Oh yeah, I forgot. Splitter!!! I don't know why we got a undersized guard instead of one of the most promising international PFs. Splitter!!! The ideal draft last year would have been: Drafting Splitter in the 1st round Drafting Sessions in the 2nd round Trade for Landry Buy Rudy Fernandez pick from Phoenix but keep in mind Spurs mind not have given up Scola if they didn't get to draft Splitter
Hey has anyone thought about trading for Ryan Gomes of the Timberwolves? I'd love for him to be our SF backup. He's young, good rebounder, scores a few points also. He got 35 points this season against GSW. Aaron Brooks Steve Novak for Ryan Gomes 2nd round pick(to make salaries work better)(and they got our 2nd round pick from the Gerald Green trade as well
I happen to agree wholeheartedly with this post. There has been no mystery as to what this franchise has needed to do in order to field a contending team. All they had to do was to look at the teams that were winning to see what was lacking here. But when you essentially blow off the draft especially when you are in the NBA lotto for years, you end up with serious talent shortcomings and I have maintained for years that this is a situation that you cannot simply expect to remedy through trades or free agents. It's been made even more difficult by the godawful job of player evaluation that's been going on around here since 1995. I consider all of these trade ideas to be a huge waste of time because they are all predicated on the premise that another team will willingly send an asset to the Rockets in exchange for a group of guys who couldn't quite cut it here. Unless Carroll Dawson has been cloned and his clones are secretly disguised as GMs throughout the league, I don't see these trade ideas becoming a reality. What's important to note is that since those 2 NBA championships, the Rockets have been passed in the West by: Dallas, San Antonio, Phoenix, Utah and now New Orleans. As Jerome Solomon accurately put it: this is a team that has become mired in mediocrity and no amount of fantasy trades are going to change that fact. The next season will be the make-or-break season for the Yao-Tmac experiment. Another bellyflop in the playoffs and it will be time to go back to the perverbial drawing board, blow this team up and start the rebuilding process. Of course, given the history of Les Alexander, Rick Adelman will then be the next coach to play the fall guy for the sins of this organization.
A simply brilliant and insightful post. I have long since given up on this organization ever getting itself a clue. It's as if the Rockets are trapped in their own version of Groundhog Day with the same events happening over and over and over again. They are stuck in a cycle of mediocrity right now and their biggest problem is that they have really painted themselves into a bad corner. Their record will be good enough to keep them out of the lottery and drafting so far down won't get them the top-flight players they need to really be contend. Whiffing away those lotto picks really hurt because those were the picks that could have yielded them the young players they needed to restock the roster with size and athleticism. I just don't believe that you can trade yourself out of this fix - Morey will have to be very very good and very very lucky because in this division, I can see no dropoff coming from San Antonio or New Orleans which leaves them fighting it out for 3rd place in the Southwest with Dallas (another franchise that's trapped in its own version of Groundhog Day).
You can't judge a player that hasn't even played a single game in the NBA yet. Just looking at his weaknesses on nbadraft.net: Not a prolific offensive player … Despite his height and quickness, Splitter is not much of a shot blocker … Tends to get frustrated when played physically in the low post … This has led some to question his mental toughness … Throughout his career he has had health trouble so there’s the concern that he could be an injury prone player in the NBA’s 82 game schedule … Must improve on his upper body strength. How big he can actually get is questionable … This impacts him offensively when he fails to finish after contact occurs … Despite being one of the most talented players on the court, he tends to defer to teammates and lacks aggressiveness … Surprisingly he shows mediocre consistency shooting from mid-range … Not a great free throw shooter … Still prone to fundamental lapses as he doesn’t always secure rebounds which enable easy steals for opposing teams … Tends to get out-muscled for rebounding position by stronger opposing forwards … Looking at the scouting report, some of his weaknesses (being soft, health problems, mediocre mid-range and free throw shooter, outmuscled for rebounds); these are the same exact weaknesses that the Rockets had during the playoffs. Whats to say that Splitter is a better pick? I'm not saying that Splitter won't turn out to be a good player; it may turn out that he'll pad out his weaknesses. I'm just saying you should consider a player's good AND bad qualities before saying he's better than someone whose already proven he can play in this league i.e. Aaron Brooks. At least from my viewpoint, Aaron can overcome being an "undersized guard" through his toughness and high vertical leap.
I've called you out on the ludicrosity of that statement in another thread... For starters, 49 wins makes the playoffs anyhow BUT - to say 'if we'd gone 16-6' is the same as saying 'if we'd won 2 more games in november' It's convenient for your argument to say 'the streak gave us too good a record' - but it's an argument that is tangential to reality. Reality is that we won 22 straight and finished 2 wins shy of the WC crown. Doesn't matter where 55 wins come from, as long as they come. We don't need to go back to the streak to 'harp on' about how good the team is: it shows itself out in reality. 2nd best defensive team in the league etc The only thing we missed was a second scorer when Ming was out. Now we're in the position of seeking a vet SG/SF who can fill that role - and I think should we get them, we're suddenly a much deeper team offensively. It's not major tweaks that need to be made, but it is improving some of the cruddy peices surrounding Ming and Mac (Head, Hayes, Woods, Harris I'm talking to you)
I think Ryan Gomes is underrated in that department. And he shouldn't take alot to get from the Timberwolves. I really think he'd serve to be a very nice backup to Battier when the team needs some scoring from the SF spot.
Sorry, his 24 assist game isn't that impressive. The bulls and bucks were playing out the string and there was no defense played by either team. It's the equivalent of getting 20 assists in an all star game.
1. Mike James was CD's mistake. As in, Kelvin Cato's contract was unloaded to Juwan Howard's, and then Mike James and now Bobby Jackson's expiring. If you think about it, maybe it was a good thing Mike James stunk it up so bad. Can you imagine if we had not traded Juwan and had that deathbed-vet higher on the depth chart than Scola (unlikely) and Landry (extremely likely)? I'm glad he was so bad that we didn't have to waste any brainpower playing Brooks ahead of him. Contract-wise, we took on a bit more money with James than with Juwan, but now Bobby and Juwan have almost identical remaining salaries for next year so it's basically a wash. 2. Let's list all the players in Brooks' range that got drafted: 26. Aaron Brooks 27. Arron Afflalo 28. Tiago Splitter 29. Alando Tucker 30. Petteri Koponen 31. Carl Landry 32. Gabe Pruitt 33. Marcus Williams 34. Nick Fazekas 35. Glen Davis The book remains out on Splitter; Landry is ours; Big Baby Davis was made unnecessary by Landry; and beyond that no one after Brooks or beyond (check the rest of the list yourself if you want) has done anything in the NBA except Sessions in the last two weeks of the season. I think time has treated the Brooks pick rather well, as he stands to improve just as much as any other rookie next year. He will shoot better than Luther from the three next I guarantee. To pick one guy (Sessions) out of a group of forty and say "We could have had that pick!" is absurd, because any of the forty teams that didn't choose Sessions could have too. And he probably still won't be that good; he got his PT against tanking lottery teams and resting playoff rosters in the East. 3. Battier helped the Rockets win more games this year than Gay did for Memphis. The debate on this has gone on too long for me to elaborate, so I'll just state my opinion and leave it at that. I agree that CD lost his grasp on talent evaluation and overall ability to run a team, but to bash Morey this early in his tenure is dumb. Of the players on our roster, only Scola, Brooks, Landry, Jackson, Francis, Harris, and Woods have been acquired by Morey. No one will be perfect in his decisions. The great so far is that Morey's mistakes have been calculated ones: Mike James' trade was a wash and Steve Francis' deal was a minimum one which we could absorb with ease.
The most glaring need the rockets have is no backup to either battier or mcgrady. They need a solid SG/SF backup who can spell both players. I'd also try to get either toronto pg if I could because anything that lessens t-mac's workload and adds a penetrator to the mix would be a very good thing.
I think part of Brooks shining at times is due to Adelman's strategy of giving rookies meaningful minutes. Out of those names you listed, which non-Rocket player got as many minutes as Brooks?(I won't say Landry because Landry has proven himself to be a reliable backup PF). I think we all agree that Brooks hasn't really stepped it up to the extent that we want him to be our primary backup PG. Although I am quite happy with this pick in hindsight, his contribution to us is no greater than say, Glen Davis' contribution to the Celtics.
Caro wasn't unloaded in the McGrady trade. The Magic wanted him, even Yao wished Cato stayed. If you think about it the last good PF next to Yao before Scola was Cato.
I think Gomes is more covented than you think on the T-Wolves. You are correct about his play. He looks decent on the court. When you say "should't take alot", do you actually think they want our scrubs? They would want Landry or Hayes at bare minimum.
Do you think that if CDR falls to us in the draft we could trade him to Memphis for Mike Miller?? It would boost their attendance nd they really need it as he is a favourite there and they can not get Derrick rose.
I haven't seen him play this year at all. I remember that he was a hard working and efficient scorer, rebounder who was kinda of like a tweener role player.I think he will work hard on both ends but my main concern is will he be able to defend tall and quick 3's? Has he gotten better over this year? Any comments are appreciated.
Don't confuse talent evaluation for poor GM qualities. CD had two major problems which helped and hurt us. 1. After the two championships he was put into this "win now" attitude to try to milk Hakeem and Clyde as much as possible since the window was closing fast. He never came out of that mode. He did some trades that at the time seemed like no brainers, like bringing in Scottie Pippen and Barkley, that in hind sight weren't the best for the future of the team, but that goes back to the "win now". 2. CD never did anything outside of what the coach wanted or needed. He didn't look at talent by himself, he had Rudy T and JVG that had coaching philosphies that he did his best to fill. He was good at evaluating talent, but he wasn't good at having a back up plan. CD was an average GM, but not a great one. The only GM the Rockets had that I ever consider great was Steve Patterson, he built the Rockets championship teams, he was the GM that built the Portland team with Roy, Aldridge, etc. He was great. CD was a great guy and knew talent, but lets face it, his good trades were only the obvious ones. T-Mac for Francis, whether you love or hate Francis, the bottom line who is the better player right now. Yao, kid of a stretch, but the Rockets have always had fairly good luck when it comes to centers the last 30 years, Sampson not withstanding. I could go on, but if you are going to put CD down, do it for his GM qualities, not for talent evaluation. He didn't carve out a career as long as he did for no reason.
He was the GM but by name only by then. Pritchard was meant to be the person responsible for drafting those players.
It doesn't really matter, the Grizzlies aren't going to be in Memphis past about 2010 or so when all their contracts expire. I would figure they'll either be in Seattle or Oklahoma City, which ever team doesn't get the Sonics (if there's any karma in the world, let Clay Bennett get f'ed over).
