With Brooks coming back to Houston today I feel like its the right time to rant about this. I feel the people here and even the Rockets management have short term memory of what Brooks did here for a couple of years. 1st. He was one of the reasons why we got past Portland in the playoffs and the reason why we pushed the Lakers to seven games even with Yao out. 2nd. Last year with Yao being out and before the Martin trade he willed us too many many games. He may make some mistakes and yeah we get kind of mad when he becomes selfish but there was no arguing he was clutch. You can't say about Martin. 3rd. He won Most Improved. Its funny how the cookie crumbles with his ankle injury and it left the window open for Lowry to take it. But imo he kept the starter position not because of Rick but because of Morey. Morey had 24 million reason to keep Lowry as the starter and also Aaron called him out before the season. Now people might say Brooks was sucking for most of his time after he came back from his injury. He a an excuse to at the beginning to knock the rust off, but after that I think it was mental for him. Remember he didn't do well as a back up for Rafer either. He needs the bulk of the mins. to be effective. The game at Boston is prove. That was the game Martin was out and Brooks got his only start after being injured and out played Rondo and was clutch in the victory. Lowry is playing well but how many days have we gotten over the .500 mark with him and Martin?
Apparently some Rocket fans do not understand why we traded Brooks. Yes, all your points above are valid. Yes, you are most certainly correct, except we did not trade Aaron because he is having an off year. We traded him because he is looking to get PAID next year. Between the money Brooks would get, and the money Lowry is getting, Houston would kiss away all the money it has left over. With Lowry having a break out season Brooks was expendable, not garbage. I'm a Duck (well I will be in July), I love AB0, but with all the factors present even I would have traded him...
That's just how it is on clutchfans. When a player is doing great, everyone jumps on their bandwagon. Then when a injury sets him back and he struggles coming back, the "fans" disappear. Personally, I believe you are right. Aaron Brooks was a HUGE reason we beat Portland and pushed the Lakers to 7. Put a healthy Yao for the rest of the playoffs that year, and we win it all.
Hmm... I disagree with this. Steve Blake played a very good series, helping his team even more than Aaron. Yao dominated.
I agree with you. I wish Brooks was never traded. I think that was a BIG mistake - stupid decision....
You can appreciate all that and still realize it was that time to make a change, especially with Lowry shooting better. Despite what brooks accomplished and improved on offensively in the past he's still a 5'10 160 lb point who doesn't do contact. That was an issue defensively and offensively. Lowry made it an easier decision by going 100 % all the time. He's always ding something and that amde brooks look hesitant or inactive. I'm not sure if that's fair to brooks, but for the team Lowry and dragic are better options going forward. You still have above average talent offensively, better defense and added 2 years to your window of opportunity.
Yao dominated? Once Yao was fronted, he did nothing for us - like what always happens when he is fronted.
Yes. Aaron Brooks was a nice player for us last year. But the fact is, he would not have resigned with Houston given how the season played out up to that point. He was GONE. We got something for him before he was gone.
Ok, if we retained AB chances are he would have left anyways because we didn't give him an extension. Let's play devil's advocate and say he did stay, the money to keep him would be near Lowry's contract. That means, between Lowry and AB we would be shelling out near $10 mil a year for two non star players... How does that make sense to anyone?!
Lowry does what Brooks did last year AND he plays Defense and fights for rebounds. and, the hate comes from Brooks walking out on the team during an important game. T-mac wasn't even that classless.
I would have paid Brooks instead of Lowry. I don't think Lowry can replicate this hot streak over his career. And I think Brooks was arguably the most talented player we had.
You ever made a mistake? The dude apologized about as sincerely as you can. Give him a break. Ppl on here worship Mad Max, and he really quit on our team - never apologized either...
He was a point guard that couldn't actually play point guard well at all. He was great last year when his strength as a waterbug streak scorer was needed, but it was only one year. His numbers this year were nearly identical to what he had in 08-09. So which year is the fluke? He was given the opportunity to win his job back and couldn't. If anything, he only built a case for shelving him. As already stated, he's angling for a good pay raise, and if Morey already came to the conclusion that he wasn't going to be a permanent answer at PG, he was smart to move him for a backup paid at value that came along with a mid-first draft pick. As far as short term memory, let's throw out how ghastly he was this year (which was somehow worse than McGrady's off the reservation year): His best numbers, which were last year were: 20 ppg - very nice 43% shooting - not impressive, even for PGs. Scoring Efficiency (PPS): 1.2, slightly below average apg - 5 - poor for a starting PG A/TO: 1.87 - not impressive, most starting PGs are 2.5 or above Defense - no stats for this, but it's no secret he's below average there It was nice that he went on several tears last year, and that he was one of the few guys around able to create his shot whenever he wanted. But he was inefficient, ineffective at involving others, and basically brought little to the table other than his scoring. Not what you'd draw up when visualizing an ideal PG.
so what if Aaron was a huge reason we beat portland or pushed the lakers, it was done in the past when teams weren't ready to prepare for him and it was a completely different team back then. We needed him at that time, now we don't need him
Boston pays ~$10M for their starting and backup PG. Lakers pay ~$8M for their starting and backup PG. Mavericks pay ~$10M for their starting and backup PG. Jazz pay $10+M for their starting and backup PG. Nuggets pay ~$8.5M for their starting and backup PG. Point being.. $10M a year for your starting and backup PG isn't a lot of money and isn't this huge burden on our salary cap you make it out to be.
It has nothing to do with Brooks' play this season, he actually wasn't that bad. Our main bench unit of AB/Lee/Bud/Pat/Brad was almost +10 per 48. Only when he was forced to play with KM or Hill was he ineffective, for different reasons. It had everything to do with not paying a backup big money.
This team needed a backup PG... Brooks obviously wasn't happy in that role AND he was going to be looking for a bigger contract after this season. It would have been really stupid to hang on to Brooks for the rest of the season, and risk paying a lot of money for a guy that's not happy with the role he's going to be playing. While it would have been nice to get more for AB... the Rockets did the right thing. He needed to go, and Dragic is perfectly capable of filling in that backup PG role for this team.
Some people here have selective memory of Brooks. He was hot for a short playoff burst. He can score in bunches, but tends to be inefficient.
