I am a long time Houston sports fan, and I have got to say that Houston has got to be the worst city in the country when it comes to loyalty. In all the time I lived in Houston I would have to say that the city just does not support the franchises that it has. All you wanna be Rockets fans sit there and rant and rave about how Rudy and CD are running the team into the ground. To me this is just another case of Houston fan having no patience. I remember when the Rockets dropped those games to Phoenix during the first title run, the "fans" were ready to drop the team like a bad habit. Most of you who are posting all these negative threads (Fire Rudy, Rice Sucks, CD must go) are probably the same fans who abandoned the team after those losses then jumped back on the wagon wearing your clutch city t-shirt. All of you band wagoners suck. Make up your mind! Either you support the team or you do not. Rudy and CD are the only reason this city has any titles to its name, for this they deserve more respect than you crappy, good for nothing "fans" give them. You all could not even support Fisher and the Oilers even though it was so obvious that he was doing the right thing by easing Steve Mcnair into the starting role. As far as I am concerned the city of Houston does not deserve to have any franchises untill they can show the loyalty to a franchise that has given so much to them. I guess what I am saying is Houston fans you should ashamed to even call yourselves fans.
Dude: I imagine you ever lived in another major sports city and seen the media and the fans circle the waters like sharks on Van Gundy, Floyd, Riley and many others when they "flounder." Trust me, they do it 10 times worse there...Three years in a row of not making the playoffs is unacceptable in today's professional sports scene. Most of the time, frustration on this board is merely having passion for your team! Loyalty is telling the truth and, yes, in some cases being critical. Dude, because someone disagrees with the President of the U.S. does not make them disloyal, does it? Just because a Fan or Fans express their frustration or "fair" criticism does not make them not a fan. What makes someone a fan is watching whether they suck or are great. Being a fan is not just sitting back and letting things roll off your back when you lose. Being a fan is having knowledge and passion to cheer and be critical. 99% of the people on this board rant and rave and are still watching game in and game out no matter what. The people on this board are actually the most loyal fans in Houston! That is not to be critical of other fans, but these fans read the box scores, go to rallies, are the first to buy tickets and the last to turn off the TV in a west coast game where the team is getting blown out. Most of the fans on this board are trying to provide resolution, not just criticism. You are new to the board, so take some time and review the knowledge and passion that comes out of the forum. Your statement is really unfounded and ignorant to the idea that we are allowed to be critical and that does not make us less of a fan. Actually, the people that just quit going to games, do not watch'em when the team is in the dumps are band wagonners.
They do it here in Dallas bigtime. You should hear people rip on the Cowboys. It is brutal. I agree with montgo, It is very similar in most cities where they actually care about their teams.
I may be new to posting, but not to merely viewing the insane rhetoric that is posted, I have viewed that for a couple of seasons now. Do not even compare Houston to a "major" city like New York. I love Houston and I love the teams that we have and have had, but you just can not compare. When this city can pack an arena night in and night out win or lose then you could compare. You could compare your selves as fans to L.A., that is a city that loves a team win it wins, won't show up when they lose. But their are alot of other things to do besides see a ball game in L.A., the same can not be said about Houston. If you want to talk about bad shooting performance, or players just not trying then that is all good. But when you want to talk about trading players and firing coaches 20 games into the season then you are just impatient and stupid. If you want to fire a coach who has not done jack for the city (Pitino in Philly) then that is cool, but you do not fire a man who has been your franchises sole reason for winning. I watched as Houston fans booed the Oilers out of town, then were dropping on their knees to give "favors" to the NFL if they would just give them that expansion franchise. The rose garden in portland sells out win or lose, madison sqaure garden sells out win or lose. If you want to sell out in Houston then you either: (A) Have to get 3 dream teamers together on the same team. (B) Win a title every year. (C) Or put a gun to 20,000 peoples heads to make them buy tickets. Offering sound advise is one thing, giving up on the team in the middle of a rebuilding process is another.
I agree to a degree. criticism and being frustrated is one thing, completely trashing players and coaches and being happy that a player is struggling just so you can say "I told you so" or wanting to fire a coach who has championship rings just because the team is losing even though half the roster is on th IR is ridiculous. I mean we're 20 games into the season people have already figured that the Rice trade is one of the worst trades ever, Francis isn't a real PG, Moochie is the worst back-up PG ever, Willis is an old has been, Griffin is just a 3pt gunner, Rudy can't run an offense, Rudy isn't using a 19 year old rookie right, this team really isn't talented, and we're the worse team in the NBA. This despite the fact that this team didn't even get a chance to develop chemistry since all the starters weren't regular starters for the Rockets last year, and the bench is totally rebuilt and is full of rookies. Our starting PG and PF are out, our starting SF and 2-guard aren't at 100%, and we're giving minutes to rookies like Torres, Griffin and T-Mo and people are wondering why this team isn't one of the elite teams in the NBA? This team is talented, they're also young and banged up. You have to give Rice more then 2 or 3 weeks to get into shape and fit into the system, and get into a rhythm. You have to wait until Mobley is 100%, and you have to wait until Francis is 100%. You also have to give young players a chance to learn. It's crazy to think this team would magically be on the same page, especially now with injuries. Now I'm disappointed they lost to the Bulls and Wizards, and I jumped the gun saying the season is over if they lost to them, the season isn't over they're only 6 games under-.500, but give the team a chance to grow.
<b>Most of the fans on this board are trying to provide resolution, not just criticism.</b> This is an interesting statement. To what end are we trying to provide resolution? Do any of us here, HONESTLY, believe we can provide any type of resolution to the current problems with the Rockets? Do we honestly believe our criticism, while heartfelt I'm sure, has any bering whatsoever on the team and how they play the games? If so, I think we are seriously delluding ourselves. It is FUN to get together and talk about our team. It is enjoyable to hash over our own ideas about what may or may not work. But, to suggest that we could bring any type of support to the team other than ticket sales, ratings, merchandise sales and a few other fan-related helpers is completely unrealistic. To even suggest that our thoughts are more advanced than those being paid to play, coach and manage the game is ridiculous. I'm not sure that you meant it this way, but I just wanted to stress the point because I think that some may actually feel this way.
One comment on Houston fans... I have found that fans in Houston ARE extremely fickle but that doesn't make them unique. The fact that only a small percentage of people who live in Houston currently are actually FROM Houston makes a big difference. For those of you who are from Houston but now live in other parts of the country, you know EXACLTY what I mean. You don't give up your loyalty to a team you love just because you move. Ask Clutch!!! However, I also think fans here are extremely impatient with TEAMS in addition to the normal impatience with players, coaches and owners. In other cities, you get criticism of the people on the team but people still go out and support the team by going to games and TALKING about them. In Houston, it seems that a losing team simply creates a lack of interest. My wife has said before that the opposite of love is not hate but indifference. I tend to agree. Even being pissed means you are attached to the outcome of games. Even criticism means you are paying attention. The Rockets and other teams can handle the criticism. What they cannot handle is your LACK OF INTEREST! Listen to sports talk radio, the one place where fans represent a broad spectrum of different sports lovers. The other day, I heard Charlie say that they had gone TWO FULL DAYS without a Rockets phone call or even and NBA call. I've even heard complaints that when Rockets guests are on, the shows struggle to get callers. This is DURING THE SEASON when the only other team playing in Houston is the minor league hockey team, the Aeros!!! Read the letters to the sports editor in the Sunday paper. Most are about the Astros or the Texans or some other sporting news. Rarely are there many Rockets letters. I find today that people who are friends who are also sports fans often ask me, "What are the Rockets doing? Are they winning?" Ask around and see how many of your acquaintences that have a passing interest in sports and basketball know the names of Rockets players beyond Steve Francis and possibly Cuttino Mobley. That is what I find to be most disconcerting about Houston. At least the fans on this board care enough to talk about it. At least we are still interested. Much of the time, I find the criticisms leveled here to be honest at best and laughable at worst, but at least we are talking.
Maybe the Rockets should have packed up and left. I bet there would be a great deal of interest then! I can just see the "fans" calling up the radio shows b****ing about Les and the NBA for allowing the Rockets to move. It kind of reminds me of that old Cinderella song that goes "You don't know what you've got, til it's gone."
If you want fans to go to the games, you need a team that (1) is fun to watch and preferably (2) has some personality. This team is simply NOT fun to watch for the casual fan. Very little ball movement and no running game = boring. Consequently, no one goes to watch them. Second, the team has no real personality. First off, the players haven't been here long enough. With Bullard & Dream gone, Mobley is our longest surviving Rocket at 4 whole years. The rest are rookies, free agents, trades, etc. Most didn't start their careers as Rockets. People don't know anything about the majority of our players. Basically, they aren't "our Rockets", just "the Rockets". As an extension of this, most of the players aren't that "fan friendly". Yeah, they congratulate each other and are good TEAMMATES, but how often do you see them laughing or smiling at/with the crowd? Horry, Cassell, Smith, Barkley, Drexler, etc all had more personality & were all far more fan-friendly than the current bunch. Francis & Mobley do this to some extent, but that's simply not enough. People expect to have FUN when shelling out money to go to a Rockets game. It doesn't help that we have some of the more expensive tickets for the oldest arena in the NBA. It also doesn't help that we don't win many games -- we have not been a good home team the last few years. If you're going to charge a bunch and not win, you better give people a fun game. Give people a fun team to watch and they'll go watch them. It's that simple.
Major: I agree with some of what you had to say, but how does that explain the fact that the same thing has occurred with other sports teams in Houston throughout our sports history? The Rockets had trouble filling the arena prior to 93 despite going to the playoffs. I don't disagree that games have to be fun for people to show interest, but it is one thing to say that they aren't selling out games. It's another to say that people don't even care enough to talk about the team!
<B>I don't disagree that games have to be fun for people to show interest, but it is one thing to say that they aren't selling out games. It's another to say that people don't even care enough to talk about the team!</b> Well, you have to "know" the team to care about them and certainly to talk about them. Who's going to pay high prices to see a bunch of random players they know nothing about lose? Most teams have some consistency -- they don't just blow up the team and start over. That helps to keep the fan base because they know/like the players. The Rockets are the exception in that we retooled our ENTIRE roster in about 2-3 years. That can be good if we start winning. When that happens, people will start going to the games and learning about the players and develop an affection for them. For now, though, the longest-lasting player is Mobley, whom fans tend to have a love/hate relationship with. Until they start winning, this is a group of players no one knows or really cares to go see lose. What's there to talk about if you don't know the players? "Did you see the Rockets lose yesterday?" "Yeah, who were our guards?" "No clue." You also have to remember Houston fans are spoiled. The Astros have been consistently doing well for the last 7 or 8 years (minus the bad one in 2000). The Rockets were playoff contenders for a decade. The Oilers were consistently in the playoff picture. All of those teams had/have "personalities" and were/are fun to go watch because people know the team. The current Rockets, on the other hand, are the exact opposite. I think you'll find that in just about any sports town, if all the teams do well except for one, the focus will be on all the other teams. It's just a cyclical thing.
Hold on there Jeff!!! I think that guy who started the grass-roots arena referendum campaign helped the team. I also think that that guy who printed out a 100 post thread of Dream psychoanalysis and dropped it off at his house helped us convince that old man to take a hike and let Francis take over. I am pretty damn convinced the TheFreak and his crazy friend caused at least one Kings free throw miss with their t-shirt waving gyrations. I also think all of our Cato Sucks! threads helped clue in Fran Blinebury (who we all know doesn't watch the Rockets) to publicly embarrass Cato by distorting his quotes...that made Cato refocus for one game, I think. That helped. And CBFC gave Calvin Murphy brownies once, and we know that the more Calvin chews the less likely he is to scream at the players to "shoot the ball Moochie" like that shoot first and pass second guard Calvin was. I am sure there is more... ..can anyone else name one.
Major, You explain why people aren't supporting the Rockets, but none of that explains why they shouldn't support their team. If you are a true fan, you stick with the organization through tough times, and that includes 'boring'. This organization has done everything to give us a winning, exciting team as soon as possible. We had periods of 'boring' last year, but when the team got going they were some of the most exciting displays of offense I had seen anywhere. The days where we were showing promise are not that far behind us; how do we forget so quickly? I think that I would stop being a fan only under extreme circumstances, like the once Portland 'BailRaisers'. I couldn't support a team that had to hold practice at the county jail. I agree with you that this is boring. I also agree with the lack of personality, but maybe that's just what you get with a young team (I hope so), a young team that is new to us. I know you are still a fan regardless (you sat through till the end of the game at Showplace; that took fortitude). Don't give bandwagoners an excuse.
Let me say this you should not say ALL houston fans sir because I will tell you one thing They win or lose Im at every home game they are my team and have been their through thick and thin. Do not blame the fans sir for the lack of effort brought forth by the rockets organization BLAME the front office and staff for the lack of Intensity to bring the fans to the game. For instance The rockets held many tickets hostage for the Wizards and Rockets game and Used Steve Francis and your only option to see MJ battle Steve as they put it by buying season tickets. It totally blew up in their face and then used Cat in place the last few weeks. That is pathetic marketing. True fan you can stick a cork in it Oilers left and now their gone our stadium were building for the Texans blows their shabby stadium away all it takes is patience. Like i stated before DO NOT SAY ALL FANS BECAUSE MR 3 POST I AM ONE TRUE ROCKET FAN!
<B>You explain why people aren't supporting the Rockets, but none of that explains why they shouldn't support their team. If you are a true fan, you stick with the organization through tough times, and that includes 'boring'. </B> That's the thing, though. Everyone here is a true fan -- otherwise, they wouldn't be posting on a BBS about their team. However, there aren't that many "core fans" of any team, except maybe the rare team like the Cubs. The majority are "casual fans" who need more than just a team to exist to be fans. I just don't think there's anything wrong with that. Ultimately, it's a business relationship. Fans get to live vicariously through their team. In exchange, they pay $$. If the experience they're getting isn't worth the money, they have every right to stay away. That's what I was pointing out -- ultimately, to raise attendance and excitement at the games, you need more than just the true fans to come out. The watercooler fans need to be entertained more to get the near-sellout type games. Then, to get to the the "tickets are impossible to get" level, you have to win as well. I think a good example of this was the Astros in 1998. Attendance was average, eventhough the team was winning. Then suddenly, we traded for Randy Johnson and the Astros were the talk of the town. There was some added spice and uniqueness (personality) to the team and it got people talking about the Astros and the World Series, etc. Attendance rose, excitement rose, etc. (until, of course, the now-standard first-round loss) My only point was that I think it's like this everywhere except for a few rare teams that just have a unique fan base like the Chicago Cubs. It's not really a situation unique to anyone. You take a team that sucks and isn't really well-known by the city and it will not be supported.
crispee: touche. I guess what I meant was our discussions effecting how players play on the floor and how the coaches coach and who the GM's decide to draft or trade for, but point taken. Major: That still doesn't explain why it has always been like that in Houston. Why is that, in the early 80's, hot off of Luv Ya Blue, the Oilers struggled a bit and fans bailed on them until they began winning again. I understand your points about a memorable team, but it doesn't explain why the fans are this fickle.
"truefans": I, unfortunately, don't have the luxury of living close to Houston, so I will never be able to see the Rockets in person unless it's a road game in Atlanta or Memphis, which is still a haul for me. The fact that the Rockets have poor attendance at their home games is something that has been discussed ad nauseam since I've joined here and probably was discussed ad nauseam before I came. One of the great features of this BBS is the "search" function. I'm sure that if you did a search on "attendance", you would find many threads on why the attendance to Rockets' home games stink. BTW - here's a good one on this topic: http://bbs.clutchcity.net/showthread.php?s=&threadid=25513&highlight=attendance Yes, I get annoyed with some of the negative posts from time to time which have gotten abundant in this forum, but we, as fans, are passionate about our team (well, at least most of us). Remember, "fan" is short for "fanatic". A fanatic is not going to just sit and say nothing if their team is not doing well. Some are realistic and others are not, but just because you don't see the majority of threads here that are all hunky-dory and all rosey and smell of Downey freshness, I wouldn't chalk it up as being a case of people here not being "true fans". I would also ease up on this "bandwagoner" rhetoric. A little bit of advice for you: if you really are planning to stay around here and enjoy this site, then you better get used to seeing us "bandwagoner" fans showing a little passion for our team. If you don't like that, then no one is holding a gun to your head and making you stay here and read or post in this BBS.
Right on truefans. I don't post much either but I've been reading the comments here for some time as well and the past 3 weeks or so some of the stuff I've read from the "fans".... Good post bro.
