Keep Ron, End the Curse

On my drive back home tonight, I had an epiphany.

I kept thinking, how has this team had such rotten luck with injuries over the years? And it came to me, suddenly, what the reason behind it all has been. It's not the trainers or the medical staff. It's not players with bad work ethic. Really, it's all quite simple.

Spoiler

Hear me out. Yeah, we traded for a superstar with questionable work ethic and back issues. But it was Juwan Howard who, innocently enough, tagged along. So why am I picking on him? Recall that in the previous year, Juwan joined a Magic team that had gotten to the playoffs 3 straight years. McGrady was coming off his best season as a professional, putting up insane numbers that would make Kobe Bryant jealous. He gets there, and the Magic drop from a 42-win team the previous year to 21 in 03/04. For Juwan, that was par for the course. He was with Denver the previous three years, where he had won 27, 24, and 17 games. And you know what else? The Nuggets won 40+ games the year prior to when he joined that team and the season following his departure. As for McGrady, he had never played less than 75 games while with the Magic, and suddenly he misses 15 games with Juwan on board. That's when all the "Me-Mac" talk surfaces. Coincidence? Hmmm.

In 3 years as a Rocket, we had mixed "success" with Juwan. He played in one playoff series in which he was basically worthless. We depended on him for large stretches of the season in that nightmare 05/06 season -- the results were predictably horrid. Let's skip forward.

A couple summers ago, Morey trades Juwan for Mike James, and things are starting to look up for us Clutchfans. Juwan only had a couple seasons left on the contract, and James had 3 years remaining on his, but it still looked like an awfully good move. Who could have predicted that James would be such a flop in his half season with us, shooting 35% from the field? So the Rockets trade him for Bobby Jackson, thinking it could help in the short term and perhaps give them more flexibility in the offseason. It appeared to worked out for the best, as Jackson was used as a piece in the Artest deal. Even more than with the James acquisition a year prior, there were huge expectations with Artest. Now we finally acquired that legitimate third scorer. Well, again half a season later, who would have expected that he'd be a 39% shooter? That, like James a year prior, he'd struggle to fit into the offense and be part of a team concept? What are the chances that in back to back seasons, James and Artest have their worst offensive years under a coach who's known for making talented players thrive? Again, I have to ask -- is it just a coincidence that these two players were acquired, directly and indirectly, via Juwan Howard's contract? Hmm.

So now we're faced with a decision. Do we move Artest for another player, to finally find that piece of the puzzle that will make everything fit? Or do we purge ourselves of any connection to one Juwan Howard, the consummate professional, the locker room leader, the career loser? I say we should keep Artest, and let this deal expire. Not because I have hopes he'll take us to the promised land this year. Just so, once and for all, we can be rid of the curse of Juwan that has been hanging over this team and many unfortunate others for far too long.

 

Yeah, I may get rookified for this. Oh well. It came from the heart.

 

I'm glad I'm not alone on this one. It just came to me in a flash while I was driving home. There's no other rational explanation for it all. Trust me guys, I poured over all the numbers as soon as I got home. It's Juwan.

 

That's exactly it. The curse survives through the contracts we trade him for.

Did we get any future draft picks in any of these trades? If so Les needs to sell them for cash, and burn the cash. Don't let any of that money touch the Rockets.