Which came to be because they still had their superstars in tact. The reason these teams stay successful is because they sell their young guys when their value is most high, and since they have team success even their role players are sought after. If the Rockets still had Yao/McGrady you'd see guys like Brooks still playing well most likely and his value would have been much higher than it was figuring the Rockets would at least be the 4th seed in the west with those two. But my point is still valid. If Kobe/Pau suddenly could not play for the Lakers they would be in the same spot as we are now. A bunch of solid role players with a great coach and thats it. It's not ineptitude to me, Morey and Les had to go with Yao/Tmac. They were our franchise guys and you ride them till you can't anymore.
You are right about the Spurs. Their front office is The Gold Standard against which all NBA front offices should measure themselves. They were able to find Tony Parker (#28) and Manu Ginobili (#54?) late in drafts. That said, even with all of their great success, if they don't tank/luck their way into the #1 pick in 1997 and grab Tim Duncan, do you know how many championships the Spurs would have won? ZERO. Sure, they would have been a consistently good playoff team, but never a true championship contender. As for the Lakers, I think you are employing revisionist history. At the time of the Pau Gasol trade, the Lakers were in almost EXACTLY the same place that the Rockets are currently in: perenniel late playoff seed/struggling to make the playoffs. The only difference is that the Lakers had a true superstar in Kobe (who himself was the combination of good drafting by the Lakers and strong-arming by Kobe and his agent on draft day to force a trade to the Lakers). To put the Pau Gasol trade into perspective, let's say that earlier this year, a player of Pau's stature became available, and his team was so desperate to cut his salary that they were willing to take back the following package: Jared Jeffries's expiring contract, Jermaine Taylor, the draft rights to Sergio Llull and two (likely late) future first round picks. Oh, and on top of the star player, you'd also get that team's future second round pick, which would likely be a pick in the mid-30s (not too shabby). Go look up the Gasol trade. That's pretty much what it amounted to. And while I'd hesitate to say that even the addition of a star player would mean multiple championships and Finals appearances for the Rockets (since the Lakers DID still have Kobe), it would at the least catapult the Rockets into the second tier of title contenders, along with the likes of Dallas and Orlando.
That's kind of a long-winded way of saying "they stayed healthy and we didn't", don't you think? Yawn, still waiting for that example of the miraculous franchise that loses its superstars to injury and remains competitive like we have. I saw the Heat and Mavs this season get blown out consistently by bad teams when they lost one superstar, not even two.
Don't even bother, many fans here don't seem to want to analyze the Rockets success or lack thereof past a glance at the win-loss column. The entire team could miss a season due to some illness causing the Rockets to quickly field a team from the d-league, and people will say "the results speak for themselves...this organization has no idea what it's doing."
Don't want to turn this into a 2011 draft thread but I agree with this 100%. Williams has all the tools to be one hell of a player and can come in and help ASAP. Out of this draft Williams, Sullinger and Kanter are the three guys i'd like the Rockets to choose from once they move up. Williams and Sullinger can come in and provide immediate help while Kanter is a bit further away but I like his upside as a good to great future center. Sullinger is a PF so, I'd iimagine, Scola would be history in this type of acquisition or maybe even PPat.
Dwight Howard would be an absolute perfect fit; surrounded by our excellent set of role players along with Martin and Scola, the Rockets would become a contender. I actually can't script a better outcome. Don't know if we can afford him, but he would be my number one choice.
People might be surprised about who might be available at the draft for trades, but right now there just isnt that much projected to be available. Almost all the big names in the league with the exception of CP3 and Dwight are locked into fresh contracts or extensions for the next three seasons. So what do the Rockets do? A. Win games - Continue to try and win with the players you have (remember most stars become stars from winning and having big moments in the playoffs.) There might be a quality player already the roster that just needs to time to shine. B. Draft well - the team is positioned to draft 4 to 6 1st round picks in the next three years. Out of those lets say 5 picks, if three of the five turn into quality players then you've done well. Since Morey became GM, the teams has really only had one lottery pick in Pattrick Patterson and he is looking like a steal even at the 14th spot. However the past two drafts Morey has tried to move up in the draft with no success, this might be there year he cracks the top five and gets a true star. He has alot to offer a team in the lottery, its just unclear on which one will bite the bait and when. C. Sit and Wait - Sooner or later a Pau Gasol type of player will become avaible, and the Rockets will be first in line to make the deal. The problem with making that aquisition this season has been strickly timing. Also, most of the teams want to deal their impact players to the other conference if possible. With the re-surge of the Eastern powers, you can see why there isnt a whole lot of talent coming back West right now. With so many teams making huge aquisitions this past offseason, there is bound to be some dissapointments because well... only one team can win it all. Plus, think about all the new/future superstars talents that will be moved in the next couple years.... -Instead of having your eyes set on Dwight Howard, maybe target someone like Eric Gordon or Demare Derozan. The super powers in the East only have a couple years left. This team needs to think past next season, and find a future star for many years, and I think that is priority #1 for Morey.
Williams will play SF at the next level. We should trade both Wildcats we currently have plus our draft pick for him. But, alas, it won't be enough. Williams should go 1, 2, or 3 in this draft alongside Kyrie and Sully.
there is nothing that would get us there overnight (on over the offseason in this case). we need to be realistic with a time frame for rebuilding.
This post will sum up the answer for those who commented on my previous post. You need to look at the overall history of the storied franchises who have, time and again, come back to prominence and championship success over relatively short periods of time after some short periods of mediocrity or failures. The Lakers, Celtics, and now the Spurs, have long histories of almost similar cycles of long dominance followed by relatively short periods of seeming mediocrity, then back to dominance again. One empirical proof of this is for one to simply look at the banners in the rafters of their respective arenas and you can clearly see the different periods, over time, of their success. Having postulated the above, one would think that luck, indeed, may have played a big part of all their success, but for them to go through the said cycle over and over again, there should be something there more than and/or coupled with luck involved. Mostly attributing their consistent cycle of success to luck, coincidence, and even lack of injuries, may be stretching it too far. These extremely successful franchises may be doing something much better than the others as the reason for their extraordinarily successful history. No revisionism there. The success from the Minneapolis Lakers to the current LA Lakers cannot be explained by pure and simple luck, as in, lack of injuries to their star players. So is the history from the Bill Russell Celtics to the current Celtics of KG and co. The one single thread of these franchises is that they had great, smart and tremendous organizations from top to bottom. Jerry Krause, GM of the Bulls Dynasty, once claimed that "Organizations win championships". At first glance, Krause, and I still hate him to this day, may have been cynical and megalo maniacal when he stated those words. The timing of that statement was so egregious since Jordan and Pippen were the main reasons for their success at that time. But putting those words into the context of the most successful sports franchises, Krause was absolutely correct. It all starts with the brain thrust of the organanization whether they fail or succeed. So there.
I don't think he's a SF at all. DX agrees -- strictly a PF. And Barnes has wayyy more potential than DW does.
I think it might depend on who picks where, if their is a team set at a certain position then Morey might see this as his opening. I could see Minnesota, NJ and LAC as being teams that might be interested in moving their pick to move down and pick up veteran talent. Either way, I firmly believe Morey moves up this year, all the cards are there for him to make a major splash.
What the hell are you going on about? No one said the Lakers or Spurs got lucky, we said WE GOT UNLUCKY. Is it really that hard of a concept?
The problem is, both New Jersey AND the Clippers have traded away their UNPROTECTED 2011 first round pick: the Nets to Utah in the Deron Williams trade; and the Clippers to Cleveland in the Baron Davis salary dump. Minnesota is a potentially intriguing trade partner. I know that Rockets_4_life has a Kevin Martin to Minnesota trade in his sig. While I'm not sure if Morey would trade Martin and his lottery pick to move up, it's certainly a possibility. David Kahn has gone on record as saying that his team doesn't need any more lottery picks but rather needs to add quality veterans to its young core. I'd imagine that, between the NBA Draft Lottery this May and the NBA Draft in late June, Morey and Kahn will have multiple conversations about Minnesota's lottery pick.
Dude, you realize that the ROCKETS are chasing the Suns for that playoff spot, right??? Personally, I'd rather drop 6-7 spots in the first round (getting Orlando's pick instead of a playoff-bound Phoenix's pick) if it meant that the Rockets were more likely to make the playoffs. But maybe that's just me.
Yep, forgot about NJ and REALLY forgot about LA moving it's pick. Minnesota is the target then but I'd also imagine other teams may be tempted to move their high picks if the Rockets would be willing to part with some of it's veteran talent and take on some salary in the process.
Let's save the tanking/rebuilding debate and compromise on the Rockets getting the 7th seed, the Suns 8th seed?
