Actually he was a Morey move lol. DM was the assistant GM and convinced Alexander to do the Battier trade.
^ This. Morey was on record admitting that he had a lot of input in that deal. Sure Dawson was the one who did the negotiation. But preferring Battier over Gay or (to be more accurate, the 6th pick) was most likely Morey's idea. Morey also said that they were actually planning on picking Sefolosha if the deal didn't work. So Gay was never going to come to Houston. To this day, many posters still cannot forgive Morey for that trade.
What was the story again about Portland (or was it Minn) screwing us on draft day by promising a trade so we could get Brandon Roy. Plan A was Brandon Roy (as I recall) The Trade was Plan B
The Rockets worked out a trade with the Wolves where the Wolves would picky Roy(who the Rockets wanted) with the 6th pick, the Rockets pick Foye with the 8th picks, and we give them a little extra something. This trade was made because the Rockets feared that Portland would take Roy with the 7th pick. The problem was that somehow the trade leaked out, and Portland picked Foye, who they didn't really want, to force a trade with Minnesota over us. I don't know why, but one thing about CD seems to be that he always leak trades way too early for whatever reason. The potential Roy trade and the potential Stoudamire trade both came to mind where we supposedly had a deal, and then not so much. This is why you run a tight ship, so you can get Sacramento to give you the 5th pick in his rookie year for an average PF before anyone else finds out.
