Great post. My personal hope is for us to be fortunate enough for us to get Chris Bosh either through a trade or free agency. Otherwise, I'm completely clueless as to what direction the organization will be going.
Shame on you for belittling these good people for clinging to their "Yao Ming Mania" youtube volumes. Shame on you. I don't condone such elitism.
ZOMG! OP IS INDEED AN A-HOLE!!! HE DIDN'T EVEN MENTION THE RETURN OF THE MAN WHO BUILT THE TOYOTA CENTER!!!
I'd have agreed with you two weeks ago. Being led by 2 injury-prone stars, no matter how good, is not a recipe for success. However, with the current panic about Yao, this is the worst time for us to be selling off our pieces. And, because of the structure of our payroll, I think the timing is a little premature. I'm betting Yao will play this season. I'd load up to give the championship one more run with this group. Gamble on McGrady and Yao being healthy. Then dismantle the team after the season. You can start dismantling at the trade deadline if it obviously isn't working.
Good lord Negative Nancy...have a little bit of faith in the fact that we have an incredibly talented young base and one hell of a GM in Morey. Excuse me if I haven't resigned our team to the gallows just yet. Just wait and see what happens before you start screaming LOTTERY and REBUILD.
I'm still clinging to the Championship years...what happened? I wish Hakeem was Raz Al-Ghul and never aged..
I'm failing to see how prudence is being equated with negativity in just about every thread. You may not agree with rebuilding, that's fine, but it's advocacy is embedded in a rational basis for improvement over the long haul, not just sheer pessimism as is being alleged...
Honestly I think what keeps me following the Rockets has to be the potential to win it all, but seeing how Tmac's situation is getting stickier with ever article we read not to mention Yao's injury, whether its career threatening or not, when are we going to commit to rebuilding? sigh* Honestly it may be a good time to reevaluate this situation and think about rebuilding, but we'll see how this turns out. Even if Yao does get healthy his durability is always going to be perpetually put to the test with China always wanting him to play in meaningless tournaments. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/2009063...90630074954;_ylt=Ai5hhF9Kv9455YB70sxgIL68vLYF LAME!!
yes...blow it up... the jailblazers have done a great job of rebuilding their team identity. most importantly, we have Morey, so... <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/WlBiLNN1NhQ&hl=en&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/WlBiLNN1NhQ&hl=en&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>
What can I say? I guess some of us are able to enjoy seasons of basketball that don't end in a championship victory, or even in a playoff victory. There was a lot of fun and exciting basketball being played in the past couple of years, even if the Rockets weren't the best team in the league. The lows were low, but they made the highs feel higher. I guess I'd rather ride a roller coaster to nowhere than a moving sidewalk to nowhere.
Agreed 100%. But for mine I'm with ima_drummer --> rebuild it. In my mind that is NOT equal to 'throw everything in the bin and tank hard and be in the lottery for the next 5 years'. It is 'get the right players at the right prices to help win games' - and keep working on getting better and winning more games and looking to pick up a star somehow. We should be able to trade Tracy for something useful. And if Yao comes back and plays next season, fantastic! Trade him to someone trying to make a championship run and pick up a peice (peices) and a bunch of picks.
Haven't read through the thread, but what I'm clinging to is my favorite band of role players since the championship years. I hope we're able to upgrade at the star spots without losing too much of the heart, grit and chemistry of the support squad we have now. It might be foolhardy but I don't want to swap Brooks, Landry, Scola or Lowry for picks or to clear salary space for a start-from-scratch FA hunt. This kind of team (sans stars) is hard to build and The Rockets have built it. It might be the first time in NBA history, but I'd like to see Morey build a team around its role players instead of the other way around.
To all of you questioning the OP's fanhood - you're what's wrong with the BBS. We're here to express our opinions, not start flame wars. His post was perfectly reasonable. I am still clinging to the TMac/Yao thing... I'm not sure why. But at the same time I am so ready to move on, because those two guys are going to give me an anxiety disorder one of these days. I've always wished we had two other stars instead of them, but yet I always believed they'd pull through one of these days. It's tiring to constantly think and argue about those two.
i would like to keep yao, just for the historical significance. you know, from a Chinese standpoint, I would like for their first star to somehow win it all with the team that drafted him. It took hakeem a lot of time to win it here, and i seem to remember people clambering to trade him back in '93.
You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to ima_drummer2k again. and ima, if you haven't seen this thread: http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=171161 i expect you to go to it right now and start memorizing lines...so you'll remember them when i pepper them throughout my posts over the next few weeks. you're welcome.
i do too...but those guys alone aren't gonna win championships...and if they're superflous or not a good mix with the next alpha dog we bring in to attempt to be a championship contender, then i'll thank them for their service and move on.
If you hadn't noticed, our identity did change over the last two years with the additions of Scola, Landry, and Brooks. We transformed from a lazy team riding the coattails of the superstars to a team that works extraordinarily hard with very little (due to injuries). That's the nucleus, IMO, not Yao/T-Mac. Keep that nucleus there. As for Yao/T-Mac, I believe that dynasty/era/whatever was over this year anyway with the persistent injuries. Once T-Mac went down, that dynasty/era/whatever was over. The team doesn't like him, the management doesn't like him, and we've been desperately trying to get rid of him ever since. Keep our core (Scola, Landry, Brooks, Battier), try to get rid of the high-priced and oft-injured superstars (Yao, T-Mac), and improve the team using their salaries. That's what should be done. We shouldn't get rid of proven youngsters that we know can grow and improve just to "shake things up". It's stupid. We have a deep roster as it is, so we're very protected from having to do that. In the worst case scenario, we don't win much this year, but are set for the free agent market in 2010 and are rebuilt overnight.