The NEW NBA: "The era of having a legitimate triple (or more) threat"

apart from the 3 stars stuff (imo, pure nonsense), i'm unclear on your criterion fer elite status.

eg; Pistons, 12-7 against the WC. decent considering the east but not really impressive.

or Dallas, the fairy ponies are in the early days of the Kidd experiment, a game & a half above the Rockets. ditto for the Utah Spasms. hell, we're 4.5 games behind the lead in the west! so ditto fer all the WC teams!

Boston started strong and has an unbelievable record against the west. i can endorse an elite pedigree there ... but its as marginal as 'ELITE' has ever been in the history of NBA ball.

 

I said it years ago.

But Rockets are a little different. Rockets have two dominant players on Tmac and Yao. They are arguably top ten best players that no other teams have.

That's why I keep saying that if Rockets get a third boardline all-stars, they will donimate the league. That's why I think they should pursue hard on Ron last summer. Rockets didn't have enough asset to trade. They need to steal or rob others by getting a demage good. The best chance was last summer, I think they could get Ron Artest when his value is on bottom.

Apparently, Bonzi-JX deal will be good for future. Right now maybe too risky to cost this year's chance. It sends a bad message to the players, "Yao are not good enough." It will hurt their confindence, The demage may be much more because both YM and Tmac are not self-confident guy.

You need have the Shaq's mentality to win. He always feel he's the superman even in his ending days.

 

McGrady is not a top 10 player.

 

blockbuster trade aside, the Rockets most important player down the stretch and into the playoffs will be Luis Scola. An efficient 14-16 points, 6-9 rebounds, and with our defense, we can go far. Cheap fouls, turnover and missed mid-range jumpers, the team is in trouble.

 

He was before the second week of the season.

 

Garnett, Nash, Dirk, Lebron, Carmelo, Brand, Chris Paul, Kobe, Arenas, Duncan, Yao, Pierce, and possibly Iverson and D-Wade.

That puts T-Mac just inside the top 15 without me really getting too detailed into a breakdown. Could probably throw a lot more names in there to be honest like Artest and J-Kidd, etc.

 

I think he was being facetious with the rascal scooter remark.

 

But that isn't enough. Maybe it would be if both would actually be dominant as you say but neither one of them is.

This is what I've been saying too, but as long as we have Mac's 20 million on a payroll that is obviously limited (at luxury tax level), the only 3rd stars we have a hope of getting are the cheap, knucklehead, huge risk ones.

If the management truly thinks that we are not good enough (as do I), why don't they just trade Mac for expirings and sign some quality players this off-season. F the playoffs and f this season, why are they trying to be stuck in 'good but not good enough' territory?

 

TMac unfortunately is no longer a top 10 or even top 15 player. And unfortunately for the Rockets he is getting paid like a top 3 player. Now if he was only making like $12 mil a season, that would free about $8 mil for a pretty good 3rd option.......