If you were the GM.......what would you have done different ?

Les Alexander would have made me trade Yao once I made teams roster complete. Yaos money would be taking up too much space. The need for him wouldnt be there when we win the Championship with this roster and him not playing.

 

both of you show me where his injuries are "chronic" please. maybe im missing something but from what i know, he had one knee surgery on 2005-2006 and has been great since. you cant bring up the eye injury bc that's nothing.

 

Did you even read the links I provided? This isn't about Amare consistently missing time, it's about the concerns and questions that DOCTORS have with the LONG-TERM effects of micro fracture surgery. You're suggesting the Rockets should have ignored the concerns that the Suns and their medical staff had with Amare's long term health, while not even allowing the Rockets own medical staff to look at it themselves before trading away much of the team's future. Meanwhile you're chastising the Rockets for not having foresight to unload McGrady and Yao.

 

Since no one on Clutchfans seems to remember what they actually thought about moves and trades and draft picks when they actually were about to happen, let me give them an actual honest account of all the moves I was in favor of WITHOUT THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT:

2006 draft - I think I and most of us were in favor of Gay, but at the same time Morey was assistant GM and everyone involve sort of acknowledges that JVG was the driving force behind the Battier acquisition (even if Morey agreed to it).

2006 season - Nothing meaningful happened except getting Chuck Hayes as an undrafted free agent, that was all JVG. None of us would likely have made that move.

2007 draft - With pick 26 I wanted Big Baby Davis or Josh McRoberts in that order. I wouldn't have bought the Magic pick at 31 because I wouldn't have known about it. While Davis or McRoberts might have contributed it's more likely they would have taken a year or two to pan out just like they did on their current teams, and undoubtedly Brooks and Landry gave us earlier returns and higher levels of play than they did. Morey wins that.

2007 offseason - I would never have been able to dream that we could acquire Scola. We would have waived Spanoulis and gotten nothing in return.

2008 draft - At 24 I wanted Batum, but it was close since so much other talent was there like Donte Green. I don't think there was any scenario in which a Rockets fan envisioned they could trade back two spots, screw San Antonio in the process, pick up a 2nd round pick, then trade back another two spots, get a 2nd 2nd round pick, and eventually parlay one of those picks + the 28 pick + Bobby Jackson into Ron Artest. We would never have had Ron that year, we would never even have had the opportunity to pick Joey Dorsey rather than DeAndre Jordan, and we would never have beat the Trailblazers and taken the Lakers to 7 games that year. At the time those moves were SO much better than staying with Batum, because we were in it to win it that year. Had Tracy stayed healthy, we might actually have been able to. Blame him for the 2009 playoffs, not Morey.

2009 trade deadline - I would never have traded Rafer for Lowry and given the starting job to Brooks because I did not even know Lowry was good, I thought he was just another undersized PG, you might as well have given me Earl Watson, Earl was a better shooter to boot. Any Clutchfan who thinks they would have acquired Lowry is kidding themselves, the dude had a career 26% 3PT% for crying out loud.

2009 draft - I would never have bought three second round picks, but if I did get one my draft board in the second round probably would have gone 1. Sam Young, 2. Chase Budinger (he's athletic but he's white), 3. DeJuan Blair (why is he falling so low? does he really have no ACL's? must be, I better stay away too). Anyways hindsight's too hard to predict this one accurately.

2009 offseason - I would not have resigned Artest, I would probably have signed Ariza also because I really liked him after those finals.

2010 trade deadline - I would have probably given McGrady to any team BUT New York for a lesser expiring, a 2nd round pick, and a pinata full of Reece's Pieces. At this point I hated McGrady so much I did not want to give New York any opportunity to keep him or gain payroll flexibility as a result of him to have a chance at Lebron. We would never have gotten Kevin Martin or Jordan Hill or the 2012 pick and we would never have had the chance to trade away Landry remember because I WOULDN'T HAVE DRAFTED HIM.

2010 draft - I loved Patterson throughout and would have been ecstatic to take him at 14 also. But honestly I probably would have had Udoh, George, and Xavier Henry rated above him too given the Rockets' needs and glut of players at PF. But oh wait we wouldn't have had Scola, Hayes, Landry or Hill if I was the GM. So I would have taken Patterson here.

2010 offseason - I would have been unable to convince Bosh, Lebron, or Wade to come to Houston just like every other human being on the planet if they were the Rockets GM. I would have been scared off by Amare's injury history also; I kept waiting for him to get injured this year but what do you know, he beat the 9:1 odds and stayed healthy. I would never have traded away Yao Ming because it would have been ABSOLUTE SUICIDE from a PR standpoint to do so. All of you fans who said you would have jumped ship on Yao early on have no clue what you are talking about because this was never going to be an option for anybody as the Rockets GM.

So to recap: during the 2010-2011 season, we would have had no Brooks, no Lowry, no Martin, no Scola, no Landry, no Hayes; a porcelain vase on the sidelines in Yao; Batum or Battier at SF, Trevor Ariza at SG, Patterson at PF, and probably a couple absolutely lousy years in 2008-2010 with no playoff appearances and some potential lottery picks/busts as a result. I might have committed some excess money into an overhyped PG like Beno Udrih or Calderon and we'd probably have a lot fewer prospects and pieces to a championship contender than we have now.

Summary: if 99.9% of us were in charge of the Rockets they would probably have made crappier draft picks and trades than we actually made. How we would have turned out at exactly this point in time as far as our rebuilding process goes might be different, since any sports league rewards you for making crappy decisions if you make enough bad ones to net you a draft pick. Would that be enough to offset all the horrible contracts we would have given out though? My guess is not.

Conclusion: Clutchfans need to get real and stop saying they would have done all the good things Morey did and none of the bad. To ask a Clutchfan what they would have done different would be like asking them their idea of the perfect possible scenario is. Also to say that we should have tanked earlier is to also downplay the amount of agony and pain it would have been to watch the Rockets these past 2-3 years. Admit it: the 2009 playoffs were fantastic, and Morey had every right and obligation to see the Yao/Tracy era through to the end because it really did have the potential to be special at the time. It's over now though, and it's time we gave our GM a shot to show all of us what he would have done from year one forward if he hadn't been handcuffed by Yao and Tracy from the getgo.

 

I didnt quote you. Both of those two guys said amare had chronic injuries... which is false.

i am chastising the rockets bc tmac/yao had injuries every year... amare didnt. And i know its 'bad' business to take a risk without looking at his images but morey took the safe route. He didnt have to sign amare right away. He couldve waited til the summer... after he played with us and after the team doctors could look at his knees. Heck, he was willing to trade for melo without an extension. Houston doesnt attract superstars so a gamble is what moreys going to have to do to get one.

you can call me dr. blink. I know, have worked on and followed up on patients w microfracture surgery. I have a pretty solid idea of what that all entails. but, in medicine, nothing is certain... thats why its a gamble. Its not my assests but i wouldve gambled given amares history.

 

Then guess what those geniuses also fail to add? They also fail to add that Carmelo Anthony wanted to join Amare Stoudemire and we probably get Carmelo to come here if we get Amare here. Maybe even Chris Paul too. Thats the whole point of taking the Amare Stoudemire risk isnt it? Getting Chris Paul and Carmelo Anthony..