Just drives me crazy....

Understandable........But............................

I don't know if we have 10 lottery seasons of patience here in houston........We on the BBS are what you call Fanatics and we love our rocks

I don't know about dallas fans, But houston as a whole is a very fickle city..........that new arena will be a ghost town if we have more lottery seasons and thats a economic nightmare...therefore we can't have any more playoff-less seasons....we simply can't afford it

We are still a franchise thats light years ahead of Dallas is because we have been to the moutain top....thats the difference

Dallas was never a back to back champion, and have never ever(and might never) have a player of Dreams stature.....so they have less on the line than us

Bottom line we're spoiled here.....we all agree we're not champ status yet, but playoffs are a must for the city of houston and nothing less

So its been 4 years and the natives are gettin restless.......we smell at least the first round of the playoffs or bust......anything else is...........uncivilized

 

Yep playoffs is a must.... NO EXCUSE.. at least 8th.. there is no competition for the 8th spot no more..

 

Those of you who surely consider yourselves somehow to be the old, grizzled, superior , experts on the board (you know who you are: (codell, etc.) must have some pretty crappy expectations.

I for one want the Rockets to aspire to far more than an 8th seed and a first round sweep by one of the West's elite. That the front office is also willing to live through this exercise in futility with no REAL guarantee that this year's version will even make it that far is excruciating to those of us who remember the excitement leading up to the 02-03 season.

There's clearly not as much excitement this year. I mean the proof is that we're here arguing over whether this team can even hang on for an "8th SEED" for God's sake.

I see this team not winning more than 40 games and becoming the poster child for ugly offense even more than they were last year!! Hell, Cleveland might win more than we do. I'll check back with so-called experts in April, and we'll see who was right!!

 

Actually, Nellie did trade away almost all the players he got when he came in. Dallas made a big trade evey year. He has had some stinkers and some winners. He traded for Bradley, Nash, Finley, Nowitzki (traded pick), Raef, NVE, Jamison, Najera, etc.
Nellie is always ready to trade.

 

well,
i wonder how many threads like this have to keep running, can't we just combine them all? they all same the same thing, even with the exact same arguments. but i guess people get bored.

the western conference has soooo many questions this next year, why panic? will l.a. work? will minnesota work? will gs suck without boykins and arenas? will seattle suck? will utah be the worst team in their division? will amare duplicate his rookie year? will yao break out? i mean, why would a team over the salary cap with a new coach and a pretty goodlooking team on paper waste more money, if they don't have to?

look, next year there is money coming off the books (rice) there are contracts that are coming short and are bargains (cattino) and a better crop of free agents to pull a major trade with. the rox will probably work their asses off and make a low seed in the playoffs, BUT they will be in the playoffs, and my friends, improvement is the name of the game.

no one will beat the top 4 teams but other teams in the top 4, so saying we need to make it past the 1st round or the year is a failure is just not very realistic, and possibly not very bright.

 

There won't be any salary cap relief coming next year even with Rice's contract going bye-bye. Francis' new deal is scheduled to kick in which will keep them stuck in salary cap hell.

 

Actually, I call it realistic expectations rather than crappy. If expectations aren't realistic, then people start putting out petitions to get the coach fired and want to trade away every player and start over.

And you say that I have crappy expectations???

RC Cola's rallying cry is my new theme for this season.

Go Improvement!!!!

 

Excellent. Couldn't have said it any better.

 

Jamison is a player that I would have considered trading Francis for.....

And GS is not asking for that much in return.

This off season has sucked IMHO.

DD

 

No way in hell would I do that. You wanna talk about a player not leading his team anywhere, at least Francis has lead his team to the 2 best records ever to not make the playoffs (43 wins and 45 wins). Jamison has been around longer and hasn't lead his team ANYWHERE!

 

hillboy,
sorry, but you are not correct in your assumption. rices 9 MILLION DOLLARS coupled with the 5-6 million francis makes now, will not equal the amount of steves new contract. thats almost 16 mill, and some of that could be used with the exception to sign a FA .
stevies contract is big, but not that big.

 

If Rox really have tons of trade bait then maybe Rox shouldn't be trading!

I agree, BTW, that this team needs an upgrade but a trade just to trade is not the answer.

The answer is to be willing to take on additional salary if a true upgrade of talent results.

Is Jamison (+ 50 mil!!!) better for Mavs than NVE?
NVE + Nash = tough backcourt match-ups.
NVE + Nash = fewer minutes for Nash, thus protecting him from breaking down, as is his history.

 

sorry, I'm not so sure that it was CD pulling the strings on the Drexler deal. Was he GM during the championship years? I thought he was still sitting on the bench next to Rudy back then... Anyway, I wouldn't brag about the Barkley and Pippin deals. We ended up on the short side on those... Ugh, it's way too early.. *can't remember again* was Pippin a free agent or did they trade to get him?

and while i'm asking.. how is it that Les has gone the extra mile? by overpaying pine fodder? and don't say that signing steve to the max is 'wanting to win' when it's something that any GM in the league would have done.. i'm curious if somebody can reasonably show that he's ever went he 'extra mile' as owner...

 

Pippen was a sign n trade deal.

This team needs a trade. We'll make the playoffs without moving, but we'll have to make a deal next offseason with the same players, except an axpiring Rice.

This team will have a new system, has 3 new players if you count Boki, and will have its chemistry problems anyway. We might as well bring in a long term piece so that he can start gelling with this team from now, not starting next season.

 

Off-season's not over. We may still make a move. CD/Les/JVG might have a significant plan up their sleeves that can only be hatched down the road.

Or they might not. *shrug*

As far as ownership/management not having any balls, you have to look at some of the deals they've handed out and think, Maybe they should use their brains and not their balls for a change? Because now they have to use their brains, what with Cato at 7.3 mil, Mo at 7.7 mil, Mooch at 3.6 mil...

 

They might have sold their brains off for the rights to new balls, which quickly signed to a max contract and fell off...

 

We did not end up on the short side of the Barkley trade. Management knew that we could not get past Seattle with the current lineup, and the Sonics looked to be a force for 4-5 years. Based on Barkley's past performance against them, particularly his single-handed dismantling of them in game 7 of the 1993 NBA WCF, this trade was made. Just as the trade was about the front office realizing that we weren't going to repeat without a bonafide #2 scoring threat, so was the Barkley trade made to address a weakness, regardless of the other stuff mentioned about it at the time.

And we got past Seattle. Mission accomplished. Only problem was that the Rockets ran into a team that, with Horry and Cassell, they had beaten in the past (Utah) that Barkley just couldn't match up well against. So, if we wouldn't have made that trade, we could have passed Utah, but we would not have made it past Seattle to get that chance.

Pippen, on the other hand, was a disaster. I think that's the only year I felt bad being a Rockets fan. It was truly awful to watch, knowing the inevitable outcome.

 

I meant to say, "Just as the Drexler trade was about the realization that we weren't going to make it back without a bonafide #2 scorer..." Sorry.