The Last 10 Years of Personnel Moves and Drafting have been a Disaster!

Steve Francis was drafted by the Rockets in the first round (after draft trade), and he is currently with the team. You forgot about him.

 

i think terrence morris had some potential. he was just never really given the chance. look at boki, who knew he's a pretty good shooter

 

Oops. Francis wasn't acquired in a draft-day trade. I'm an idiot. Carry on.

 

Crash, shouldn't we consider the Rockets pretty lucky?? I mean, 10 years of horrible moves puts us with the Hawks, Warriors, and Clippers in terms of personell decisions. Yet, this team, at the very least, plays meaningful games in late March/April for 7 of the last 10 years and we've assembled a team with young, talented players. So why aren't we that bad?? Because of some good personell moves. We fleeced the Grizzlies, made an excellent pick in Cat and stuck with Yao as our #1 pick. These moves have offset the ones you've mentioned into making the Rockets what they are today...a mediocre team.

 

No, Vancouver drafted Francis. We traded for him when he told the Griz he would not play for them.

 

You nailed it pretty well. And we're paying the price today for all these boneheaded moves. It made me sick to dump Griffin last week. Just another in a long list of stupid Rocket pesonnel moves. We could build a pretty good team on ex-rox players now playing with other teams. PS Francis was NOT drafted by the Rockets, but by Vancouver.

 

Man...you can Nitpick just about EVERY TEAM IN THE NBA. Every team has made just about as equal if not worse mistakes. It's part of the business. Can we think of the good things that have happened?

The Evil that men do long lives after them! The good is oft interred with their bones! - William Shakespeare

 

The facts don't lie. Stealing SF has been the only bright spot, and that one great trade doesn't take away from the laundry list of horrible front office blunders.

Oh don't forget to include the huge contracts given to:

MN
MT
Cato (never in the history of the NBA has so much cash been given to one player simply for one outstanding pre-season game)

The Rockets need a new GM to go along with their new coach.

Raven

 

Out of the draft picks you mentioned.... the moves that I MIGHT have argued were bad in the first place are as follows:

-Rhoderick Rhodes (I thought he was too much of a long shot)
-Bryce Drew (I was neutral at the time, but short and white don't usually make good NBA players)
-Mirsad Turckan (I defended the pick, but thought Rashard might have been better... neither was an obvious choice at the time)
-Kenny Thomas (I thought he was lazy in college, and would never produce because of his height and weight)
-Jason Collier (Everyone hated this one)

Pippen was a great trade, SF was a great trade, EG was an incredible trade. Othella and Cuttino were some of best 2nd round picks in the last decade for the entire NBA.

I don't think that the Rocket's problems are due to foreseeable reasons. Our players display lots of potential, and have since the day they were aquired... they just don't seem to be paying off.

 

I propose you go back and do the exact same analysis with like 5 other random teams, crash (I would, but I don't have the time and don't really care). My bet is you get close to the same results with 4 of the 5.

 

So obviously CD has to go...but i dont fully trust JVG having full personell control either

 

I think what really underscores everything is when we finally get a chance to get a quality player for the Rice contract, we wind up with Amechi. The Wolves willed Brandon into Spreewell , while we wound up with nothing. The Rockets could have kept Griffin until he was pemitted back to the team, packag him up with another player and come up with something good, really good. Look at how many teams went after Griffin and you tell me the Rockets couldn't get anything out of it? Management used to make things happen, bu recently, they've slipped up a bit. I could but i won't talk about my suggestion when the Rockets had the 3 picks and th slew of fa's in 01. I thought they should have let Taylor,Norris and Anderson walk into the sunset. Resign Hakeem to 2 yrs 8m per an draft Jefferson,Randolph and Haywood also retaining a cheaper Tierre Bron or Sean Colson. What would have been the result? Hakeem would have been of the books this past summer,either Thomas or Randolph would be your starting 4, and since that was the yr Franicis missed with all the injuries, the Rox would have probably had the same record as they did when they got Ming. Francis,Mobley,Jefferson,Randolph or Thomas and Ming. On the bench you would have Haywood and Cato,Brown and did i mention the 12m in capspce that could have been used this summer on Fa's? I thought that was a defining moment in whih management could have really set this tem up fo the future and they pretty much blew it.

 

How tired is this? EVERY team has made questionable decesions.

1. EVERY team passed on Rashard Lewis and 9 teams passed on Paul Pierce
2. Kwame Brown was a #1 pick in a draft
3. Etan Thomas #6, Darius Miles#3, Olawikandi,#1, S.Swift#2 Diop#8, Tskitishvili #5, JBender #5, The GM GOD West drafting Gooden #4 and trading him halfway through his rookie season, the list goes on and on.
4. Yao Ming, Steve Francis for a bag of beans, Cuttino in the 2nd round.
5. Drafting Horry when everyone wanted Harold "Baby Jordan" Minor, and Cassell in the 2nd round
5. Hakeem, and trading Thorpe for Drexler

We've screwed up but so has everyone else. Believe it or not, our organization is in better shape than most teams in the NBA.

 

Crash, I think you will agree with me that this team has underachieved over the last few years. My argument is that the Rockets have fielded a competitive team over the last decade. We have hope at the start of every year. Could you say the same thing about the Clippers, Warriors, and Grizzlies?? I too think management should be accountable for some of their personel moves and I don't think you can accept a win some/lose some in that department. But, in terms of being in the lottery boat, that has more often been the fault of the players and coaches.

Also, the Grizzlies did get fleeced, even if you don't like Francis. Dickerson, Price, and Carr are all out of the NBA and Othella is on his way out.

 

All of these bad feelings about personnel started after the blockbuster deal in 1996. The Barkley Trade and the Brent Price and Willis signing...that was the year the Rockets were supposed to do it. The late 90's were spent trying to fill in pieces with Hakeem and Barkley (oh yeah...and Drexler). I only consider 4 years so far of rebuilding and the only really bad moves I see were Moochie's contract, drafting Drew,etc. (I liked Dickerson) instead of Rashard Lewis. The Eddie Griffin deal was huge, I thought it was a real coup...who knew he'd fizzle.

 

The second round is always a crap shoot... especially where the Rox were picking during the mid/late-90's.

The one year that does stand out is 1998. Admittedly, after the Lewis debacle I wouldn't have blamed Les Alexander if he fired CD then.

Also, your analysis doesn't really take into account the personnel moves. The drafts haven't turned out the best, but you do have the Drexler trade (yes, a long time ago), the Barkley trade (yes, a long time ago, but it did get us past the Sonics nemesis), and Pippen (I can't think of one person *at the time* who thought it was a bad move).

All of these were a long time ago. I know. I also think you could put the Hakeem to Toronto debacle as a big negative. I'd agree.

Oh well - hindsight is 20/20.