If he was completly healthy during those 24 minutes I could see that happening, but it would have to be off the bench etc... Either way, I think the way they are now, it is going to get much uglier until AB comes back and then a general progression back to around .500..... DD
What a joke....If Morey took over for OKC when Presti did, I'm sure he would have made the same moves that people applaud Presti for - any of us would have. Portland was on the only team who didn't think Durant would be better than Oden - it was a no brainer. Presti gets too much credit for making rational decisions when being in the right place at the right time. ...as for Morey - I don't think you can blame him for anything. Did you look at the roster Morey had when he got here? I'll help you - http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/HOU/2007.html I get the feeling we would have been worse over the last several years without him - by any measure we should have been DOA with Yao and Tmac as our "stars" the last several years given the lack of playing time they got. It's true that the accumulation of assets hasn't reaped us the mega star we want here(the home run acquisition), but to Morey's credit, he hasn't panicked and made a dumb trade/acquisition that has hurt the franchise significantly either. I'm far more grateful for that than the lack of success on the court because as long as Morey is making good moves for the most part, eventually we are going to be a strong team - we just need a little patience here. Morey is pulling off the rare feat of rebuilding while staying a contender - that's much more difficult than what Presti did in gutting a team for draft picks(trading Rashard Lewis and Ray Allen for picks) and then drafting with lotto talent. Being a GM is about putting yourself in a position to make a move and being lucky enough to get the opportunity to capitalize on that. Houston just hasn't had the opportunity but they are primed to make a move when the opportunity presents itself and if not, Morey hasn't hurt this team in the way say Philly has hurt it's team by acquiring Brand on a huge contract. ....I'm also really really curious to see how Morey takes advantage of the new CBA. By all accounts it will be far less generous to players and I think that it will take several NBA GMs a while to understand it. I would rather have a smart guy like Morey taking advantage of understanding the new rules before naive GMs do. And if you TRULY down on Morey's performance, ask yourself this - if Houston let's go of Morey, what team wouldn't want him in a heartbeat? I mean the Lakers are satisfied with Kuptchek, OKC like Presti...and after that I can't think of another savvy owner who wouldn't at least consider firing his present GM regardless of their performance just to bring in Darryl. Can you imagine what Morey could do in New York or Chicago? ....don't let the Summer of Lebron shenanigans, the disadvantage of playing in Houston, or having two perpetually injured stars fool you - Morey hsa done a great job with what he has to work with. Eventually he's going to bring us a true championship contender.
wow! you could not be more right. we forget how bad that roster was! and how great yao was that year. look at his numbers...off the charts. we won 52 games and he only played 48 games.... we are in great, not good hands with daryl. and remember, he picked adelman as his coach and we know how well that has worked out. i cant believe anyone would even think to question what a great job dm has done for our rockets!
That roster got huge values in Yao and TMAC. If Morey had traded both and started rebuilding right away, Rockets are contenders now. Current roster are full of overpaid one dimensional role players and one dimensional role players on rookie contract. To rebuild, give me that 2007 roster any day of the week. To contend, give me that 2007 roster any day of the week, too.
Even though NBA is turning very European, physicality will always win championships. Why do you think the Lakers always trade for players that start stuff with Kobe? We need less floppers and more muscle. More players who frustrate their matchups. We can't shoot free throws to the WCF. We took the Lakers to seven games with Rafer and Artest... Horrible shooters. But they were aggressive and physical.
Rafer was traded for Brian Cook and Kyle Lowry earlier that year. Aaron Brooks was the main PG on that team. Just saying....... DD
DD I would really like to know what is your personal preference regarding the future of this franchise. Im over Yao Ming and everyone else currently on this team. Who would you keep/trade/allow to walk and for what reasons. In other words, play GM with me and let me into your thoughts....I think it'd be worth while knowing what you'd do given our circumstances. Dont give me the easy answer as to "Do whatever improves the team" I want to know specific players and reasoning. Cheers
Ah, yes, I see what you are saying, I do think we could use a STAR player, but I am utterly unconvinced one is coming. So, what would you do in the meantime tank , and tank some more until you draft one? DD
Dave, I appreciate your interest, and will indeed put that down at some point in the future, I have it slated as a DD's Rocket talk, if the season continues to go south. The problem with doing anything like that though, is that you make a ton of leaps in hoping that someone can be traded.....honestly, the one thing I would be doing differently right now is taking higher risk players in the draft, guys with large upsides....like Whiteside over guys like Patterson. DD
I disagree.... the deal involving Elton Brand this past season was to obtain Iggy and not to pry away their second overall pick and yes we should have accepted Brand's albatross's contract to get the g/f combo that we need (Morey stating he wanted the a higher pick was just his coverup to take Iggy off of them for some of the assets we had). Everyone's concern was Brand and his age/injury history/productivity etc. he's doing fine by my standards and would've fit in nicely at the starting pf position with scola coming off the bench. I would have taken Brand's contract in a second for the opportunity to land Iggy or the 2nd overall pick. Also I dont think we should continue to gather assets as you mentioned simply because it's very unrealistic to sit and wait for superstars to become available for all the reasons you've already mentioned. Look where that strategy has gotten us, instead lets develop our young players or simply look for new ones even if it means trade everyone for those high picks that are more than likely to get us that future star.
Tanking has a bad connotation. I would never tell the coach to purposely lose games. But I would trade Scola and Martin. They are two of the older players on big contracts --- if we can't win now, we have no use for them. Brooks is still younger and could hold some value for us.. unless we use one of the top picks to draft a PG. Then I believe it will be time for him to be traded or accept the 6th man role. Hopefully, we can do it the way the Thunder did. Get a high pick in this year's draft, then trade Scola and Martin for other high picks in the draft (I believe the Sonics traded Ray Allen for the 5th pick). If you could acquire a young superstar piece for any of the guys, of course you do it.. but that's not realistic. The only way to land a star is to draft one. From there, you use the high draft picks to draft the future foundation of the team to build on. That's the best way to rebuild. You rid yourself of the high-dollar contracts and get young lottery pieces to develop and build around. Now if we could only get Adelman to teach them defense and not fast breaks, we'd be in good shape.
It's only a matter of time before that or something else happens. Yao needs to go and i personally wouldnt be upset if he wins a ring with another team before we do over here. We had two injury plagued players in Tmac and Yao instead of ridding ourselves of one we should have shipped them both simultaneously. Imagine what we could have gotten for Yao if Landry and injured Tmac netted us Martin, Hill and co.
Trade for what? What deals were out there that Morey missed? What GM in their right mind would have traded Yao AND Tmac in 07? Sure, that would seem to have worked out NOW, but at the time only a complete moron would have done that. No one could have accurately predicted that Yao AND Tmac would fall off as much as they have in such a short period of time - Tmac's fall in particular was unprecedented. He went from being a guy who the Lakers consider trading Kobe for to nearly out of the league in 5 years with no major catastrophic injury in between. I can't think of another player who was so good and fell off so quickly. ...and if you would take the 07 roster(and half a season from Yao) to rebuild/contend with than I don't even know why I bother responding because clearly something is wrong with you. If Rafer Alston or Shane Battier are your 3rd best player, your kind of in trouble...At least our 3rd best player right now is either named Aaron Brooks, Kevin Martin, Luis Scola, or Yao Ming depending on how you rank them.
Very good point. I'd keep Brooks for the time being, allow the market to set his price do a sign and trade for him and get someone of equal value in return. As for Lowry, Scola, Martin and Yao- get what you can for them whether that means a superstar (melo or anyone that becomes available from flashing those players around to other teams) or high draft picks from mediocre teams. Staying pat clearly shouldnt be an option for this team not now and not until we have a superstar duo or star trio combination.
....and then we can give that pick to New York since we swap 1st round picks with them this year, right? Sounds like a poor plan to me.
Here is what I think about the status of Yao since everyone is asking.... ;-) ...don't trade Yao. He's a rare loyal NBA athlete and they will likely get him at a reduced cost when his contract is up this offseason. Plus they will likely sign him with the terms of the new CBA which if everything goes as plans will likely be a team friendly contract. I hear non-guaranteed terms thrown around in the new CBA and if Yao continues to be injury plagued, that lets your team off the hook immediately if need be. The problem has been that Yao was making near max dollars but wasn't on the court even though it counted against our cap space. I bet that changes in the next CBA. I don't think you build around Yao anymore, but I think you try and retain him similar to how Houston fought to keep Deke as long as they could. He's always going to help your team while he's on the court just by shear size and the financial benefits to the bottom line of having the one of the most popular athletes in the world is obvious. If the financial/roster space risks to having an injury plagued player can be mitigated with the new CBA, you HAVE to keep Yao because that's the only real knock on him once you move past building around him as your centerpiece.
Morey stated in a post-draft luncheon with season ticket holders that we had a deal in place with Philly for the #2 and Brand, but Philly pulled out at the end. http://tinyurl.com/2cbaqnf And the reason people didn't want Brand are not the things you're listing; the reason is his God-awful contract. His contract is so bad that Philly considered giving up the #2 to get rid of it. In any case, Iggy would not solve our problems because he's the same thing as Martin: a good third option on a contender, not the kind of game-altering threat we need. He doesn't get us out of the 45-win trap. As to your thoughts on assets, I don't think there's a lot of difference between what you're asking for and what the team is doing. We've found and played young talents like Landry, Brooks, Bud, and Hill. I completely agree that we should be willing to do just about anything to get a top draft pick, as does Morey if the proposed trade I linked is any indication. The problem is that teams are very reluctant to part with these for the same reason they're reluctant to part with superstars. When we're able to trade for a premium pick or a superstar, we will. Until then, there's not much more the team can do.
How many times must this fallacy be corrected? The Knicks can have a better record than us and still get a higher pick. And even if we get the better pick, we can simply choose to keep it. Our right to swap with them is optional, not mandatory.
