RIP - Shaq

DD might just be right this time. Redick is a rare, once-in-a-lifetime combination of skill, determination, hard work, and guts.

 

Correction: you mean Dirk Nowitzki who's been in Dallas since 1998 instead of Josh Howard. Howard was the 29th pick in the 2003 draft but your point is well taken especially the one about needing a good GM.

 

Dirk actually came to Dallas by trade (for Tractor Traylor). But the deal was a swap of draft picks, so I guess you're right: Dirk is also a lifer at Dallas, along with Josh Howard.

Thanks. I also want to point out the method in Cuban's apparent madness: he took the salary punishment of Walker and Jamison for a year, then swapped them for the players who are now taking him to the championship.

We should look into doing something similar. The important thing when you take on a heavy salary is that the expensive player must be widely tradeable.

 

Aren't Jamison and Walker on expiring contracts? I don't like the idea of the Rockets being contract banks.

 

i pretty much completely agree with this post but the only thing that gives me hope is that i think it was you that started a thread 2 offseasons ago stating almost the exact same thing as the sentence in bold and i completely agreed with that as well. we had guys like mo taylor, no cap space, and no tradeable assets, and somehow turned it into a strong supporting cast of sura, mutombo, barry, wesley, and james and actually had a good team within one year. now granted they were all like 40 years old and so it only lasted one year and you know what they say about lightning and its reluctance to strike twice, but maybe it can be done again. maybe a draft pick pays off, an offseason signing works, and we pull off a minor trade and suddenly we're just a piece or two away instead of about 6 pieces away.

or maybe hope just springs eternal.

 

i'm not even sure LMAO does that justice.

 

What you said about Nachbar is essentially what you are now saying about JJ: that he is a great fit for the (still) talent-starved Rockets. Compared to what passes for shooters on this team, he can certainly be considered to be a major upgrade. However, we differ greatly on just how effective he can be at the next level. I've given my reasons in other posts. What I'd like to hear from you is an explanation as to why you feel that we aren't that far removed from the Mavs given the fact that they currently stand on the verge of winning a championship while the Rockets are in their 5th lottery in 7 years. And please don't bring up last year's playoffs because ever since that time it's been the Mavericks who have blasted off while the Rockets have gone into reverse.

 

well i guess you would probably start off with the FACT that our 2 MAX players were injured for large portions of the year.

 

Don't forget Stack. He has scored 29 ppg in this league, and he has made tons of huge shots for them. Add on top of that the fact that Harris is much better than any of our role players. The gap is clearly larger than one scorer.

 

No, both Walker and Jamison are under contract for years to come. Toine will be making $11m in 2010/11.

As for being a contract bank, that's sort of my point. If we want to win a championship, we need an owner who is willing to take a heavy financial hit for a year or two. This is what we should have done the year we got T-Mac: we should have gotten the depth we needed by going way over the luxury tax level. Eventually the deadwood contracts would have expired, putting us back under the cap. We would have had an exciting and successful team all along, and we wouldn't be looking desperately to reload this summer. We could have gotten all that at the cost of a few years of luxury tax.

 

LOL, you are absolutely right about that old thread, and I was more than happy to be proved wrong!

That said, it's pretty clear now that in 2005 the stars aligned and we caught lightning in a bottle from the synergistic last hurrah of aging vets like Sura, Barry, Mutumbo. It was fun while it lasted, but it was strictly a one-and-done plan. While I wouldn't mind another one, it's a recipe for a crappy encore like this season

DD - while I lost the bet, I'm pretty sure that my assessment of Nachbar as mediocrity incarnate (which was Rudy and JVG and CD's assessment too) is still valid. He didn't exactly smash his way into New Jersey's rotation despite being on an "up tempo" team in which he should theoretically succeed. And let's not mention Eddie Griffin.....

That said we need your starry eyed optimism anyway, it is a Rockets fan site anyway, and I would love to be wrong again.

 

Or, we could have become the New York Knicks, with a bunch of untradeable, worthless contracts.

The Mavs formula wasn't as a contract bank. It was constantly upgrading talent, regardless of fit. They got mocked for it, but the idea is if you collect useful talent, then you can always trade it away for talent that fits your team. They traded away talent for more talent in each of their big trades - but they started that process with real talent, something the Rockets don't have outside of the big two.

If you just collect expensive crap, you get the Knicks - because you can't trade any of it away for anything. The Rockets aren't in a position to follow the collection-of-talent formula.

What they should do, instead, is follow the Phoenix team-building model. Decide on a system, and pursue talent that's an ideal fit for that system. That's what the Rockets did last year, trading for "less" talent in some of their trades getting rid of Mo Taylor, Nachbar, Jim Jackson, etc - the stuff they got wasn't nearly as good in terms of pure talent (Wesley, Barry, etc), but it was a perfect fit for the system they had in place that year.

Right now, primarily due to injuries, they have a mix of low-level talent that all fits different systems - that's not going to work. If Barry and Sura had stayed healthy, this team would have done just fine - but due to the lesser level of total talent, the system doesn't work without all the pieces, and that's exactly the situation we found ourselves in this year.

 

That is a pretty astute observation on the Maverick's recent(past few years) rise to success. It is very true. They have just acquired talent, and then were able to trade it away to get the right pieces when they became available.

If you said a team traded away Michael Finley, and MVP Steve Nash, you think that would a GM who would no doubt be kicking himself right now. But instead that team has a 2-0 advantage in the NBA Finals.

 

The differece between the Knicks and the Mavs is Dirk Nowitzki and to lesser extent Don Nelson. New York didn't have a centerpiece. They didn't have a system. Hell, they didn't have a coach! They brought in Marbury but in no point in his career was he ever a franchise player. So bringing in a boatload of talent to surround him was gonna fail automatically.

Basically, you've described this years Heat team....and they ended up in Finals. Now, think about how much better people would look at Miami's future if Shaq was Tracy's age. It would be "so what they got blown out in the Finals, they have 2 relativly young centerpieces to build around for the future."

 

I know I am jumping in here late but thought I would comment because I thought of starting a similar thread a while ago. In the last issue of ESPN the Magazine, Stuart Scott said Shaq is still the best big man in the league.....by far. I thought that it was laughable even before the playoffs to call him the best by far. Yao has inched closer and closer to him and will probably take the throne of best big man in the NBA next year if he overcomes his injury, which is sooner than I actually expected.

 

this is a reminder of how important kobe was to shaq. without him, shaq can't lead a team. shaq was already in the midst of his prime when kobe was still a rookie. shaq is only as good as a co-captain, not at the level of hakeem, magic, bird, jordan, etc.

heat's only hope is wade.