Kudos to CD

When you've been in the league this long, you are bound to make some mistakes. I perfer to remember the good ones. Nabbing Catino Mobley, Cassell and Head in the draft were genious moves. I can't really think of one bad trade we have made in the past 3 or 4 years, but I can think of many good ones that have gotten us where we are now. Tmac and Juwan Howard were steals considering it just took us giving up Cato, Francis, and Mobley. Look at where they are now. Francis is barely surviving in New York. Mobley is averaging 12 a game in LA, Cato is nowhere. How bout nabbing Mike James for virtually nothing then getting Rafer for him before his downfall in Minnesota? Hayes was an undrafted free agent before we turned him into a solid bench player. Who can forget the Battier trade and signing Bonzi right before the season started and getting Snyder for some second round picks?

 

Trading cassell, horry, and passing up Rashard Lewis were all Rudy T's calls as was Eddie Griffin, Boki...

 

i've always been a big CD fan, and although getting battier was huge this offseason, what impressed me even more was the moves he didn't make. i remember a lot of cats clamoring for:

-raef lafrentz
-getting rid of juwon for a bag of chips
-darius miles
-jeff mcinnis

i don't remember who else, but there were a ton of other trade threads that thankfully didn't go through...

 

Obviously, you can never be sure. But I would be willing to bet that Gay will be better on the offensive side by the second half of next season. I would put money on it. You wanna make a bet?

As for the defensive side, Gay has the athleticism and the knack for blocks/steals that are a perfect base for defense. He showed in college he could be a good defender, and he showed on the Grizzlies that he's a decent defender in his rookie season (so far).

I don't think Gay will ever be as good as Battier on defense, but given JVG's training and hard work, I think Gay would turn out to be a damn good defender himself.

But it would definitely take Gay 2 to 3 years to put all that together and be consistent with both. A period that I, much like the Rox organization, was unwilling to wait on. I would not consider us championship contenders (fully healthy) with Gay and Swift on this team rather than Battier. I would consider us just not good enough to go all the way. But the way things are right now, I can definitely see us going all the way.

So yes, I was wrong to be pessimistic about the trade when it first happened. Yes, I do think it was the right decision to make, But no, I don't think Battier will be the better of the two in a few years, and I'm fine with that.

 

You guys are really that much happier with Wells, Snyder and Lucas instead of Mike James?

We wanted to make the deal. We had the contracted. We flinched a few moments on the trade kicker and might have done the trade anyway.

Let's not pretend the offseason post Battier trade went as planned. We wanted Mike James and offered him a full MLE contract. We wanted VSpan to stay another year in Europe. We probably could have had JL3 for the min anyway. Without Bonzi/his agent's bonehead move we would have had a very sorry offseason post Battier trade.

CD is a good GM. Not a wonderkid or an idiot.

Let's see what we get for the TE by manana as well.

 

I'd like to add that I'm excited about the fact that CD's weakness (drafting) is Morey's strength. Take a look at Boston's draft picks over the years for which Morey had LOTS of input:

Ryan Gomes
Kendrick Perkins
Al Jefferson
Delonte West
Tony Allen
Gerald Green

Celtics weren't even drafting very high, and these guys will not all be superstars but will all have a good career in the NBA. I would like to see him pick someone decent up in the draft, prefferably a big man to back Yao up for a long time.

 

He hasn't recieved enough credit for the Tmac-Francis/Mobley trade. The forum was torn up because of that deal. Steve was one Mobley trade from a breakdown. For all the flack he got for the Griffin trade in hindsight, he's hasn't been discouraged from the big deals that keeps us from sinking into mediocrity.

 

I don't see why Van Gundy couldn't have wanted Battier AND been pleasantly surprised at how much better he turned out to be. This was definitely a JVG pick, I don't think CD has ever really been a GM that acquires without the approval of the coach.

 

like i said i dont think he's the worst GM in the nba but definitely below average. the only measuring stick in this league is team's playoff successs. now can i please get the last year the rockets made it past the first round. for all the success you guys are claiming he has had, what has the team shown for it? now a championship is very hard to come by. there are only a few olajuwon, duncans, shaqs, jordans that come every once in a while. but there are teams like phoenix, dallas, detroit, sacramento until as of late that has constantly reworked their teams to stay in contention.

 

this is what I said earlier...

I'm not saying Carroll Dawson is an outright puppet GM that just picks up the phone for whatever Rudy T or JVG wanted, but JVG said it succinctly one time that he didn't just wake up one day and found out that TMac was a Rocket.

TMac was a unilateral decision amongst JVG and CD/Les that the current Rockets at the time weren't going to go further then what they accomplished already.

Shane Battier was a JVG decision all the way, he didn't like Swift and coveted Shane for a long time.

 

CD(2 championships) has done a better job at getting the players to get the championship than Phoenix-0, Dallas-0, Detroit-1 and Sacramento-0. The closest team was Detroit. I would be happy with Joe Dumars as GM also. The GMs for Phoenix, Dallas and Sacramento are worse than below average with no championships. Name the 15 NBA teams with better GMS. Name the 15 other current GMs that have a ring. Below average is pretty bad when you get to the 16th GM.

I would be curious to see what your 30 team GM ranking list would look like, though. I probably have never heard of the names of the GMs in the bottom 15.

Morey worries me though. He doesn't have as good a relationship with other GMs, as CD, Dumars, or West. His draft picks have been good for late picks. Boston has not done any trades to put them in contention.

 

The worst part of the cassell/horry trade was not really losing two amazing players. It was having to start liking Barkley after hating him for so many years. Someone should be liable for my therapist bills.

 

I've always believe CD was one of the greatest GM's in the league. He's made mistakes, for sure, but he's made many more good moves, whether in the draft on before the trade deadline.

 

The reason I asked the questions was I somewhat knew the answer. I don't think this was a CD-only decision to get Battier. I remember Feigen stating specifically this was either a JVG pick or a pick for JVG (I don't recall the exact wording). I also could've sworn that CD himself stated on a video or audio clip I saw that there would've been no way to give the rookie (Gay or whoever would get picked at that spot) much PT here. I honestly think, like Will, that it may have been a Morey pick or possibly a JVG wish-list item granted.

All that being said, he's a class act and has done a lot for this organization and showed the team nothing but loyalty from what I've seen. Definitely a Rockets fixture and a Rocket for life.

 

I hated the trade for barkley too....We didn't really need him since we had Hakeem. And we got rid of two important role players....

I believe we traded for barkley because of money...i bet you ticket sales went up after that trade, and that's why les alexander could not say NO to barkley.

 

now if memory serves me right. i could totally be wrong but when did CD become GM? was it the season that rudy T. became coach or the season after. whatever it was, my point is the team's that led us to the first and for the second championship was already in place before CD became GM. yeah lets put drexler aside, one good move. i feel that one was gonna be brought up. name 15 teams that made it past the first round since we made past the first round last. and you got your 15 gm's. like i said championships are very hard to come by and you cant have the opportunity to win one until you're actually in contention, something we havent been in for awhile now. get my point?

 

I just wanted to see your ranking, if you don't have any gms ranked higher than CD. That's ok. I can't name 15 GMs that have made it past the first round, only 8. I told ya, I don't know most of the GMs' names, jerrios.

You are right, Mike D'Antoni, has done a great job as GM. Who is the Sacramento GM?

 

"name 15 teams that made it past the first round since we made past the first round last. and you got your 15 gm's"

good job cutting that first part out. but anyways you want your list. all these teams have made out it of the first round since houston made it out last. this is how i am measuring how good gm's are, unless you have better way of measuring success of a gm. also we are always over the salary cap so its not a matter of the money not being there. and can we get when CD became gm so we can give him credit for the 2 championship teams.

1.San Antonio
2.Dallas
3.Sacramento - Geoff Petrie
4.Utah
5.Phoenix
6.Miami
7.Indiana
8.New Jersey
9.Philadelphia
10.Detroit
11.Lakers
12. Cleveland
13. Clippers
14. Washington
15. Milwaukee