huh? Yao makes way more than 2 million dollars a year. He has an 80 million 5 year contract with the Rockets. Even if he had to give half to the CBA he's still making like 8.2 million a year. That's not even counting all his endorsement money he has from commercials with Garmin, Apple and Reebok.
what? if yao earns only 2 mil a year, you must not follow basketball much. yao makes around $30 mil yearly total from his contract and endorsements. but what he did with his foundation is incredible and i applaud him. but man, have you lived in a cave? plus, we do need a 3rd scorer. if we do, we limit rafer's attempts. if rafer does'nt shoot too much, he's a pretty good PG.
I agree with the OP, but I agree with you too. So long as we're standing pat, it's worrisome that these other teams are getting better. But, like the Blazers, we have a couple good rookies, and Scolandry with another year under its belt. And, like the Lakers with Bynum, we're getting Yao back. A good FA signing for us probably wouldn't be as formidable as the Clips with Davis or the Spurs with Maggette...but it should plug one of our bigger holes. And our new offensive system will be a lot more fluid in 08-09. All that considered, we don't absolutely need to make the big change for us to see a major difference on the court. Not that we don't need to make any major moves...I just think we should wait and see what our biggest holes are come midseason, and then use our expirings and exceptions to make a major (or non-major) trade that suits us better than what's out there right now.
How long did it take the Celts and Heat of a couple of yrs ago to learn a system? He celts traded half their team and got a ring. The heat brought in Walker,payton,williams, posey in the summer and won a ring. Good try though. U can't turn guys that have never,ever been quality scorer's into scorer's. The system doesn't do that, players with a mentality do. Don't get it twisted.
you are being very short sighted...look at the disarray that the Heat are in right now...and if they didn't fleece PHX they would have been in even worse shape... plus the Heat and Celts have another thing in common...playing in the East. You can't say neither team would have made it out of the West...but you sure can make a very strong argument... I would rather follow a model similar to San Antonio with steady, gradual improvement. We have blown up the roster every year since Yao's arrival and it has gotten us nowhere. patience is a nice change of pace...
The purpose of my starting this thread was not to espouse the opinion that NO changes were needed to the Rockets' roster. EVERY team can stand to improve in certain areas. In fact, I felt prompted to start this thread by "thinking critically" and offering up an opinion different than the vast majority of the threads on this BBS, which mostly called for significant changes to a 55-win team that lost in the playoffs without its best player. What I am saying is that "change for the sake of change" is not the answer. Unless there is an absolutely spectacular deal that would catapult the Rockets to elite status, there is no reason to blow up this team's core of Yao, McGrady, Battier and Scola. Adding a "name" like Maggette or Artest would be nice, but this team can get better without such a player if they only improve on certain fundamental weaknesses. As I mention in the first post, it was lack of depth of ballhandling and playmaking that was this team's Achilles' heel. A player like Brent Barry would alleviate much of that problem. If anything, while Maggette might be able to "get his" on the Rockets, he would probably stagnate the Adelman offense, which relies heavily on ball movement and motion away from the ball. Maggette wants the ball in his hands, and he is not known for his passing. That being said, I'd gladly take Maggette for the MLE; but I don't think the Rockets absolutely NEED him.
Look at it this way. Maggette to the Spurs (possibly). David and the return of Brand to the Clippers. Bynum returning to the Lakers. Oden/Bayless to the Blazers. These are MAJOR changes. If we intend to compete, we need to keep up. There are only two reasons to keep this current core intact. You either believe they're capable of winning a championship (I dont) or you're satisfied getting bounced out of the playoffs. You can't fault teams like Phoenix and Dallas. They knew they were good, but they also knew they werent good enough. They took gambles and lost. You think Brent Barry would be able to provide quality pg services? So let me get this straight. Its ok for Tmac to stagnate the offense, but we might want to think twice about Maggette b/c he would do the same thing? Double standards for the win!!! Which is why he would be a good player coming off the bench.
So basically you don't watch the regular season. Or if you do, why do you bother. Those games don't mean anything.
The problem with the model u want the rox to follow was thrown out the window in 04-05. Why? The team got short sighted by bringing in every old over the hill player they could find. Name me what player under 25 the rox brought in. Ward,Weatherspoon, oakley, just to name a few. Oh did I mention they wound up in lotto land and gave away the #8 and a player for a guy other teams pick up for less than mle money. The slow gradual process is dead and gone the minute the jon barry,david wesley,bob sura, charles oakley,and charlie ward types started littering the roster. You don't pick up guys that 2 yrs later will be out of the league and trade the #8 pick for a bench player when u want to make slow steady progress. You want to know the the model u want to use did? The Model from I-10, after winning the ring in 99 started looking to the future early. They had a aging center,small forward,and pg. They signed a wilcard young guy , stephen jackson, traded for a former lotto pick, daniels and pick up some other role players. For 2 or 3 yrs they kept their eyes on the prize because they had a pivot in duncan and a aging hof in Robinson. When it was time to extend the fan favorite in Johnson, they let him walk, signed Nesterovic for backup and drafted Manu in Parker. Right before the start of the season and although they had been grooming daniels as the heir apparent, they traded him to open the door for a 19 yr old pg. Top that off, the Jackson guy that was sitting on the bench was now ready to start and the other 25 yr old import was ready to contribute. Not only that, the againg robinson was only offered a contract to carry him to the end of the 03 season. The Spurs whipped the champion lakers and rolled through the finals for the title with a rookie pg, a young swing in jackson and a international rookie and they have cap room. Jackson leaves because he wants more than what they want to pay but they are wary of the emerging 2nd rd pick value going up. They lost 2 the lakers in cf and one of their pieces is offered a contract of 6yr 52m. The warriors lost their emerging star arenas because they failed to clear cap room so they could match a offer. The spurs mid season dumped a contract and was able to match denvers offer. So now the Spurs still have the top 3 scorers all 27 yrs or younger not to mention they acquired a guy like Bowen, and Nazr Mohommed throughout this run. Their bench is filled with a guy like Finley who 4 yrs ago avg 20ppg as well as a guy like Barry who can do a lot of things including shoot. Never in that recap did I mention the spurs countin on guys who were out of the league in 2yrs. Never did I mention them trading the lotto pick. Never did I mention them scared to pull the trigger because it was safe. The Rox had a chance to build gradually, but they blew it. Now they're in full fledged, win now mode becauw they chose to go win now, even though they never won anything. So u can stick ur head in the sand and pretend this team will contend, but the window is 2 yrs and that's it. It could have been longer, but the win now screwed them over. So if ur going to do it, do it and stop half stepping. U think the heat have any regrets about the title?
I know you're trying to be sarcastic, but calm down. Although he's using an extreme example, he's right. The goal of a team is to win the championship. Do you think the 06-07 Mavericks had a successful year?
The West is TOUGH!! The West is getting TOUGHER!!The Rockets have been entertaining us for many years with MEDIOCRETY and fans are getting fed up with it! If Les doesn't step upto the plate soon he will not be remembered for the two Chamionships but for the lack luster play that has gone on for about 10 years We are not going to win the WEST with a few minor adjustments. Morey needs to make at least two significant moves to put the team in a position to win over 60 games and be in serious contention. The WIN NOW Scenario has been adisaster every season it has been tried becouse Les has failed to get the Talent needed to WIN NOW!
wekko, I think you make some very good points, but I think you miss the fact that the 2007-08 Rockets were a VERY different team than in years past and were not provided the opportunity to play with their full cast in the playoffs. The Rockets had a new starting PF (Scola), a new backup PG (Jackson), a new backup PF (Landry), a new backup center (Hayes, moving over from the starting PF spot), plus spot minutes from young guys like Novak and Brooks. To want to significantly change a team that NEVER got a chance to play in the playoffs seems rather rash to me. (As an aside, I honestly believe that if Tracy McGrady had ever gotten out of the first round of the playoffs - even with Orlando - people would not be freaking out so much about the Rockets' playoff failures. They equate even having McGrady on the roster with being hopelessly resigned to first round playoff exits forever. The 2007-08 Rockets, in my opinion, were the best McGrady-led team ever, but in the playoffs they were missing Yao-freaking-Ming!!! . . . Okay, I feel better now. Anyways, . . .) Next year, the Rockets will be changed even if they don't make any further roster moves (not that I'm advocating not making any moves): Scola will undoubtedly be better; Brooks will be better and may end up as the primary backup PG; Dorsey may be able to contribute as an athletic shot-blocker off the bench; if he develops well, by the end of the season, Donte Greene could be a long, athletic shooter/scorer off the bench. These are all changes. I also don't understand how you can use the Lakers getting Andrew Bynum back as a "significant change", yet you do not think the same holds true for the Rockets getting Yao Ming back.
It just irritates me. Maybe I should have had a Swoly-D/pryuen at the end of it. Yes the ultimate goal is a championship, but only one team gets to win one each year. Tell me it wasn't exciting to watch this team during the regular season last year. We had the best record in the NBA from January on. We only lost 11 regular season games from Janaury through the end of the reg season. That was with losing Yao in the last part of February. We won every game for a solid month. It was exciting and fun to watch even if we fell short in the playoffs. Yes I want to win it all, but with a team that is as close as the Rockets are to getting over that hump to making it farther into the playoffs you don't explode the team and rebuild. Edit: As to if I think the 06-07 Mavericks had a successful year... I think they would have if they hadn't looked lost against the Warriors. At least we show up to play in the playoffs. They didn't even look like they tried. They were beat before they even took the court.
the Mavs were supposed to beat the Warriors and everyone believed that the Rox weren't supposed to beat the Jazz and everyone believed that
Our team's weaknesses are too big to ignore. We might have the worst backup sg of all time and our team is littered with inconsistent perimeter shooters (those that get playing time). I feel that a McGrady-led team is incapable of winning a championship. From what I see, he's not a good leader. A good leader leads by example right? These are changes that apply to all teams. You dont think Bynum will be improved? Roy? Aldridge? Yes, getting Yao back is a significant change. I didn't mention him b/c in my opinion, the status quo has him in the lineup. If he werent already factored in, we wouldnt even be having this conversation. The Rockets would be a lottery team.
Maybe the changes are not NEEDED per se, but upgrades would certainly give us a better shot at the championship. DD
And Brent Barry would address both of those concerns. I believe that was a change for which I advocated.
Weren't you paying attention the last two years? Yao did go down, and they still made the playoffs. Yao makes them a great team, but without him, they're still a good team. Nowhere near as bad as you make them out to be.
