Did you watch a single game last year?? We can not have the same team back. Expecially minus one starter. Maybe I am the only one who watched the games last year. And yes the sonics will be better with a full season with ray allen. They were very good after the trade, and if they would have had him last season the whole time they probably would have finished ahead of us. And the suns have marbury and marion as their main two guys. Marbury is a better POINT GUARD than steve and can distribute the ball well. Marion is an all-star reaching his prime. Steve is a good point guard and not a great distributor. Yao needs time to learn the nba and get stronger so I feel the suns have more of a chance to improve over the rockets. And portland has a lot of talent which mo cheeks has seemed to be able to get them to play together. So the sky is not falling, but the chances of the rockets being good next year are. And to answer the questions NO Van Gundy will not solve this teams problems. A coach can only do so much, and he is very good, but he can't get this team to the playoffs.
cato, moochie, and mo taylor are not worth 15.6 million per year, i'm sorry. But hey, CD thinks so and that's what counts right.
This is really stupid. Why don't you guys just wait for the season to start and for the team to start losing before you predict an 0-82 season. Consider this - every time one team gets better via trade or free agency... Another one gets worse! We can easily go 20-10 against the East, considering how weak a lot of these teams have gotten, and we're still stronger than about 6-7 of the other thirteen teams in the West (Warriors, Grizz, Denver, Clips, Utah, Seattle, arguably Portland) With JVG at the helm we won't lose many of the easy games. Remember, last year we lost about 12-15 games we should have won. That number should be closer to 5-7 next year. Notice I said we could, or rather we should. Not that we will. All I'm saying is be patient. You don't have to be optimistic. But wait until about a month or two into the season before you start going off about how we'll be in the lottery for the rest of eternity. If we're 0-25 by that time, I'll be willing to listen to you. Until then, just calm down and enjoy the offseason.
I think you answered your own question in the first sentence. Marbury and Marion hitting their prime against Francis and Mobley hitting their prime. Which would you take?????? And we all love the rockets but there comes a time when you must see what is really going on. I guess reality has not sunk in yet for you and drummer. I am assuming you probably thought the cato, motaylor, moochie, and maloney deals were great too.
No, I'm going to wait until we actually, I don't know...play a game or two before I write the season off? I'm weird like that...
If I may interject a point here... I thinks it's naive to hang your hat on the fact that the Rockets missed the playoffs by only "one" game last year and that they won 45 games 2 years ago while not making the playoffs and that simply adding a new coaching staff will catapult them into the playoffs. That's simply not being realistic. Both coaching and personnel needed to be changed. Anyone who watched a lot of Rocket games last year knows this. I saw a team that had trouble scoring points - that played little or no defense - that played in an undisciplined chaotic style. Above all, I saw a team that appeared to be poorly constructed with a number of mismatched parts. I have no doubts whatsoever that JVG knows what needs to be done and, given enough time, will do them BUT it WILL take time. Until they prove it ON THE COURT, you simply cannot assert that the Rockets will be better this year when compared to Phoenix, Utah, Portland Seattle, Memphis, Golden State and maybe even Denver. This season I want to see the team improve its level of play particularly scoring and defense and make concrete progress toward contending status. That's just about all anyone can expect given their current situation. Rest ssured, if they can start on the right path, then their day will come.
I'd say that's a slight exaggaration. It's not going to take frickin' Shandon Anderson to ruin the Rockets good repuation around the league. It's not like we're the Clippers. Besides, every team in the league has probably "mistreated" ( ) a player at some point.
You asked what would be the harm in letting him walk. When players agree to sign with you for less money thinking that they will be rewarded later, and you don't fulfill your end of the deal, players are going to be hesitant to do that in the future. It's very rare that a player signs for less money, with ANY team. When you screw the ones that actually do, it doesn't look good.
So it's a good idea to ruin our cap situation for several years on the off chance another one shows up?
Let me step in and make a point: Perhaps the whole "let's sign players first and pay them back with fat checks later whether they live up to it or not" approach is wrong to attract FAs and CD should be held accountable either way. Shandon Anderson and MoTay cost us big bucks and their contributions - Glen Rice and the limited playing of MoTay- are pale in comparison with what we gave up. The whole situation is like that between Joe Smith and Timberwolves. Trying to bend the rules and it comes back to bite you in the rear, one way or another. Let's not panic though. The off season is far from over and we still have Glen Rice for other team's cap relief. We can still get TMO, a servicable 3 IMO, back to fill the roster. Beside,there is still hope in Eddie, and to a lesser extent, Boki and Malick. Their maturity into trading blocks would provide us with some space. Anything can happen altough we got a little stuck. In a nutshell, limited optimism is my word.
Exactly!! I was thinking the same thing. Hell we might even lose more games than we did last year. Whose to say that JVG can walk on water and "immediatly" make this circus act with its ring leader SF a playoff team. With everyone loading up in the west and the rockets seeming to be content with staying put (maybe even losing a starter), the rockets possibly might lose more of these games to these teams this year compared with last year. For instance, instead of splitting the season series with Minny, now that they have more talent, they might take most of the games in that series. This goes as well for SA, the Lakers, and Sacramento. Also many teams i believe were shellshocked at first when playing against Yao. This may have resulted in a Rockets win. But as these teams learned how to play against us, and more importantly play against Yao, they were able to key in on that factor and expose our weaknesses. And lastly, with a new coach and staff their may be a period of transition. Plays have to be learned and players have to play to a new style of basketball. A transition like this is not always quick and smooth. Hard work, dedication and sacrifice must be givin in a situation like we have. Considering the circus we have I would expect alot feelings to get hurt and egos put into check. I would also expect another lottery bound year. 35-40 wins tops.
About two years ago I posted on this board that the Rockets had morgaged away their future with some seriously boneheaded personnel moves: Big (starter) money for a Taylor, Moochie, and Cato, all backups. Bringing in Rice was not the best idea in the world, and I was against a max. contract for Francis. (I still say he is not worth it) My remarks were met with a flurry of sarcasm. Well, live and learn. With the exception of Ming (pure luck) this organization has not made a really good personnel deal in a loooong time. But, Collier and Langi do seem like yesterday.
Rox signed players with too large and long-term contracts and Rox did not draft well so that cheap rookies can not contribute. See, MoT, Cato, Moochi, EG, Boki. Think about it, if Rox can do one of the two better, we should not be in a situation like this, the 8th seed or the 9th seed. What if we can draft a Tony Parker, Ginobilli, or maybe a Zach Randolph instead of EG, or Qyntel Woods instead of Boki? We will sit pretty. These players are cheap and can contribute. Or why don't we sign a deal with Moochie, Cato or MoT with a team option instead of long-term 6, 7 years? It is not like teams are competing for Moochie so that we can't insert a third-year team option into the contract? Well, I guess someone is right. We draft players that can play one-on-one isolation games, like a K. Thomas, Mobley. With JVG on board, I am not sure Rox can fix the draft problem. It does not look like JVG is any good at helping with draft picks just by looking at what Knicks drafted during his tenure. With the salary cap and luxury tax issue, it is paramount important that Rox does well in drafting players and knows how to sign players into long-term deals. If not, you know the results. By the way, I really admire Popovich, he is a GM and a coach, he did a marvelous job in drafting players. Of course, he gets lucky with Duncan, but he does pick Parker, Ginobilli, he signed other players into short-term deals. He got Hedo and Ron Mercer in the trade and both of them only have one-year left. It is a great job he has done.
Excellent point. I also agree with you on Francis although I think it is politically difficult not to give him a max. Still, you can argue Rox has not been able to get into the playoff with Francis, so why give him the max? It is like Cleveland with A. Miller last year. Everybody thinks he deserves max, but cleveland has not won. Now Miller tanked and did not get the max which proves Cleveland's GM is right. Francis's main weakness is that he is short and he does not play much defense. This does not warrant a max. During the middle of the last season, I said we should try to trade Francis and Cat for Pierce. With that GM in boston, it is a possibility since he even traded for the PF from Seattle. Now I don't think with the new GM in town, boston will trade Pierce. Okay, so what's now given all being done? I think we basically can clean up everybody except Steve and Ming. Cat is valuable because he can score and he plays defense. It is also possible to package one of the three (Moochie, Cato, MoT) with Rice's contract. Think about it, if Spree, VanHorn with a large contract can be traded, why can't MoT be traded?
Comparing Francis and Miller is disengenous. One player played on a team that contending for the playoffs in a tough conference. The other presided over four teams in a row that werenever contenders, and worse than the previous year's edition of that team. It's not a good comparison.
this was the one thing you can point to last year: Lack of Consistent Shooting! If we Had consistent shooting, we would be in the playoffs We need a consistent shooting game and this has to be addressed. yes, this organization has made horrible decisions, but from a talent perspective.....we only need a vet and a shooter to round us out IMHO..... Pike will help, but is no means the "Answer"...He is Bullard minus the cigar, the monster jam and 4 inches.... We need a starting 3 who can shoot the rock and play average D....... forget everything else....we can move Cato, Griffin, Rice and/or Taylor for something I believe...
