It irks me you spend so much time targeting Battier, yet you don't even fully understand the circumstances in which he arrived here.
So... let me get this straght. Assume CD and Morey have Battier ranked before both Roy and Gay. Why would they be trying aggresively to move up to get Roy if they knew Gay would fall to them and can be traded for Shane Battier? And remember JVG saying that the Rockets´ draft rankings was Brandon Roy and then Thabo Sefolosha, with Rudy Gay no where in their rankings? If CD and Morey´s draft rankings went Battier-Roy-Sefolosha, they would not be making all the moves to target Roy, they would have found out who Memphis wanted (Rudy Gay) and targeted him instead.
Which made 0 sense then and now. The rockets had problems with big guards, athleticism, and scoring the ball other than yao and tracy. How in the world thabo or battier is ranked ahead of gay and brewer further proves why the win now mode was short sighted and over with before it started. Shane was all morey and it is known he had to sell les with numbers and stats on the reason why they should trade the #8 lotto pick and a player for shane. JVG has said many times that he didn't have a opinion one way or the other. The 2 things the rockets couldve gotten with gay or brewer was given up for nothing. In return, the rox have to spend money and or take chances to replace what they couldve had.
It was said many times, by JVG particularly, that they were trying to move up for Roy. If they didn´t know Gay woudl fall to them, and preferred Battier to Roy, they would still be trying to move up, but for Gay, not Roy. They were trying to move for Roy.
I did not say the 3 worse records, I said the first 3 picks are decided by the lottery, hence we WON the lottery.
Taken from the article you posted...Try reading it before you post The lottery process determines the first three picks of the draft. The rest of the first-round picks draft order is in reverse order of the teams' win-loss record. The lottery does not determine the draft order in the second round or the subsequent round of the draft.
well roy is not doubt the best player who came out of that draft (worst draft ever imo), but cmon at least we got a solid player in battier from it, and not bargnani or adam morrison lol.
I misunderstood your post, but your post can be misleading. If all teams have a shot at top 3 picks to start with, then the lottery still influences the draft as a whole. It determines the top 3, influences the rest. your post may lead some to believe only the worst 3 teams enter the lottery.
You act like a mle contract is hard to move. Swift's contract which has been traded many times is a 1.37 up or down of 5.5m. So if u really want to move his contract, he couldve been traded for a 4m contract. Pretty much almost what jackie butler and the reed cat was getting in exchange for getting scola. Its really a moot point and this can be drug the mud again and most posters didn't wernt upset about having battier, it was the price we paid to get him. You can look at the last 15 yrs and never was a high lotto pick traded for a role player like shane. That's the issue, not shane himself. Now we progress and we have to trade 2 1st rd picks for artest and just signed ariza to a mle deal all to try to make up what we couldve drafted.
yeah i think simply the rockets thought Roy was a special player and didn't know what to make of Gay. Coming out of college there were some question marks surrounding Gay's commitment/mentality to the game. He had the physical tools though and that's what was intriguing. I don't think it's difficult to make the connection between Roy and shane, both were players the rockets felt would help them now, with Roy being younger and more talented overall, he'd be ahead of shane.
I'm not going to start a lengthy discussion about this again, so i'll just post once.... i don't see the point in dwelling on this shane for gay trade. They thought they had the next shaq and Kobe, they thought they needed solid vets who knew their role around them to rule the league. Frankly, i can't blame them, that formula had worked 3 times very recently, almost 4 and probably would have kept working had they stayed with it (the lakers). You say its not about shane , but about the parts of the trade. I agree it shouldnt be about shane, or any player for that matter, that comes in a trade and plays his role. Some fans needs to realize they should hate the deal, not the player sometimes....but i disagree it's about the deal in this case, why? Because for all we know it would have worked without all these injuries. That's what we should be pissed about, unfortunately there isn't anything we can do and no one specific to blame. Maybe we can blame the rockets staff for not realizing the league was changing and soon a big two wouldn't be enough, but again, i can't blame them for thinking their guys would develop into Kobe and shaq at the time. Up until then it had been about a big two, with rare exceptions like Detroit and SA, so it wasnt insane to believe 2 superstars + role guys could pull it off, Miami had just done it that year, and Houston's roster would then be very similar to Miami's...
You act like we'd be in sooooooooooo much better shape with Gay or Brewer. Where would we be with either of those instead of Battier? World Champs? I think not. Perennial playoff contenders? That would still depend on Yao and Tmac's health, not some enigmatic player in Gay and role player in his own right in Brewer. Are the Rockets in dire salary cap hell right now? I don't think so. Criticize the wheeling and dealings of Morey all you want, but you can't say we are unequivocally in a worst situation because we didn't get Gay or Brewer. In fact, instead of Ariza and Battier on this 2009 team, predict the success of this team with Rudy Gay or Ronnie Brewer without Tmac and Yao. I'd say their still looking at barely making the playoffs to lottery team, especially with Brewer. And Shane was a high lotto pick in himself, higher then where Gay was picked. That role player you call Battier wasn't some undrafted scrub that you like to hint at times.
Yeah and back in 83 and 84 if the Rockets draft clyde drexler instead of rodney mccray, and traded ralph sampson to the bulls for the #2 pick in the 84' draft, and draft michael jordan; then the Rockets have a backcourt of jordan and drexler with dream at center. Oh what might have been.
We still should gotten more for the 8th pick. Jerry West said Gay was the second best player that he selected after Kobe. We know that's wrong,but the Rockets knew how badly they wanted Gay and settled for only Battier,getting rid of Swift wasn't enough. Memphis had the 24th pick,which ironically was used on Lowry. Even if the Rockets didn't want a pick in the same draft,they could have gotten a future pick. Even Les said we didn't get enough for the 8th pick. Battier was the 6th pick in a weak draft himself,despite being a valuable role player.
We would have had a better chance beating Utah in the playoffs 2 yrs in a row for sure and we would have a young player with upside and a consistent 3rd scorer and the draft picks that go along with that. If nothing else and we have seen this over and over that teams will trade for a young developing player. It was a dominoe effect and I agree that it may have not netted the rockets a ring, but again, ariza,artest,bonzi,francis, nor barry are evr signed and the rockets would probably still have the 2 first rd picks. RV6, thinking yao-tracy combo was the next shaq-kobe was wrong to begin with. Shaq and kobe never played on a lotto team in therir prime. That thinking was dead wrong especially when u wound up with the 8th pick in the draft. Like I've said and also many others, it wasn't about not getting shane, I think shane is a ok player, its the fact what we gave up to get him. Stro for shane shouldn't been the deal, that's it. The lotto pick shouldn't have ever been in the conversation. V.3, your right about shane being a lotto pick and u can also show me a guy that declined from his rookie yr. Not to mention he was coming off the bench one yr during one of the playoffs campaigns. How often does a guy like that is traded for arguably the most talented guy in the draft. Now u look at gay or brewer and u see thee kind of guys the rockets are signing now.
Yea thats true, the one team we match up bad with, Utah, we would of probably beaten. The other 90% of contenders who build around a dominat wing player would of smashed us. Thats good drafting and bad seeding. Using that logic, we would of lost to Portland. We got a player we wanted and dumped a poison pill. The only alternative to discuss is what this team would be like with Thabo. The organization made the right decision.
I've said all along that the Rockets should have gotten more, in fact should have swapped draft positions to get that 24th pick. My main criticism of the trade. But I can't sit here and quibble what the rockets should have gotten in the trade because we don't really know if West would have said no. Do you think West would actually give us a future 1st round pick, either lottery protected or not? And who's to say that it was known that JVG wanted to get rid of Swift so badly that West took advantage of that situation by not giving up more than Battier. But how much were we ACTUALLY set back or improved with that trade? That is the main grade of the trade. Can any of us actually say we were so robbed of that trade that it set back our progress of this team? Can anyone factually say we would be a better team today if we kept our pick? In the end, it's alot of woulda coulda shoulda quibbling on a deal that's not as bad as some make it out to be.
This is the point. The owner was convinced shane was the missing and that giving up the #8 is what is required. Years later with a overacheiving squad void of talent, management decided, "we need a 3rd scorer." Well, when 4 guys score in a playoff game, those knida of light bulbs pop up. When Rafer Alston is you're 3rd option, then u need a 3rd scorer. Now after yao and tracy had to play with a below avg cast in their prime and now they're going downhill, the 3rd scorer is there in brooks and the athletic wing is there in ariza. I just feel that when the rockets made that move, it was so shortsighted that its not even funny. The 3 pick netted Ray Allen and jefferson and throw in netted Garnett. The Lakers wouldn't give up Bynum for Kidd and he hadn't shown anything other than how to get injured. Watching the muscle gay put on this summer, he's going to have a great yr. His development playing with yao and tracy or brewer with those guys couldnve been really,really good.
