I feel what your saying and I agree with you on quick fixes but I don’t agree with you on the T-Mac trade because the Rockets had to get rid of Cato he was over paid And Steve was one of my all time favorite rocket but he was doing to much partying having migraines every other week of the season wasn’t really hungry until his second season with Yao..But one thing about this trade I didn’t like was the Rockets could’ve gotten TMac by just trading Francis and Cato, with that being said the Rockets should’ve kept the Cat with Yao, and TMac, Cuttino was a solid player that team would’ve past the first round for sure but that’s past tense. Good stuff though bro
What's interesting is that the Barkley trade and the tmac trade were basically trades for stars at the expense of most of our starting calibre role players, leaving us severely handicapped for at least 1-2 positions in the starting lineup. We traded almost all of the key role players to get Chuck and we had to end up starting the likes of Matt Maloney (Sam Mack?!) ... We traded franchise and cat and cato and tho we got the best player in the trade, after juwan howard got injured before the mavs series, we had a starting lineup of bob sura, david wesley, tmac, ryan bowen and yao. I'm still a bit traumatized watching Jerry stackhouse destroy wesley in the post over and over again ... on top of ryan bowen getting called for phantom fouls on dirk lol. If not for finding Mike James, the lack of depth on that team was so atrocious. Reason why I say it's interesting is that the current Rockets sit in a similar position, wading through whether to gut most of our team for a 3rd (borderline) star and leave us with a semi "big three" but having absolutely no depth and future in the process ... or running it back with the exact same group. If the former, I cringe at what random player or two we'd throw next to Harden, Russ, and whoever we traded for in our starting 5, yet, it seems like it's our only real move as keeping our key rotation role players (EG, Tuck, Covington, House), and running them back with Harden/Russ doesn't look like anything more than a close first round win in the playoffs and getting sent home in 6 games in round 2. Even if we snag a player like Nerlens Noel in FA, and have more of a well-rounded lineup, I don't know how Russ will play with a center again as it was only after Clint was traded that he was unleashed to his optimal level. So to look for a "quick fix" in adding a third-ish star would seem to make us more competitive than not doing so, but not good enough to win it all. However, to not go for it leaves us in a worse predicament IMO. Maybe it's more less about finding a third "star" and more a borderline very good player (who can shoot and allow Russ to be efficient), along with a serviceable role player for 3-4 of our current ones. I don't know if that's even possible ... but just my thoughts.
The CP3 trade fits that same mold We gave up alot of Role Players for him We could have used Trez Rocket River
We live in a world where everyone is entitled to their opinion. That’s the most polite way I can respond to anyone’s opinion that the trades to acquire both McGrady and CP3 were anything other than no-brainers. Having reservations about giving up role players in order to acquire top 10 talent? Cool. Glad you have no influence over the actual decision making.
We need to start over. Keeping Harden and Westbrick and trying to add whatever scraps we can is the definition of trying to pull a “quick fix”.
LOL No that is not the definition of a quick fix, it is the definition of status quo. Did you go to Trump University?
Barkley got us quickly back to the conference finals And so has Harden anything is better than first round exits every year
Mm, I think the cp3 trade was the best out of all those trades because though you're right about trez, Lou Will and beverly didn't really fit with our team and provided minimal value (as shown the previous year in the playoffs). In contrast to those other "go-all-in" trades, the difference in the cp3 trade is that we still had enough depth after the trade (the problem with that previous year was we had too many role players next to harden and no reliable playmaker/star), hence why that trade gave us the greatest rockets team of the harden era and we were right there to win it all. Cp3, Harden, Ariza, Tucker, Capela was a great starting 5. Having EG, Luc, Gerald Green, Ryno and Nene off the bench was sufficient but Luc getting hurt really shrunk our depth seeing how MDA only plays 7-8 players max and the warriors forced Ryno and Nene off the floor, leaving us with only EG and Gerald off the bench. Also not sure if trez gets any minutes in the first place since we (MDA) never let our young guys develop. It would have required someone getting hurt imo. But going for that type of move NOW would leave us with Russ, Harden, (semi 3rd star), and like ... minimum contract players like the James Ennis' of the world. I doubt we even bring back Rivers. Seems like trading 3/5 of our starters is the only way to get it done though. Maybe we can keep house? haha
But yeah, going back to the original post, sometimes I wonder what would've happened if we never traded franchise and cat. They were maturing and Francis still had 3+ years of his prime for sure. If only JVG hadn't kept such a tight leash on him as he himself admitted. Franchise was the reason I kept watching in those lottery team years haha.
Why do you try so hard to repeatedly convince yourself (and others) of this agenda? I just can't understand a perspective that wants to defend the Westbrook trade at the expense of everything else. Seems bass ackwards. Was the 2018 season just a Space Jam movie that I watched and thought was reality? As far as Morey goes, 2009 too.