That's simple enough to look up: 2008 Salary info: Duncan - 19,014,188 Ginobili - 9,079,811 Parker - 10,500,000 Big 3 total - ~38.5m Allen - 16,000,000 Garnett - 23,751,934 Pierce - 16,360,094 Big 3 total - ~ 56m Bryant - 19,490,625 Gasol - 13,735,000 Odom - 13,248,596 Big 3 total - ~ 47m Battier - 5,883,600 McGrady - 18,257,750 Ming - 13,762,775 Big 3 total - ~ 38m
So really what you're saying is that we need to revamp our roster and put a 15 million dollar player into the roster instead and we'll be just like the rest of em. Battier a Big Three Player? C'mon lol.
I got the numbers completely wrong (was looking at info reguarding next yrs payroll est.).... But, my post wasn't really about the correlation between spending and playoff success but addressing the idea that McGrady and Yao's contracts are killing the Rockets. If you have two top 15 talents on your team who aren't still on their rookie deals; they're gonna cost you around 30mil.
yeah the rockets definitely have a gap in that they have no $6-10m players at all. our players are all either really cheap (rookie deals), relatively cheap (3-5m), or max players. i've always assumed that this is why people around here originally got the idea that we need a third scorer. i do agree that a solid $7-8m player thats a viable offensive threat and brings some versatility would be a great idea, but it'll be tough for morey to package what we have and turn it into that guy. note that we don't even have anyone in the MLE range besides Battier and Jackson's expiring. the next most expensive player we have is alston in the ~4.5m range. on one hand, its great for the rockets because there are no bad contracts (unless you count tracy's), but on the other hand it makes it tougher to match salaries for a good player without giving up half your team. my guess is that the trading deadline brings us something interesting though.
Since you've just gotten your ClutchFans beginner's license, I'll try to explain a few things. Let's start with the 22-game winning streak. We played well in the streak and I was overjoyed every night. In five years all we will remember is the Rockets won 22 in a row. We will forget about Steve Novak's miracle shot half way through the streak. We will forget that many of the teams we played were without one or more of their star players (Dirk on suspension when we played Dallas, Gooden and Varajao out when we played Cleveland, Boozer out when we played Utah, etc. etc.). The stars aligned for the Rockets. We played out of our minds and I was proud of them, but we had some really lucky breaks in the 12 games Yao missed in the streak). My point is we can't use that as a criterion for greatness. Now, our "win now" philosophy harnessed to "moneyball" ensures mediocrity. Morey has often said he likes low risk players even though their ceilings are limited. They are more "cost effective." So we get 6-7 PFs by the bushel. We look for SGs like Maurice Evans (young and cheap) or Brent Barry (old and cheap). We get over-the-hill PGs who once were great but now have no knees (SF3 and BJax). It's the reason we traded a future star in Rudy Gay for a mediocre Shane Battier and the chance to shed a bad conract. Had we not stumbled into the Scola trade (after Cleveland completely dropped the ball), we really would have been in deep poop. Well, do you see the trend? I love the Rockets. I've been going to games since they arrived in town back in the early 70s. However, that doesn't stop me from being a realist.
perfect...that's why i keep stressing the 22 game winning streak...that's something that will never happene agin as long as i live, but, OUTSIDE of that 22 games streak the rockets baaarely played .510 ball... .510 ball won't get you the 7th seed in the West...again, i won't be surprised if the Rockets don't make the plaoffs next year, WITH IT'S CURRENT ROSTER...
Excellent point - No one above 15 ppg on the entire team besides Yao an Tmac. I'm surprised we do so well in the regular season. Bye Bye Shane and B Jackson for a sign and trade for Maggette.
ouch. nice "subtle" jab at my credibility there. the old "since you are new and i am so oldschool, i am obviously right" move. and i thought we were all adults here why are you acting like the winning streak is a separate entity from the rest of the season? if the rockets had two separate 11 game winning streaks, and ended up with the same winning percentage and results, how is that any different? answer is that it is not, so please stop saying "without the streak" we are this or that. it makes no logical sense. i could easily say "without the losses, this is an undefeated team" but that makes no sense either does it? and you are definitely confused with your Moreyisms. please show me where Morey says he likes players with limited ceilings. i have never heard that from him. as a matter of fact, i seem to remember all his comments pre-draft highlighting how the rockets needed to take some high upside players, and inherant in that strategy would be some risk that they bust out. a basketball team is a perfect example of portfolio theory, just like in retirement planning, investing, collecting baseball cards, hiring new employees, or anything else. just like a good long-term investment strategy contains safe but slow securities and risky but lucrative securities, a good long-term basketball strategy involves consistent, productive players like shane battier balanced with temperamental but explosive players like tracy. players like shane keep you from losing when you shouldnt. players like tracy help you win when you shouldnt. thats the balance. hence the portfolio. so, with the current roster, we have lots of the first type of player, and not much of the second type of player. so what does morey do? he drafts the second type of player. exactly what he should do. you disparage our 6'7" PF squadron. show me what Otis Thorpe you saw in the draft in the low 20s that we could have had? show me what Dwight Howard Morey passed on when we were picking 24, 25, 26? since obviously we had so many of these imposing prototypical PFs available to us at no cost, morey must have been blind to pass on them, right? unless . . . they werent there at all. pretty much unless you want to overpay a FA and screw your cap situation over for the forseeable future (something that CD was all too happy to do in the early-mid 2000s and we should be thankful that morey is NOT doing), you're going to build through the draft and trades. morey is accumulating assets, and when the time is right, i have no doubt he will package these assets for the type of player that could put the rockets over the top.
You can't believe how much I hope you are right. Based on Morey's history so far, I can't be optimistic, although I was so glad he went out of character to draft Greene. BTW, its fun to have pun with people's nicknames. I was treated to "thumbs" abuse in 2002, although I was around with another moniker long before then.
PG Alston/Jackson/Brooks SG McGrady/Francis/Head SF Battier/Green/Novak PF Scola/Landry/Hayes C Yao/Mutombo/Dorsey I assume the lineup is something like that at the moment. Starting point guard and backup shooting guard positions are absolutely ridiculous for a team that supposedly wants to win a championship right now. Of course they are apparently trying to get Brent Barry or Maurice Evans so that could help a lot at backup SG. But are they EVER going to fix the starting point guard problem? Alston is fine to keep for the #2 point guard, but for th starting spot they have to get someone better. It's like the Rockets management just refuses to acknowledge this weakness in the team.
Well you never know. We are more like the Arizona Diamondbacks in MLB where they had a bunch of no name players they brought up through their farm system and then put them in line for the championship. We are definitely not the NY Yankees with Steinbrenner where he has the best team money can buy.
DING DING DING! We have a winner! We can not do anything but shore up the positions of the injury-plagued players so that if and when they go down, the drop-off is not major. Also, it gives us the option of resting them more often to AVOID the injuries in the first place. We CANNOT thin this roster so that you get the player you're dreaming about. NO WAY we can do that. That's why I say shore up the swingman and C positions. I want to have two functinoal C's behind Yao and two functional swingmen behind T-Mac. We went with Deke and a PF last season. That's not good enough IMO. We need Deke and another C with size who can score maybe. When T-Mac goes down, we need someone to carry some scoring load (someone like Ricky Davis maybe?) just for a little while. Even if they don't in too well, they will be able to fill T-Mac's role a little bit. Shaking up this roster would be the dumbest thing. What I find funny is that whoever replied to my last post said "we have good young players in Landry, Greene, Dorsey, and Brooks" then goes on to say "Yao and T-Mac are the core and reason we're winning". Throw in Scola and Battier and I don't know what the hell else you want??!?! Since when does a top 5 team in the league have 4-5 good young players, a core that wins and two amazing role players like Shane and Scola? Jeez. I just don't understand sometimes. If Morey quit tomorrow, I would CRY. He's done a terriffic job with this roster and despite being positioned to win the whole damn thing if we get lucky and stay healthy, we still have Bobby Jaxx, Francis, Head, Hayes, future picks and maybe Hayes to pounce on a trade if it becomes available. I LOVE where we're sitting right now. We are, as you said, a great regular season team so we don't need to make a trade worrying about regular season. We will wait and win from now till the trading deadline and as soon as a good deal becomes available (if it does) we will grab the opportunity and take no prisoners on our way to the top.
Ehsan, you sir clearly understand basketball... We may not agree on some things, but on basketball, it is all good... DD
