2007 - Mike James, Luis Scola, Steve Francis 2006 - Shane Battier, Bonzi Wells, V-Span 2005 - Stromile Swift, Derek Anderson 2004- T-Mac Now its 2008 and everyone is high on the Ron Artest Koolaid. The GARM is flooded with passionate threads on Artest's impeding arrival as a Rocket. This new found love and excitement along with the flaunting are all leaving a bad taste in my mouth. For one, it has become deja vu all over again where every summer for the last 5 years Rockets fans have been led to believe that the huge SPLASH made just before their eyes will make us instant contenders. Now I would love to see the Rockets get a championship but logic tells me we have been served the same cold dish each and every time. The main ingredient in this recipe has been calculated risk. To elaborate on this further, every time Rockets think they just went over the top or made a huge steal by getting a player below market value. It was the case with Stromile, Bonzi and now Artest but all of these guys came with a disclaimer: use under caution or it may become hazardous to team chemistry. We have been acting so proud to acquire other teams leftovers that we are blindsided to the sad reality that in 5 years since getting T-Mac, we could have developed a nice core of young players to gel in and fill the necessary roles required on this team instead of rolling the dice every summer and mortgaging our future for short term gains. I hope Ron Artest finally breaks the Rockets spell of making huge Splash without paying dividends but I will not declare absolute genius to the Rockets Management until I see us in late May still playing basketball. Go Rockets!!!
Love this topic, we need more of these. I couldnt agree more, and you nailed it on the spot when you said this was a "calculated" risk. I think though that all of the other acquisitions dont have a Defensive player of the year title or have averaged 23+ ppg... this is something Rockets should be excited about
We've had the right line of thinking all along..... 2004: We parted with a bunch of "makes a mediocre team 'good'..." kind of players for one of the best players in the league in T-Mac. Makes you an immediate threat when T-Mac/Yao duo is healthy. 2005: The Dallas series exposed our glaring weaknesses of being too old & unathletic so we went out and signed the most athletic FA available (Swift), drafted the most athletic/BPA available (Head) and signed an athletic two who we thought could be a difference maker (Anderson). 2006: The infamous Battier/Gay trade to take pressure off T-Mac and acquire one of the best role players in the game. Signing Bonzi for cheap was a no-brainer despite he & JVG clashing. He still was valuable under Adelman and ultimately netted us B-Jax who ultimately netted us Artest. V-Span was supposed to be a slasher, dynamite type sparkplug until it became increasingly evident that he just flat out sucked -- still worth the brief gamble though and not to mention, it landed us Scola. 2007: Scola/Landry: Solid PF's that were NBA ready and obviously had a tremendous impact on our season. Mike James: Smart move at the time. If there was any possibility of him returning to his Toronto/1st Rockets tour form you had to do it. Not to mention, Juwan simply had to go. Had Juwan still been on the team he still would have played thus stifling the development of Scola/Landry Francis: Like Bonzi the year before, no-brainer for that price. We're good with him, good without him. Anything he contributes is like an added bonus. 2008: Artest: I think we're past justifying this move. Barry: Another no-brainer for the price.
Excellant responses. And like another poster said, I don't think Artest coming in is equivalent to the other moves we made; it is a much bigger deal with the core that we already have right now. And I don't think anyone thought that we would seriously win the championship the first year that Tmac came in; at least I didn't. We have been building up to this as you said, and barring lots of injuries, we would surely have been much further along. Even if you built a younger core of players instead of these trades, etc.; no coach or GM can predict injuries to your major stars and have enough to compensate for that to win championships. This is our year baby!
One huge differance. Ron Artest is a top 20 player on the court. We have'nt added a player of this caliber since the T-Mac trade in 2004. There is no reason to think this won't work if he keeps his head on straight. Bonzi, Mike James, Steve Francis(2nd time around), Stromile Swift, or even Shane don't even compare to the TALENT of Ron Artest. Everything gonna work out just fine.
It just shows our front office and owner are about winning. They have seen the need to add a third scorer and other pieces since T-mac's arrival. Now is about the first time since he's been here we've added a legit third scorer and all star player in his prime. Most of the other moves were unproven and risky...hoping Bonzi could play like he did against SA for 6 games, hoping Mike James could reproduce his great contract year, hoping Steve Francis could somehow turn the clock around, Stomile Swift to reach his potential, praying V-Span could make the NBA transition, etc. I can say management is getting better now by turning mistakes into real miracles. Artest is the real deal and the only "IF" is his attitude.
Shows we've tried to upgrade our weaknesses every single year.. it also shows that every year since 2004 we've been able to be super excited for the next NBA season and pretty much (even if we don't have a championship) they have been a lot of fun. One of these times it will work, as we upgrade every years and our previous upgrades have got us better upgrades (see v-span for scola/ bonzi for bjax for artest)
It shows a big span of the failures when Rockets were trying to find a good PG. will we ever see a serviceable NBA PG before Yao-TMAC is closed?
Given the limitations, I think the Rockets management has done a good job in the past several years. They collected the role players they felt were needed (Alston, Battier, Hayes, Mujtombo, Barry), got rid of players that did not fit (James, Wells, Swift, Novak), got lucky (Scola) and made some good draft decisions (Brooks, Landry, Head). And then, when needed, they're taking a gamble that could pay off big (Artest). Sure, they've made some mistakes along the way, but I like the direction this team has been going overall.
It would be interesting to see a list of the guys we LOST those off-seasons. This year, Artest and Barry come in, and only BJax and Novak leave (I don't count Greene because he wasn't here last year). In other words, we added a buttload of talent and lost scraps. That's what's got me excited -- Morey took a team that would've come close to 60 wins last year if not for Yao's injury and seriously upgraded it.
A solid post, but I do think the Ron Artest trade was the best acquisition the team has made in years. The team gave up very little and picked up an All-Star caliber player in his prime. He has played well under Adelman and he's in a contract year. The last three offseasons, the Rockets have mostly gone after mid-level talent. Some of them have panned out (Scola), while others have been busts (Swift, VSpan). This time, the Rockets have added a top-30 player to a team that won 55 games last year. There is now a legitimate optimism for this team to win a championship if they stay healthy.
I'm not sure I understand this post. Other than Rudy Gay, what did we give up that mattered? The Rockets have done an outstanding job of getting something, or nothing, for (in either case) almost nothing. All of these moves were wins for us. Either we got something out of them (TMac is a huge win, Battier is a wash for Gay, but much better for us in the short run, Spanoulis got us Scola, James and Bonzi got us BJax who got us Artest) or in no way did they hurt us (Swift ultimately got rid of him for Shane, Anderson, Francis is an expiring contract and costs us next to nothing). And none of those trades past TMac was for a top 20 player until Artest this year. And even with Artest, we traded a very late, very raw first round pick and another late, most likely worthless late first round pick for him. And none of this mentions that this is only Morey's second year behind the wheel on his own. His moves have been nothing short of fantastic. Other than James and Francis, they have all been huge winner. Even James you could say is a winner because of the BJax/Artest correlation. Francis was a no regret move. He makes nothing and doesn't hinder our moves at all. In fact, if he still is not healed up/playing well at the trade deadline, he could help us as a piece of a trade.
This Article came out a few days to early since the Artest trade cannot be announced until Thursday: NBA.com Photo Gallery: Player Movement http://www.nba.com/gallery/playermovement/20080724_1.html But here's a good pic:
Excellent thread - five stars! We should be pumped not only during the offseason but also during the postseason.
After the T Mac trade I thought we'd at least be making a really deep playoff run. When we added Stromile, I thought he was the missing ingredient that we needed and that we'd be title contenders. And then with Bonzi... I thought for sure that it was fiiinally the missing piece. If you would have told me the day of the t mac trade that we would also add Ron Artest.. I would've deemed the Rockets unbeatable. We as Rockets fans.. are also homers. Jazz fans think we're still first round fodder, we think we're a top 2 or 3 team in the NBA. The truth is usually somewhere in between.
Now, this is what I call an informed response. All those moves only were bad in retrospect, but they made sense at the time.
