM and just coach, or he needs to quit. That's just my feeling.
AXEMAN: I don't see too many scrubs on the team, but I do see a team play like bunch of scrubs. As matter fact, I think Rockets are one big man from being a decent team, not a championship team, but can beat teams like Nets, Celtics, and 76ers. But the thing is that I really don't think any new addition will make any huge difference. They had Hakeem, Chuck, and Pippen, how good were they? Then they had Hakeem, Chuck, Francis and drastically improved "Cat", how good were they? They best thing for now is for Rudy to get these guys play as a team, on both offense and defense. No more one-on-one kind of game.
Axeman, Just because they have a lot of players who have yet to make a name for themselves, does not mean they are not talented NBA players. Rudy has done an amazing job of bringing in a lot of talented and highly respected players. Francis is a potential superstar. Cato recently blew away Olawankandi in a poll of promising young centers when he got more than 65% of the votes. Many teams wanted Cato. Mobley is highly respected by many players and surely was a steal for a second round draft pick. Rudy was widely crisitized for selecting Kenny Thomas instead of that drug addic out of UTEP and his choice of these two was definitely correct. In fact, he may have another solid player player with Kenny who has the size and potential of being an all-star if he continues to develop. Thomas Hamilton was sought by several teams and is one of the very, very few prospects who has a chance of defending Shaq. Hambone has gone from being a joke to being a decent player. He still has the potential to be the Shaq defender we MUST have and a decent backup center. The main failures have been Walt Williams and Shandon Anderson. These guys have killed the Rockets this season and are the ones who are most responsible for the poor record. Shandon is playing the level he has always played at. I think Rudy was hoping he could take it to the next level as a starter but that's not the case so far. Walt has completely choked under the pressure of starting. However, you still have to give all of these players a chance to develop. Rudy cannot bring in veterans to compliment a superstar like Hakeem because Hakeem is no longer at that level. He could do that before but he does not have that luxary anymore and there are only 3-4 players in the league at any time who are that dominant. The best hope is that Francis will develop into a superstar and he can build a team around him. Maybe like the Detroit Pistons with Issah Thomas and all the solid role players they had. ------------------ Doesn't Rudy know that there are geniuses at clutchcity.net!!
Axeman, Elie and Cassell built their reputations in '93-'94. They too were nobodies before that year. Of all the scrubs we have this year, how do you know we won't have a few guys build their reputations this year in the same way? As for Mack, he's still a scrub now. It seems the longer he stays out of the league, the better his reputation becomes. When we had Mack the first time, he played 1 unbelievable game and was otherwise uninteresting. He was a good gunner for us last season but his other skills were unremarkable and easily replaceable.
I would rather have the guys we have now. They offer the brightest future for this team. We are no longer a contending team shooting for the Championship. We are rebuilding. There is no need to find "that one guy" who will take us to the Finals this year or next. We need to form chemistry for a brand new team. In my opinion, we have a fantastic foundation for the future. Forget about Duncan or Hill. Even if Hakeem retires this year we still wouldn't be able to swing those deals, unless we gave up everyone else on the team for a sign and trade. I would consider that very counter-productive. Rudy has done a great job with his acquisitions. He's probably saved us from a few years of really sucking. One year of chemistry building is much easier to take than 4 or 5 years of rebuilding. Concerning your list of "NBA Players": Hakeem - injured Charles Barkley - retired Clyde Drexler - retired Kevin Willis - Do you ever hear his name anymore? Mario Elie - Good for emotional leadership only these days. Sam Mack - Future up in the air. Great role player Otis Thorpe - role player Vernon Maxwell - great role player, got himself kicked off team Kenny Smith - streaky shooter, so-so PG Sam Cassell - coach's nightmare, ballhog, freelancer Robert Horry - underacheiver You act like we gave up the world for scrubs. Those guys could not give us any more than what we have now. Most of those guys benefitted directly from Dream's awesomeness. A line-up of Cassell, Maxwell, Elie, Horry and Willis would still suck. No one guy (minus Dream, Barkley and Drexler) on your list could make a difference. At least we now have a roster of players with tremendous potential. I wouldn't go as far as to call Francis, Mobley, Cato and Anderson scrubs, especially considering who you listed as real "NBA Players".
First, we need to remember Rudy is the coach and C.D. is the GM. Both are equally responsible for the current roster problems. Secondly, I do believe that all the wheeling and dealing over the past 3 seasons has put the team in a vulnerable position. They have created this hype about the Rockets being a great, player friendly organization to play for and that hype has brought Houston some great talents, but not all of these talents have matched the offensive and defensive philosophies of the coaching staff. Now the Rockets are left in a bind because they simply can not win games with the roster of players they have aquired through the various trades and free agency pick ups. So what is management to do? They can fire the coach and GM and try and rebuild with a new coach that may be able to utilize the players we currently have with an offense and defense that will take advantage of our players talents OR we can do more wheeling and dealing. Either way its not going to be an easy transition. Now onto the Mack debate. Interesting that Mack's skills are so easily replacable yet not one player on our current team has come close to replacing Mack's talents on the court. In 32 m.p.g. as a starter(15 games none of which I believe were with the Rockets) mack shot 42% from inside, as well as outside the arc while averaging 13.2 p.p.g. He also made 95% of his free throws, something we all know the Rox are sorely lacking this year. In 20 m.p.g. as a reserve Mack shot 45% from inside and 38% from outside while averaging 9.3 p.p.g. In that time he shot 84$ from the line. Personally I would like to see him brought off the Rockets bench in the same capacity that Bullard is. Mack can shoot the 3 with good accuracy and isn't afraid to get out and run with the other guys, something Bullard will never be able to do. No, he's not the Rockets savior, but I think his skills could complement this current roster better than any other available player out there. ------------------ There is no offense without a good defense.
My friends, I didn't mean to say that we don't have talented players on the team. Anyone who makes the NBA is talented. But, none are proven everyday NBA starters. Until they are, you can't say they are. Sure, Cato and Francis are POTENTIAL superstars... But, ARE they SUPERSTARS??? Not yet. And if Rudy only plays Cato for 12 minutes a night, it's going to be hard to justify his salary, or for him to become a superstar... Most of you didn't even discuss my point, instead you're arguing about whether the Rockets have good players or not. My point is only this: Currently, the Rockets have NO players with significant trade value. Their trade value will go up IF they live up to potential. I'm assuming that Rudy doesn't want to trade Francis (although we've learned ANYONE is tradable in Rudy's world). So, that being the case, how do we improve the team outside of free agency? And how do we get quality free agents without cap room?? That's my only point. Does anyone have an answer to those two questions?
feed, water, and wait for them to grow and blossom. [This message has been edited by Air Francis (edited December 14, 1999).]
What do you think the Rockets need so bad? I see it as they could use a defensive minded full-sized small forward (one bigger than Shandon to guard the better threes) and a power forward who rebounds. It would be nice if we could grab someone who could score in the post at one of these positions, but we have several players who "could" develop that part of their games given some time and hard work(Cato, Thomas, Hamilton, and maybe Anderson come to mind). I agree that our best hope for a contending team is to be similar to the Pistons with Francis as our Isiah. Could we get a SF or a PF of those descriptions in the draft? I'm no expert, but it's been done (Horry was an 11th pick, Ratliff was 18th). We don't even need players of that caliber in my opinion. And if Rudy really feels we do, we could part with Drew or a Mobley (we have tons of depth at guard) to move up. Personally, I think it might be a little picky to say Rudy and CD have painted us into a corner with trades. I would love to get rid of a Williams through some sort of trade, but if we can't, I wouldn't call that one Rudy mistake (if you want to call it that) the Apocalypse. After all, he did get us Francis (and however you define a proven NBA player, there are not many players in the league I would rather have on my roster in terms of preparing for the future or otherwise). We have lots of young guys who may not win a lot this season, but I feel our future is much brighter than if we still had Willis and Elie instead of some of our young guys. [This message has been edited by oakdogg (edited December 14, 1999).] [This message has been edited by oakdogg (edited December 14, 1999).]
