You're right, after soooo many years together you would think Harden and Howard would have made it out of the first round at least once.....oh wait. The Mavs lost in the first round 1 season before winning the championship. The Spurs lost in the first round (eerily similar to how the Rox did this year) 2 seasons before reaching the Finals. I guess it's a good thing they understood that the worst thing you can do in the face of adversity is panic.
Swinging for the fences is great and all....but i am a more realistic guy. I would have tried to convince lowry to sign the same contract with houston for 5 mill less. He makes mor money after taxes, contends, and doesnt have to play in the cold. I never thought we had a realistic shot at any of these stars until lebron left miami, but then the heat offered bosh that contract and he has a wife. Man, p***y controls everything.
Morey did all of that on his own. This is the 2nd time Bosh turned Houston down... That's not on Bosh. Just like it's not on Lucy that Charlie keeps trying to kick the football.
After seeing how the players are treated all these years, I agree Morey's way to dealing is hurting the organization more than helping. Young potential players probably don't want to join the Rockets as Morey has such a reputation of underpaying talents other than top established players.
I would like to add that no one acknowledges that the Blazers had one of the hottest shooting playoff series ever. Aldridge had career games, Batum, Matthews, they all shot better than they have in their life. Of course the perimeter d was bad, but we could have won that series just off talent. The next series against the Spurs the Blazers went ice cold. The Rockets are only going to get better.
Morey is not blameless. You take the gamble then you better take the responsibility. Thats the job of a GM. At the end, results matters.
You're idiot. Melo politely told us no, Love was never coming here, Morey got desperate. If a player turns down your max contract just so he can wait on another player's "decision", I'm not wasting too much time on him. But Morey got greedy. Once Bosh says he's "waiting on Lebron" I'm turning my attention elsewhere. The Rockets could've made a few minor moves & upgraded coach and we'd been in great position. But we spent most our time of the offseason practically waiting on Lebron. Morey allowed himself to get screwed and got screwed. You're just making more excuses for him at this point FYI, Aquiring 2 stars is irrelevant if you haven't got out the 2nd round. We're technically still closer to a lottery team than we are a contender
Wow. This is ridiculous. Blame Morey for putting Parsons on the market if you want. I think that's fair criticism. Otherwise I'm not sure what else he could have done differently. In fact, he almost pulled off the impossible. The Rockets worked hard to put themselves in this position and they had to go for it. 90% on this board would have been upset if they hadn't done exactly that. The ideal scenarios did not work out. Far from it. That's life. But even after striking out, we will be fine as long as we let go of the dream of signing another star as a free agent. Before it was a smart plan. Holding onto the same strategy now would just be silly. Nothing has really changed from our original Plan B other than Parsons signing that ridiculous contract, which we can and should still match since cap space should not be a factor moving forward. We traded Asik, who asked for a trade for the past year, and Lin. The Lin trade happened because we thought we were getting Bosh and that blew up in our face to a degree, but even then, all that really happened is we got rid of a player who wasn't in the team's long term plans and was going to cost us $15 million to come off the bench. There is still time to put together a good team. Just sign a good wing that can also be a tradeable asset in 6 months if need be, a back up center that can protect the rim, match Parsons and go to war. We can still explore trades to improve the team further and our young players like Jones and DMo are going to be better than they were last year. We can also sign a veteran back up point guard. Blaming Morey for bad luck is foolish. What matters is what he does now. That's what he can control and it will determine what type of team we will have moving forward.
With McHale as the head coach...??? I don't know _ just hoping. But I do believe we have/had a good core.
Sure, but that same team also won 54 games with McHale. And if you want to go a little deeper, I believe that the team could have challenged for 60 wins if not for the adjustment period during the first half of the season and the lull during the final month when Howard and Beverley were both out. In fact, I believe that lull at the end was more crucial to the first round exit that anything else. Consider that Houston and Portland were both pretty evenly matched. In fact they had identical records. Portland experienced their season lull just after the All-Star break when Aldridge was out with a back injury. He returned in March and Portland was able to regain some of their early season momentum. They entered the playoffs on a 9-1 run. The Rockets on the other hand were blazing hot until the final month of the season when injuries struck D12 and Bev. As a result they limped into the playoffs going 5-5 in their last ten games. Momentum matters in the playoffs and it was clearly on the Blazers' side. How much of that do you fault McHale for?
It's the regular season... Does that really matter...??? The Rockets have to learn how to execute a half court offense to make it though the playoffs and of course play better defensively as a team... They are very undisciplined on the court. Coaching matters. Hopefully McHale can do it and Morey can do a better job of building a team around the core players.
ok The only two times Morey had a chance to entice Bosh was the time Lebron was gathering his big 3 and now when he was just offered a 5 year max contract. Both times I would have made the same call.
Whoever necroposted and revived this thread needs to be permabanned. Morey's gotten two all-stars in two years. Even if we strike out this year he's still built a damned good team, with some room still to make moves. All is not lost, and now is not the time to throw in the towel.
I dislike the lack of patience nba fans have nowadays. Everybody wants instant gradification. Theres so many "buy this player now so we can compete for a chsmpionship." Doing so is causing ball players becoming disloyal in the end.
lol Exactly. Morey almost nabbed a 3rd big time star. I am loving this team we have now. Just stay cool and we will be fine. As for the offense. It is an offense that other teams are trying to copy so there must be a reason. Like it is high tempo and hard to stop. Morey grab a couple of consistent role players and we are going deep.